Tuesday 8/21

Today is Tom’s birthday. We went to our favorite restaurant at Jard sur mer for mussels and fries for lunch, and took a walk along the seawall. It is still cold and windy, with some rain, but periods of nice weather. We expect that the sun will return as soon as we leave town! Before lunch Pauline came over to casually ask us over for dinner, which was a grand birthday celebration. Jeanne had made a casserole of sliced potatoes and milk and garlic, adding some cream for good measure, and Pauline made two very large green salads. Then just before dinner Pauline and Sam decided to have a cake-off, and both made chocolate cakes. The recipes were almost identical -- I watched them! -- using no flour since Pascale is allergic. Melted chocolate, butter, and eggs with a dash of salt. Pauline’s was a thin, very moist tart, and Sam’s was a soufflé. After dinner, and a long discussion of the propriety of adding the cream to the traditional gratin, we discovered that both chocolate cakes were absolutely wonderful. Someone had gotten a picture book of the Vendee, and all the guests signed his or her birthday wishes to Tom for his birthday. It was a lovely and very special evening.

Monday

Today the rain returned, and the day has been wet, grey and droopy. One of those days when there is no enthusiasm for anything. Paul and Alana have left with great fanfare for Spain, Tom and Bertrand have gone to the Big Mat, a store like Home Depot. (Home Depot is actually in France, with the characteristic black and orange advertising, but here called the Brico Depot, meaning something like do-it-yourself home improvement, not much different than in English.) The only outing still on our list is a chateau nearby, but since its main claim to fame is its gardens, we will wait until a better day. Bertrand has considered and rejected his notion of cutting another tree, and Tom discovered that the family had cleaned up the work area, stacking the wood and removing the brush. So the only chore left is to trim the trunk, which now is about 4 feet high.

Terre Nueve

Sunday

Terre Nueve

The crypt, the church roof, and the altar

Today we went to two brocantes, street markets. One was in the village of Angles, which was once at the edge of the sea, but is now miles inland. The brocante was of food and household items, more like the “foires” or fairs held in almost every village once a month or so throughout the year. But during the tourist season, there are more. We found two melons, cantaloupes, quite ripe and ready, and two cheeses that we had not tried before. The melons are the light green ones with dark green ribs, not the ones with a rough netting around them that one finds in the US. The latter are not really cantaloupes at all, but have a strikingly similar taste.

The second brocante was in Longeville sur mer, and much more what I was looking for – old furniture, dishes, glassware, linens and records. The sellers of old postcards outnumbered all of that. I’m sure there is a PhD dissertation somewhere on the French fascination with old postcards. We enjoyed looking, but as usual, nothing much appealed, and the things that did would not fit in the overhead compartment.

We decided to take a chance a launch across the countryside to Fontenay-le-Conte, a renaissance town about 45 minutes to the east. It rained a bit during the drive, but then was eased off and was just grey the rest of the day. Our first object on arrival was lunch. We found a Logis de France hotel on the main street which had a restaurant, so we sat outside under an awning. This is just a workaday lunch: gezsier salad (warm, sautéed duck gizzards served over a green salad), lamb chops with green and white beans, and a raspberry crumble (Tom), melon and ham, mussels and fries, and warm chocolate cake (Susan). Add some wine and espresso and you have an ordinary $50 meal.

After lunch we sped off to the church, the big draw in town. I found it dark and unlovely, but Tom was interested in the roof. The church was started in the 15th century, and remodeled only 3 hundred years later. It started out somewhat Romanesque, but ended up with flamboyant gothic touches. The real scene-stealer is a 9th century crypt which was found by accident in the 19th century.


Next to the church is a charming museum, quite modern in architecture, focused on the Vendee region. The ground floor has a room with a variety of 2nd and 3rd century glass and crockery, showing some Greek and Roman influence. The second floor is the most interesting, showing the traditional tools used by wood workers for furniture and wooden shoes and farming, and the costumes and headdresses of the ladies. The top floor was a nice collection of art, topped off with a maquette – a very large model of the city from the 17th century.

Thanks to our late start and the 2 hour lunch (and everything being closed between 12 and 2, it was now well after 3), I proceeded to get us lost on the way to the big draw of the area, Chateau Terre Nueve. It is called that (new ground or earth) because it was land reclaimed from the marsh and sea – now many, many miles inland. For those familiar with the area, it is near the ruins at Maillezais and the restored abbey at Nieul-sur-l’Autise. These two were monasteries whose monks labored for centuries to reclaim land, much to the chagrin of the nobility who had given them unwanted islands for their monasteries. Once the land was reclaimed, the monks owned it, making them quite a bit wealthier and more powerful than the nobility had intended.

Terre Nueve is still occupied as a private home, but a few ground floor rooms are shown on a tour. Our guide spoke the fastest French we have ever heard, but between the bits we caught and a short English brochure, we are pretty sure we got most of it. When we returned to the Gite, Tom discovered in conversation that the owners of Terre Nueve are cousins of the Delaubiers. From the 17th century. But they are no longer in touch, so no tour of the private portions of the house.


The Gite has been full to bursting – daughter Pauline and her son Leon, daughter Pascale and her spousal equivalent Kyra, son Paul and his girlfriend Alana, and this evening arrives daughter Emmanuelle and her husband Sam and two step children, Alienor and Anselm. Alienor has gone camping nearby with friends, and Emmanuelle and Sam are upstairs in the petite gite with us until tomorrow when Paul and Alana leave for Spain, and a room opens up in the main house.

Saturday

Today Tom and Bertrand cut another tree, an easier one – easier to get at, leaning over the lawn making retrieval of the wood and branches easier. This morning activity was cut a bit short by the arrival of Anne and Marie, friends of Jeanne and Bertrand. We met Anne here a few years ago, and she has now become our friend as well. She lives on the top floor of a house in Montmartre, with a very impressive view. She has been visiting Marie at her country home near Nantes. It seems everyone has a country home.

We were invited to a lovely lunch of pork roast and an unusual ratatouille of chard ribs, carrots and perhaps some tomatoes, very nicely seasoned with herbs from the garden, including thyme and rosemary. Dessert was a variety of sweets – two kinds of chocolate bars, pirouette cookies, orange madeleines, and a traditional cookie from Brittany of thin waffles enclosing a thick cream of Madagascar vanilla. Lunch began about 1, ended about 3:30, with a walk through some fields for a bit of exercise, and Anne and Marie left around 6. You wouldn’t want to rush lunch, especially since dinner is left-over quiche and salad.

During our lunch our new phone, dubbed the Francophone, rang, and Tom required Pascale’s assistance to answer it. After lunch she helped him figure out how to retrieve messages, and make an announcement. Pauline obliged with the message, so if you have reason to call, you will her voice in French and English, asking you to leave a message. It is still as mystery, but we are pretty sure we know how to answer it and collect messages, and that’s all we need, at least for now.