The story continues! On Wednesday, we finally had our long-planned fete des voisins, with Lucien & Mauricette, Daniel & Odille, and Bryan & Carol all joining us for a soirée. Unfortunately, due to a date mix-up, Bryan and Carol ultimately couldn’t stay for the duration, but they joined us for aperitifs and for the starter.
Prior to everyone’s arrival, both Matt and I had a full day of work to get through, which meant that again Jan ended up taking over cooking duties. The meal was a creamy pea soup to start, then BBQ chicken breasts with a spicy orange sauce, and a side dish of vegetables and quinoa. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate: it began to rain just as the guests arrived, so the chicken had to be done in the oven instead. Despite this, everyone enjoyed the food. There were surprisingly no takers for fromage, but we made up for that by having 2 desserts. Jan made a chocolate tarte and Mauricette made a Baba au rhum – a round sponge cake, soaked in rum. These were accompanied by strawberries from Lucien’s garden. After the guests left, we did some clearing up, had a few rounds of cards and then called it a night.
We got up on the early side the next morning to begin our trip down to Sarlat. Matt’s estate agent client, Peter, lives down that way, so he’d arranged to have a meeting with Matt on Thursday afternoon, which gave us an excuse to revisit one of our favourite spots in the Dordogne. We hit some substantial roadworks en route that required some route revisions, but we navigated our way through and stopped for a picnic in the shade of the impressive Chateau de Hautefort.
We made it to Sarlat in time for the meeting and Jan and I had a beer and a stroll around while we waited for Matt. Work concluded, we checked in to our hotel. There was a slight hic-cup with one of the rooms: the previous guest managed to flood it and it was unusable, and the place was otherwise fully booked. Our hotel had a pool and as Jan didn’t have a bathing suit, we kept our room and moved Jan up the road. Matt and I eagerly made use of the pool: it was easily 30 degrees that day, and it was both a good size and pleasant temperature. It was most enjoyable, although I discovered my trunks were missing their drawstring and were far too big, so it was a little awkward trying to avoid causing a scene.
We reconvened around 7 and picked a restaurant at random for dinner. Just like around our neck of the woods, the menu of any given restaurant in Sarlat can be guessed without looking at it. There will be traditional Périgordine dishes and not much else. Jan and I had warm goat’s cheese salads to start, with Matt going for scallops. The salad was a pale and stingy imitation of the version we know up here, and though the scallops were nice they were also very sparse. The mains were similar: I had confit and found it bland, Matt had duck breast, although in fact it was only part of one. Jan’s main was trout, which she enjoyed. Had we been holidaymakers and not residents of the Dordogne, I’m sure we’d have enjoyed the meals a lot more. As it is, we’ve found we’re often disappointed by meals in tourist hotspots. Afterwards, we returned to our hotels for an early night.
The weather continued to be very hot and sunny the next day, so after breakfast, we headed off to the Manoir d’Eryignac. Matt and I went there in 2009, when we came out to find a place to rent, but it was a first for Jan. The attraction at the manoir is the grounds: around 5 hectares of immaculately tended gardens, hedges and flower beds. We spent a couple hours there and then headed over towards the town of Montignac which is home to the world famous Lascaux caves. Unfortunately, the next scheduled tour wasn’t for a couple hours, and dressed for the beating sun as we were, we wouldn’t have fared well in a 10 degree cave for an hour. Instead, we grabbed lunch at a little bistro and then picked out a chateau to see that was en route home. Matt and I came out to the Dordogne in May 2009 to find a gite to rent for the year, and we stayed at a place near a small town called Sergeac. On that trip, we drove by a beautiful chateau overlooking the river Vezere and stopped to take a photo. It was this chateau that we decided to explore this time.
It’s called the Chateau de Losse, named after Jean II de Losse, a famous Belgian who rose to prominence in the French court for his many successes in battle. Originally a medieval fort, he had it converted upon his retirement into a grandiose renaissance chateau. We had a bit of a wait for the guided tour but it was worth it: the lady knew her stuff and the tour was very interesting. Afterwards, we came home, via the supermarket in Thiviers for some dinner supplies. We had BBQ’d sausages and Jan had a duck breast. Afterwards, we watched some TV and then turned in.
We chilled at home on Saturday, with Matt both Matt and I having some work to do in the morning. Jan was put to work weeding in the front garden and has done a great job. Matt mowed the front lawn in the afternoon, thanks to Lucien lending his mower yet again. We ordered our new one 2 weeks ago and were told it would arrive within a week. True to our experience of ordering anything at all in this country, that has proved to be a lie. That evening, Josianne and Cammi invited us to theirs for aperitifs. We had a lovely time out in their garden drinking rosé and chatting about this and that. We got home a little before 10, had a light bite and then turned in.
Yesterday was Jan’s last full day with us, and yet again she ended up spending much of it working away in the kitchen. We’d invited Nat & Jill round for a meal that evening: another BBQ, so Jan was in charge of the prep. The ladies are both well, though very busy working on their place and also with guests. They’ve got their busiest season so far lined up this year, so we might not see much of them between now and September! Jill especially was on fine form: the anecdotes just kept coming and at one point she had Jan in a fit of hysterics. After the ladies left us, we went upstairs for some more TV. Jan went to bed but was back out soon after, having received an email from SNCF telling her that her train was cancelled. There’s been a national strike on for days here and it shows no sign of ending. Luckily, there are still trains running so we were able to book a replacement. She now leaves us this evening instead of this afternoon.
Right, this is a tome and its lunch time. We’re going to serve Jan up her last Port 80 sandwich of the trip! A bientot.