Or as we say in Ireland; Sloe Gin.

I forgot to say when talking about Fruit Liqueurs that I have a good pot full of Dwyers Sloe Gin on the go also.

This is macerating gently in a sort of Goldfish bowl which I bought in Habitat some years ago.

Truth of the matter is that although Sloes (Prunelles) are not unknown in the hedgerows in Languedoc they are not the plump specimans fattened by Irish rain which we find in County Waterford.
Also one could be waiting some time for the first frost to sweeten them.

I used to go though so much of the stuff when we had the restaurant that I eventually persuaded a farmers wife with some time on her hands to pick the Sloes and then sell them on to me.

When I did the final clear out of my freezer before letting our house in Waterford I found in the bottom about four kilos of Sloes from the restaurant days which had been forgotton.

Never one to throw out a good thing I packed them in a cool box and brought them to the South of France where they are now pickling themselves gently in alcohol in the goldfish bowl waiting for visitors from Waterford.

One of our house specialities in Dwyers Restaurant in Waterford was Sloe Gin which we made up every year as a house liqueur and it was amazingly popular.

Since then I have developed a bit of a passion for making liqueurs and have tried my hand at several other fruit and alcohol combinations.

The French produce a flavourless alcohol especially for this purpose which is freely available in supermarkets and which makes experimentation very easy.

If you look at this picture, next to my new bottling jar (about which more later) you will see a jar of Apricots so conserved since last summer (delicate flavour)
and on the dresser top some more trials, White Cherries (delicious very almondy), White Peaches (frankly dull) and I have also has a success with Seville Oranges and Plums.

But back to the new bottling jar.

I immediatly fell for it when I saw it on a stall in the Vide Grenier in St Genies on Sunday because on it was written;

Fruits Benoit Serres
Grande Specialiste de la Fruits A La Liqueuer
Valence d’Agen

And I could clearly see from the bubbles in the glass that it had been hand blown.
I gave Madame behind the €7 she asked without quibble (to Síles surprise)

There was no denying it I had bought a bottling jar specifically designed for that function.

A little light Googling revealed that Benoit Serres are still in business, and have been since 1841. (which was about the time I reckon they got the bottle I have made)
The firm is, as is normal in France, still in the same family, now into its fifth generation.

Now all I have to do is find a lid or cork for it and decide what fruits I will next preserve.

Ici , en Thezan.(But melting fast)

At about 7.15 this morning Carole, our Scottish friend who lives down the road, texted “Jingle Bells “to Síle’s mobile.

One look out the front door told us what she was about.

The incredible had happened and it was snowing in Languedoc in March.

Our back garden was covered.

As were all the roofs of the village.

And the pollarded trees on the Place l’Eglise

All the fields towards the Peuch

Even our neighbours Lemon Tree.

When my sister D got married my mother got all broody and spent many days making her linen sheets with drawn thread work for the matrimonial bed.
I remember her doing this quite clearly, pulling several lines of thread from the weave of the sheets and then sewing thread around these to create a decorative pattern in a line on the hem where the sheet would be turned over the blanket.
I remember it taking her ages.

In Le Presbytere, we have decided, particularly in the two front rooms, that we need some curtains for the windows. (The French on the whole don’t do curtains, preferring to use shutters.)
This is partly for the modesty of people undressing at night,(Irish people are, we have discovered, reluctant to draw the shutters) partly to soften the rather severe lines of the rooms and partly to provide some shade from the morning sun.

Linen seemed to us the ideal material for the job.
It has the right sort of translucence not to take too much light from the rooms but also is heavy enough to fall gracefully.

When we put a new set of red linen curtains in the restaurant in Waterford, covering two windows roughly the same size as the windows in the front rooms here, my memory (disputed by Sile, who says they cost less) is that they cost us €1200.

While we were gathering together our stuff to take across to France in January Síle had found some sheets inherited from her Aunt Emer.
On closer inspection they were linen, not just linen but linen with beautiful drawn thread work.
Perfect for curtains.

