It’s been a while between entries again, mostly due to lack of anything happening. Picking up where Will left off, the rest of the previous week was quiet. I spent a few days studying for some exams. I signed up for one freelancer site and occaissionally, I get contacted to apply for full time jobs that you can do from home. This particular one was for a Technical Project Manager and the first step of the process is to take some standardised tests to do with programming. I had done this once before and didn’t do so well on the exams so figured I should do a bit of studying this time around. I haven’t done much in the way of Java programming for a number of years and the language has a bunch of new features so I was concentrating on those. Unfortunately, the test wasn’t really about any of those and instead, focused on the software side (as opposed to web) and that’s an area where I’ve done little development.
So I took the six exams and did fairly poorly. I’m really not too bothered since I really didn’t want the job to begin with. The pay isn’t great and it’s full time so I was treating it as more of a last resort. In the meantime, my friend Luke referred me to another contact. This would be the fourth person he’s sent my way so I am very thankful to him for doing so yet again. Anyway, the job would be to build an app that would be used to take photos, tag and upload them to a web site. The site is fairly new and they’re in the process of redesigning it and the app will be launched when the new site goes live in a few months. The talk was positive but they’re talking with some other developers so I won’t know anything more for a few weeks.
Will has been busy finishing off some sites and starting a few new projects. He has put two sites live, both of them redesigns and has been paid by both clients, which is nice. He has also been working on a few sites for Sharon, and a few small sites for our friend Mike. So he’s had a bit more with which to occupy himself, but not much. We were in Nontron and stopped by the fois gras shop. Since Will never had a response to his email, he figured they weren’t interested, perhaps put off by the cost. Turns out it the cost isn’t the issue, they’re just very busy right now due to the holidays, so they will pick up again with us in Jan. We discovered that they only took over the shop from another couple in April of this year and they do a lot of mail order business, both of which help explain why they want a web site.
The weather has been really nice, up until yesterday. Apart from one or two cool days, most days have been sunny with temps in around 18C (66F). We’ve got roses blooming on our trellis which seems odd for November. Yesterday and today have been really misty and cold. It only got up to 4C (40F) yesterday and isn’t much warmer today. We’ve had to light the fire during the day since we’re still using only that as our heat source. It’s meant to warm up again over the next few days, but only into the low teens.
We’ve had a few social events this past week. On Sunday, we drove over to Villebois to spend the night over at Lee’s (Richard is still in the UK). Lee fancied a few Sunday pints, something that is very traditional in the UK, but not so much in France. We had a beer or two at his place, then drove into Angouleme. Most places were shut although we did manage to find a cafe that was open and had a beer there. We strolled around to see if there was anywhere else to go and since there wasn’t, went to the place next door to the cafe. This was more of a bar and a rather trendy one too. We had a couple more drinks and then went back to Lee’s where he had a three course meal already prepared.
The starter was leek and potato soup and it was an excellent example of its genre. The main was a chicken and butternut squash stew, slow-cooked in a crock pot, and it was to die for. It was served with couscous-stuffed red peppers that were also delicious. For dessert, we had apple and pear crumble, topped with creme brulee ice cream (only in France). We were both very impressed with the meal and it was difficult to stop eating. Afterwards, we stayed up too late playing poker (Will won) and went to bed in the wee hours. We were moderately hung over the next day but had already planned to hit the Chinese buffet for lunch so it helped knowing that was in the future. Sharon was in the UK and we had to collect her from the train station later in the afternoon so we put off having lunch as late as possible, which means 1pm here in France. The Chinese buffet was as good as the last time and the best bit for me is that they also serve sushi. So I had two helpings of that as a starter, and a third helping in lieu of dessert. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a bit of shopping at the big grocery store and then picked up Sharon and took her home, dropping off Lee at this place along the way.
This week has mostly been about Thanksgiving. Although I was able to find a whole turkey last year, it was at a butcher near our old place and it was expensive. So I decided to revert to my method from our first year which is to buy legs and breasts that are sold separately throughout the year. I braised the breast and slow roasted the legs and both of them came out ok, but still a bit dry. The bonus of these cooking methods is that you end up with a lot of cooking liquid that can be reduced to make a thick, tasty gravy and that helps to remoisten the meat for the meal. The breasts were cooked with shallots in a white wine and mustard sauce; the legs in onions and red wine. The side dishes were goats cheese mashed potatoes, bread stuffing with fresh herbs and mushrooms and wild rice with roasted butternut squash and sauteed leeks. In addition to the aforementioned gravies, we also had cranberry sauce and Sharon made a lovely batch of bread sauce as well. For dessert, I made sweet potato pie and I must say, this was the best part of the meal, especially considering that it’s the first time I’ve ever made a pie.
The guests were Sharon, Lee and our neighbours, Carol and Bryan who I invited last week. Sharon is now a Thanksgiving veteran but this was the first one for the other guests. As it turns out, the other three are all from Coventry and Lee grew up just a mile or so from Carol and Bryan and even went to the same school as their kids. Sharon left on the early side but the others stayed till sometime after midnight and Lee spent the night.
There is a social group in Milhac who organise a number of events including an English/French conversation period, lasting for two hours every Thursday. I had been meaning to go for months but when Carol and Bryan mentioned that they’d gone for the first time, I decided I would tag along. So I went last week and it was really good. You break into small groups, mine had three English and three French and usually, someone brings along a paragraph of text to translate. Most of the others in the group speak their second language fairly well so basically, we’re all at the same level. I skipped going this week to prepare the meal but I plan to accompany them from now on.
Finally, just a quick note about cepes. As Will mentioned last time, I had a small amount of success finding a few in the woods. I had one more go last week and found two large, lovely specimins in the woods just in front of our house. There have been loads of people in the woods collecting mushrooms and it turns out, there are loads of cepes and other edible forms all around here. Of course, most of those had already been picked by the time I discovered this but being my local stomping grounds, I was able to find a few places that visitors might not dare to tread. So with my bounty of two, I stopped by the neighbours who confirmed that I had actually found cepes so I feel a little bit native as a result.