Mistletoe

Mum's pic of a St Amand sunset - the big clumpy things in the trees are mistletoe or gui.

Twisted Fire Starter

Romain is back!  After 6 weeks away, he got back this morning at 6 am - after being kidnapped by his buddies in Paris fresh off the plane from Kosovo, for one last night of drunken debauchery before the sh*t gets real and our Fraussie gets here.

And one of his top priorities upon arriving home - after paying due attention to me and our growing fraussie bump of course - was to get the fireplace cranking.

Mum - who is here visiting from Australia and helping to put a bit more Aussie in our Fraussie household - and I had left this particular job for Romain's return, figuring we were both pretty clueless when it came to chimneys and ran a real risk of burning the place to the ground if we tried to get it going ourselves.

This is Romain, resplendent in his gaudy, dad-worthy, christmas woollen jumper, lighting the inaugural match - full of hope and anticipation for many a night spent cosied up in front of the fire place with a whiskey and good book.

The only thing missing from this photo to make it worthy of a 70s christmas card is a seedier moustache on Romain and maybe me  in the periphery with a tray of martinis

This is him about 2 minutes later, declaring the whole thing a disaster, as smoke poured from the chimney into the room, choking us all in the process and sending us running to fling open all the windows in the house.

Romain, defeated.

"It will never work" he said shaking his head - ever the optimist.  "Some chimneys just don't work".  "Rubbish!"  I said, knowing absolutely nothing about chimneys or fireplaces.  My theory was that the chimney just needed to 'remember' how to be a chimney and we needed to give it a while to work again.

So after about 15 minutes, phone-call consultations with various fire-savvy family members and the removal of a log that we decided was too green and was the main culprit behind the smoke issue, the fire DID start behaving itself.

And it here it is.  Looking like a fair-dinkum, magnifique fraussie fire.

And here is our lovely fire-making gear, which used to belong to my Grandpa.  I don't think it was ever used to stoke too many fires in Rockhampton, given 'winter' there usually remains a balmy 20 degrees, so we'll be sure to put it to good use over here.

So I'm writing this post now in front of our crackling fire, feeling quite Christmassy all of a sudden.  I might go and grab some rum balls from the fridge.

Stags and Mushrooms

Autumn rocks!!  I love it here.

A house in the same street as Romain's parents.  Gorgeous!

But we only have one week left before winter sets in.  And we've already been given a taste of what's to come - it actually snowed here for two days in a row last week.  It wasn't quite cold enough, so the flakes were kind of heavy and ploppy, but it was definitely snow!  Enough to cover the ground ever so lightly for about half an hour each time before it soaked away.

But!  I hope and suspect that there will be other opportunities in the near future to talk snow, so now back to Autumn and how great it is.

There are two especially great Autumnal activities that I have been introduced to in the past twelve months.

The first was 'Le Brame'.

'Le Brame' is the beginning of the mating season for deer.  And yes, this doesn't sound like something normal people should get excited about, but trust me, it's great!  It is especially big in The Berry, where people actually come from other regions to be part of it (and there aren't too many things going on here that would normally draw a crowd from around France).

But what is it?  you ask.  Well, I'll tell you!

So for about 2-3 weeks tops in late September or October, the deers in The Berry decide it is high time they start making babies.  But rather than just going about this in some kind of discreet manner, there is this massive show machismo that goes on amongst the stags.  They change from being placid and even timid forest-dwelling beasts, to big, bellowy and obnoxious hooligans who strut around the forest at night, roaring at each other and picking fights that end in massive head-banging, antler twisting clashes.  And this is all to decide who gets first pick of the lady deers, I suppose.

So during this time, everyone jumps in their cars from around midnight onwards and picks out a spot in the forest that they suspect might be prime stag-viewing or at least stag-listening territory.  In each region there might be 3-4 stags vying for top spot.  Once you have picked your spot, you turn off your engine and wait for the quietness to return, because although they are feeling a bit tough, the stags still don't like to have humans around.  Everyone gets out of the car, taking extra care to close the door very very quietly.  It is also very important not to wear any strong perfume or to smoke cigarettes or cause any other offensive odours, because the stags have a heightened sense of smell.  In fact, they themselves pour out their signature musky scent to show how tough they truly are.

And then you wait.  And usually, if you are a bit lucky, within 10 minutes or so you might hear the first big bellow.  It is unlike anything I have ever heard, maybe a mix between a cow, a wolf and a lion, and it reverberates around the forest.  Sometimes there is a response or two.  Sometimes it is really faint, and you have to decide whether it is worth sticking around, or whether you need to relocate.  

People take their Brame Season pretty seriously, and it is pretty funny because you'll be creeping along a forest track and suddenly spot someone up a tree, totally decked out in camouflage gear, even draped in that camouflage netting stuff you can get, poised and ready with a pair of night vision binoculars.

