Most of the houses in the older villages around have the tradition of having a Cardabelle, a form of thistle, nailed to the front of their hall door.

They have a reputatation for being able to forecast the weather.

My bro-in-law Colm found one up the Cevennes.
We nailed it on the terrace wall

This is how it usually looks, laid out and enjoying the sun.

Once rain is threatened it closes its spikes protectively over its body.

All this we knew.

What surprised us was that when the thunder roared it spiked up aggressively like a cat.

They do me proud on page 20.

(I am even big enough not to mind giving a little space to Darina.)

As already stated we have amazing friends and this summer are abusing them horribly.

Finola is our latest victim and she has been busy with a paint brush since she arrived last week.

Another friend, Isabel presented me with this sewing machine base when she left Cork for Annecy. I have been looking at it in puzzlement since then.

Then a serendipitous moment happened.

My BlackMarbleCliveNunnKitchen came, because of a change of plan of mine, with a surplus piece of marble.
It was only when I put them both to store on the terrace that I suddenly thought that they might go well together.
Thus Finola’s efforts with Hammerite and brush.

Resulting in;

Voila !

I am, it is well known, particularly lucky with my friends and relations all of whom have been heroically helping me during this summer to get Le Presbytére ready for guests.

Latest in, from Spain, is my friend Michael who is finishing off the electrics and generally being very handy with a drill.
He it was who solved my latest problem.

The local festival held here in Beziers is the distinctly Spanish flavoured Feria in the town each August.
It is reckoned to attact around a million people into the area.

There is a tradition of producing beautiful posters for this festival each year, these generally turn into collectors items.

2007 was one of the best, and it was the first summer we spent in the area.

As it was the sixtieth anniversary of Manolete they designed the poster around this bullfighter.
Very appropriatly they based it on a photograph taken by Francesco Cano, himself a son of Beziers.
I was lucky enough to acquire a copy of the poster.

Now as it measures nearly two metres tall and one and a quarter metres wide it was not going to be an easy one to frame or mount.

Michael’s suggestion was that if we wallpaper-pasted it directly on the wall the paper would shrink as it dried and so produce a smooth wrinkle free surface making it look unlike those poster pin ups we used to stick on our flat walls in the sixties.

He was right on all counts.

I present Manolete. in all his glory gracing the littlest room downstairs in Le Presbytére;

One of the most enjoyable actions when moving into a new house is, I think, the putting up of ones pictures.

Suddenly they look new and interesting again.

Today, being Sunday, I decided to give myself a day away from the paint pot and to continue hanging my pictures.

These over the dining table all have a different story to tell.
Top left is certainly the oldest, by Frank Mc Kelvey, painted in the 1950’s, of a river scene in Antrim.My parents bought it around that time and left it to me when they died.

Top right is by Cork Artist Clare Cryan,is a painting of Cork’s City Hall. My
father bought it at an exhibition in the 1960’s and left it to me. It is a painting that has grown on my over the years.

Bottom left is an archichectural fantasy painted by Xavier Guitton from St. Herblain.
Waterford is twinned with St. Herblain in Brittany and Xavier and his wife stayed with us as part of the twinning in the early ninties. We fed them in the restaurant for the few days they stayed and they were extremely grateful.
Xavier sent me his painting as a “Thank You” shortly after they went back.
Now it has returned to France.

Middle bottom is a Hayfield by Irish Artist Fred Mc Elwee, We met him at Dyehouse Lane gallery when we bought it and he told us it had been painted near his house in County Wiclow.

Bottom right is called Sunflowers, Loire Valley so this one is, in a sense coming home also.
It was painted by Giles Baily from Dublin, bought by Pierce and Valerie Mc Auliffe of the Neptune in Ballyhack and hang there for many years.
When they sold up in 2003 they very kindly gave it to Síle and I as a momento.

These three, over the sideboard also have histories.
First left is a painting of our restaurant in Mary Street in Waterford.
It was painted by Eorna Walton from Dublin and commissioned by the Sunday Independent where it went with an extremely flattering review of the restaurant.
She afterwards sold the original to us.