When we tried them out here we found that only one was long enough , ( both windows are over 260 cms (around 8 ft.) high but this was wide enough to do for one window. The others were going to have to be cobbled together to fit the other window somehow.

This morning there was Vide Grenier in the nearby St Genies de Fontadet.
This is a fair where all the householders (and visiting dealers it must be said) spread all their wares out like a giant car boot sale in the village and where much rubbish and the occasional bargain can be had.

Síle, eagle eyed, spotted an old linen sheet in a cardboard box by a stand.
Opened it out- it looked big enough, and it had perfect drawn thread decoration- and asked how much.
“Trois Euro ?” said the man.
For once there was no arguing. We paid and left.
When we got it home we found it a perfect fit for the second window, the drawn thread work perfectly done (and in a different way from the Irish style) and of a slightly heavier linen that falls even better that the other sheets, and every hem on the sheet was hand stitched.
There was at least a weeks work on the sheets stitched by a bride or her mother for her bottom drawer many years ago.
For this we were charged three Euros.

We also left the Vide Grenier with a large glass jar for preserving fruit, a faux bamboo coat rack and a souffle dish.
Entire expenditure on these? Just €18.

As I said sometimes there are bargains in the Vide Grenier.

The arrival of Nell Mc Mahon and my remark to her parents that I had lined up a future client started me thinking about the future clients which my brothers and sisters have lined up for me .
In fact there is a small army out there.

My parents, John and Frances Dwyer, married in 1939 and produced seven children, starting with my sister Deirdre in 1940 and ending with me in 1949.

My brother George married in 1965 , produced their first Grandchild, John, in 1966 and then we all followed suit and produced babies , ending with my brother Davids second son, Stephen born in 1987.
A total of thirty if my sums are right.

That generation have made a valiant effort to increase the population also.
I calculate that Little Nell will be the forty fifth Great Grandchild to John and Frances.

Or to put it into numbers : 7 + 30 + 45 = 82

They say that one of man’s most basic instincts is to insure the survival of his genes.

Eighty Two people later I would say that my Mother and Father have succeeded in doing that, and with a good safety margin.
It is only a pity they aren’t around to see it.

This is the newest grand-niece, Nell, pictured with the new grand-parents Ted and Mary.

As I welcomed her a few days ago I promised to send her some Mimosa as birth flower and since then have been wondering whose garden I could sneak into to break off some blossom.

Fortunately it was for sale in the florists in the Super U last night so I was able to buy a bunch.

A spray of which I am drying for Nell.

Mimosa, incidentially is the symbol of love and protection and is also the flower carried by women on International Womans Day, celebrated on March 8th- tomorrow.
A nice combination of symbols for Little Nell.

I was standing on the terrace last night admiring the evening (the day I confess had been miserable but the evening promised well for the next few days.)

My eye was caught by something that glistened in the evening sun , between us and the town of Cazouls les Beziers and it passed my mind that I may have just spotted the River Orb for the first time from our house.

This morning I got the camera out and there it is unmistakably, a thin ribbon of blue just visible over the red roofs of the village and only at this time of the year because the leafless trees permit.
What richness !
Not only can we see the Pyrenees on clear days but we can see the river Orb in winter.

This is a photograph Sile took with our old non-digital camera in the summer of 1997.
We were staying with her parents and Martin and Una in St Andre d’Oleragues in the Gard which we thought at the time was in Provence but was in fact in the Languedoc so, as we say, only up the road.

Even though it a bit blurry I love the way it speaks of hot after lunch laziness.

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed in the piece I wrote this morning about the green plate, that, in among the glass in the cupboard, was a humble Irish milk bottle.

You are right that it is a milk bottle from Waterford , c 1989, but it has an interesting feature.

At this time Waterford had its extremely famous crystal factory which employed several thousand people.
Young apprentice cutters, eager to improve their skills, used to practice their cutting on the thick bases of milk bottles.
In fact I have been told that Snocream Dairies actually made an official complaint to the crystal factory because their bottles were being so defaced.

Every so often one would arrive at home full of milk.
Thinking that they might be antiques of the future I held on to some of them.

In the early nineties Snowcream started to deliver their milk in cartons.