We didn't take it to such extremes, and usually it was less of a planned adventure and more of a spontaneous decision after a few drinks at someone's place on the weekend.  But it is a great witchy feeling to be standing in the dead of night in the middle of the forest waiting for the bellows.  You have to be super vigilant though, because those bellows -  'them's fightin' words'  - and a stag will charge at anything it considers big enough to be a threat, including humans.  Usually there are reports each Brame Season of people being gored.  So you always need to be aware of the nearest climb-able tree.

I got to experience my first Brame season last year.  We went out a couple of times at night and even got super keen one morning and got up before dawn - which is apparently the best time to get your brame action. We got really close to one and could see it silhouetted in the pre-dawn fog, until some bumbling fool came striding through the forest, breaking pretty much every rule in the Brame viewing etiquette book, and scared it off.  

Me brame-ing it up last year.

I sat out Brame Season this year.  Besides the fact that I was struggling to stay awake beyond about 9.30 pm, I didn't much like my chances of scrambling up a tree with my enormous belly.

But!  I did get to experience another of Autumn's great pleasures - mushroom foraging!

Aren't we a wholesome lot, here in The Berry?

Hunting for mushrooms is great!  Everyone gets on board.  The season is short, again only lasting for a few weeks, and everyone has their prime mushroom foraging spot, a secret which they guard heavily.

You've got to be careful too, because not all mushrooms are edible.  And while they aren't going to charge out of the fog and gore you to death, they can very easily send you to hospital or knock you dead.  Novice mushroom hunters will take their plunder to the chemist for verification as to their edibleness.  All chemists in France provide this service.

However we had our very own experienced mushroom man:

Augustin.

And really, who wouldn't fearlessly follow this man into a forest and eat what ever he dug up from under a rotten log??

Augustin and his faithful chien Cassius heading into the woods - mushroom collecting basket at the ready.

We dug up heaps too!

After getting the thumbs down from Augustin for a few of my finds:

not this one

nor this one

and definitely not this one

I got my mushroom hunting groove on and starting finding 'death trumpets' galore.  

Death trumpets are actually very edible, despite their misnomer.

Although they do look like something to be avoided.  In Australia, something that looked like this growing on a forest floor would most definitely be the lair of some poisonous and stinging beasty:

But they are actually delicious!  And we filled a whole basket full of them.

We even found some things called 'sheep's feet' mushrooms, which are rare and delicious.  We let the kids keep them though - because even though I was super excited to be hunting for mushrooms for the first time, they were even more excited-er.

This is Maxence, and although he's not showing it, he's having the time of his life!  He has just found a mushroom that looks a bit different, so his mum Caroline is checking it against her 'mushroom app' on her i-phone.  I kid you not.  Turned out to be a dud.

Everyone was pretty stoked with their collection.  Augustin looking more excited than was probably reasonable under the circumstances.

I took my plunder back to Pepe, who turned them into an omelette quick-smart.

The best I have ever tasted.  Ever!

Gobbled down with a crusty baguette and a wee wee sip of vin rouge, because in France I'm allowed.

A month of home ownership

This is what a month of owning a house in France has done to my body - while my bump seems relatively static, my face is ruddier and my bum perkier!

Must be all the fromage and baguettes.  Hmmm, and the hot chocolates sipped from ginormous soup-sized coffee cups ....

Ok, time for me to stop eating like a french lady and start eating more things like brown rice and quinoa.  The purchase of which will require a trip to a specialty 'bio' shop because no self-respecting french person would dare eat such nonsense!

30 - 33 weeks

All the leaves are brown....

our front garden

... and the sky is grey ...

the neighbours roof

our little gingerbread house/store room

But we did go for a walk.

to the castle!!

looking amazing even in crummy weather

in front of the castle doors

le jardin - well one of them.  there are 6 different gardens in total.  nice!

Domesticity Detox

I don't know what the hell has come over me, but I am freaking out.

In the past couple of days I have:

• hemmed a shower curtain
• had a conversation with Romain about vacuum cleaners, during which I literally gushed about how quiet I found the one that I had recently bought for the house
• ironed IRONED some new sheets and pillow cases 
• cooked a ridiculously large boeuf bourguignon that would easily feed 12 people, and then as soon as that was done, I cooked enough bolognese sauce to feed our village.  

This is not normal behaviour and I think I need help.

I am going to Paris tomorrow for a two-day domesticity detox.

The boeuf bourguignon cooking away in Meme's amazing Creuset pot.   It tasted pretty damn delicious, which is lucky because I now have about 7 containers of it crammed into the freezer.

Mermaids in my Bathroom - Sirènes dans ma Salle de Bain

These lovely ladies have recently made an appearance in our bathroom.

This shower curtain sea-nymph cracking on to a kraken -

And this cistern siren to keep us company on the loo -