The next painting,by Paddy Lennon, Síle bought for me for my fiftieth birthday.
It is one of my favourites.

Another favourite of mine was painted by a friend, and very regular customer in our restaurant, Celia Richards.
This one has a particular resonance for us because the two swimmers are coming out of the sea in Tramore and it shows Brownstown head in the background, close to where we used to live in Kilmacleague.

Over the bookcase is another much loved abstract, this time painted by our own daughter Caitríona.
She painted it on newspaper one Christmas, while she was a student in UCD and gave it to Síle and I as our present because she couldn’t afford to buy us one. It is much treasured and we both hope she will do more of the same.

Over the piano are my Giovanna Garzoni still life prints.

Elizabeth David used these to decorate her cookbook “Italian Food” and I just fell in love with them.

My clever wife and daughters managed to find them in an internet gallery and gave them to me for a birthday.

I found this pretty marble topped Dressing Table (Coiffeuse in French) in a Trocante in Carcassonne.
It is I think perfect for the house and will go in one of the bedrooms.

Daughter Dee took this picture of us looking proprietorial yesterday.

I have daughter Dee and her boyfriend Ano staying at the moment so in between bouts of painting I get to do a little cooking.
As Ano is vegetarian and the rest of us decidedly carnivore this is not without its challanges.

I saw a dish a bit like the one above in a book on French decoration, no recipe, so decided to invent one to match the picture.

It is one I will repeat.

Hot Courgette and Comté Terrine

2 Onions
1 Aubergine
2 Courgettes
8 medium Tomatoes
Olive Oil for cooking
Salt and black pepper
2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
250g (8oz.) Comté cheese ( or strong Cheddar)

You will need an oven proof deep dish about 2 ltr. Capacity.

Slice the onions and fry them gently in some oil until soft.
Cut the aubergine in two and cut into ½ inch slices.
Fry these in oil until soft.
Cut the tomatoes and the Courgettes in similar sized slices.
Spoon the onions into the bottom of the dish.
Now lay a line of tomato, courgette, tomato, aubergine, tomato on their edges along the middle of your dish.
Make similar lines at either side until you have filled your dish and used up all the vegetables.
Season these well with salt, black pepper and a sprinkle of vinegar.
Grate the cheese and sprinkle this over.
Preheat the oven to Gas 4, 350F, 180C.

Cook at this temperature for about an hour.
(Check you dish after 15 minutes and lower or raise accordingly.
It is ready when browned on top and the courgette is soft when pierced with a knife)

In a corner of the dining area of our large room downstairs is the place where the old scullery was.
When the builder took down the walls of this room and removed the old sink we were still left with some traces of its former role.
These were the large bolts in the wall which carried the cumulous which is what the French call their immersion heaters, and the old meat safe on the wall, wire mesh on one side and glazed on the inside.

As this faces south and catches the light in the morning I have put a blue syphon there for pretty.
Last night when I unpacked some random boxes of glass I found his brother, bought many years ago in Annecy and forgotten, so I put him in there too for company.

From the garden I stole the treble clef pot holder which the nuns had left behind to hang from one of the bolts.
The other metal sculpture, on the other bolt, started its life as a paint-pot holder on a step ladder we bought last year. Last week Síle had good idea to stick into it a sheaf of lavander which she found, thrown out in the garden dump.
Now dried out after a week on the terrace it acts as a gentle source of perfume in the corner of our room.

The wood on the safe still awaits its final colour, Clive had painted the Kitchen a wonderful gray called Lamproom Gray by Farrow and Ball.
After much research we have discovered a shop in Montpellier who have been able to get it in for us and we can collect it from them next week.

When the builder discovered two blocked up doorways in the presbytery it was a bit of a no brainer what to do with them.
My addiction to glass is well known and I have about 20 boxes of the stuff which now rest in the cellar here in France.

Today finally Clive’s glass display cabinets, made from the old doorways, were finished and painted so I got a chance to see some old friends.
I grabbed the first three boxes I could unearth from the cellar and put them, unwashed, on the shelves.
I still think they look pretty good.