I just love the French phrase; embarras de richesses meaning having more resources than one knows what to do with .

I always felt it implied that one was made awkward by the generosity of the people who were offering help/services/loans to one, but of course it is nothing of the sort.

The nerd in me again drove me to my dictionaries to find where these embarrassments came from.
According to the OED the stem of the word is a Portuguese word Baraço, meaning a halter. This then stretched to mean to hamper or impede (where it lived on until recently in America where an embarrassment could mean an accumulation of driftwood partially blocking a waterway)
From this it extended to mean to throw into doubt or difficulty, to complicate and from where it was but a short step to the meaning of making one feel self conscious or ashamed.

The French phrase therefore, I think, goes back to the earlier meaning of the word and it implies that one has so many resources that it is actually a hamper to sorting out ones problems.

Taken by Aonghus last Friday, sent to me by Caitriona.

We call this room La Chambre Cheminée because it has a fire place and the French word for a fire place is…. you got it !

Síle and I have started the pre painting work on this room today.
Our first job was to take out the cowering Armoires who were huddled there in fear of a wee splash of paint off a roller and to move these into the now painted Family Room.
Then there was the removal of all of our effects into the Red Room, the laying of the dust sheets, the installation of the scaffolding, ladders, paint station, spackle station, stripping station- then we could start the prep on the room (which I had previously stripped of wallpaper)

First job was the removal of all flaky paint, next the filling of all holes.
And this before a brush is even taken out of its sheath.
I expect that we will start painting on about Weds or Thurs.

At a moment of supreme confidence I decided to let you all have “Before” pictures of the room.

I just hope to hell the “Afters” are an improvement

I’ve been a fan of Judy Collins since the late sixties , and for long after she was either fashionable or profitable.
This was always a fairly solo occupation as the bold Judy was never quite hip enough for my friends. I often therefore nurtured her in solitude.
I have strong memories of wallowing in self pity, in a Dublin bed-sitter, listening as she sang Thats no way to say good bye and especially her own Song for Martin
How could I resist lines like :

“Marty I know it gets lonely out there
Coyotes crying in midnight
In the cold desert air”

Shit I could hear the coyotes, even on Waterloo Road!

Anyways when I met Sile in the early seventies I managed to convert her to Judy and we sent Caitriona to sleep sinigng Don’t Cry for me Argentina and Born to the Breed:

” I was only nineteen on the morning you were born
With your hair fine and red
And your eyes like my own”

Even Caitriona remembers these songs and requested a Collins CD to sing to her own Fionn when he was born.

Well at last I can emerge from the Collins Closet.
She has become cool.

A group of musicians including a large number I have never heard of (the ultimate guarantee of Cool) has issued a CD of her own compositions.
Now I can sing along (word perfect) with Rufus Wainwright as he sings Albatross, with Chrissy Hynde singing My Father

” My Father always promised us
That we would live in France”

( Foe christ’s sake could the woman read my mind!)

Two people sing one of my favourite songs of her’s ;
Since You Asked . Both are iconic stars from the past.
Joan Baez has now dropped a register and has never sounded better.
But it is Leonard Cohen who accords Judy the highest complement.
Cohen who is recognised as the poet of the pop world does her lyrics the accolade of speaking rather than singing them;

What I’ll give you since you asked
Is all my time together,
……………….
This is what I ask you for,
Nothing more.

This is pure, unmitigated indulgent nostalgia.
I love it.
All you Closet Collins Fans can now also indulge.
Just google Born to the Breed, a Tribute to Judy Collins.

While I had the restaurant in Waterford I religiously made my own Sloe Gin in the Autumn which then became the house Digestif.

I determined that I should do something similar here.
However northern latitude Sloes, who really need a frost to sweeten, seemed to be an inappropriate choice and so I decided to pick what was ripest and most flavoursome of the abundant fruits of the moment, steep these in alcohol, a la Sloe Gin, and then decide what turned out best.

To that ended at the moment I have started a Jar of Red Rousillon Apricots, White Peaches (They do look red to you and to me I know) and some Yellow Plums all marinading in their baths of Alcohol (freely available in the supermarket, for this purpose, at about €8. 50 a litre)

I was disappointed that I seemed to have missed the cherries who seemed to be over.

I had however, reckoned without the variations of climate in the Languedoc.

On a spin up the mountains today we saw a sign out side a farm for Cerises

These turned out to be a slightly later Yellow Cherry which thrives in the hills.
To taste one was to be forever disenchanted from the ordinary reds.
I said I would take the whole box. (approx 6 kg)

M. Le Cerisier was delighted and charged me €4. 50 for the lot.

I think I may have found the house Digestif of Le Presbytere

On Wednesday last our neighbour Françoise came around looking to borrow a saw, of course I invited her in to show off progress.
She was delighted, then she said I have just the thing for you, and brought me around to her house where she gave me a present of this terrific black leather chair.
It is just perfectly in period with the house and looks instantly at home.

Among the bits and pieces from Waterford Clive and Sue carried down with them was Síle’s old Johanna, it took one look at Françoise’s chair and a marriage was arranged.

This hanging sign, from an old hotel, I spotted (and bought ) in the Saturday Antique fair in Beziers yesterday (and for petite monnai ; well €50 bargained down from €60.)
All we have to do now is to change Hotel des Academies into Chambre d’Hote Le Presbytere

Thursday was all-change day here in Thezan.
I drove to Carcassonne in the morning and put Colm on the Dublin plane on which Sile arrived.

We drove back to Thezan and found Clive and Sue there before us having driven down with the van from Cherbourg.

The van was laden with yet more bits and pieces from the Dwyer Waterford residence-of which more later.

The weather has been remaining extremely hot so on Friday we went to cool off at our newest favourite beach on the Orb just below Rocquebrun.

Heaven.
(The cherubic heads, peeping from the river, belong to Sue , Síle and Clive )

In the village of Thezan the peace is broken every so often, perhaps once or twice in the day, by announcements made by loudspeaker from the Marie’s Office.
This starts as two loud notes played over a loudspeaker system twice.
Then comes a voice, usually a female but sometimes (on her day off I have discovered, because I met her) by a man.
They start each announcement with the unintentionally comic Franglais words;
“Allo Allo !”
Then an announcement is made to say that, for example, there is to be a communal dinner for the hunters in the square on Friday, or M. Poirot’s Peaches are now ripe and he is selling them from his house on Rue X, or will the owner of car no ….. please remove it because it is causing an obstruction.
All useful and relevant stuff, it is obviously a tradition long practiced in all villages.
Let us bear in mind there was a Town Crier fulfilling the same function in Waterford up to the end of the 1890’s.
Just five minutes ago there was an “Allo Allo !” announcement.
They said “ Un Perroquet Gris has been found in the village . Will the owner please collect same in the mayor’s office.
Colm and I looked at one another.
We both simultaneously said; “ Surely a Perroquet is a wig !”

We then went into long conjectures as to how someone could have lost a grey wig in the village and then not even noticed it.
Now there had been a festival of some sorts here for the last few days and a certain amount of drink taken until the early hours, but still, a wig, surely no matter how pissed, you would notice it gone.
My legendary nerdish search for truth drove me to the dictionary.
The true explanation while still a little exotic was rather more mundane than we thought.
The French word for a wig is a Perrouche, Un Perroquet is a parrot.

On Saturday morning Colm and I went to Beziers market to shop.

The market there is an enclosed one, nothing remarkable in that for one raised in Cork city, and full of remarkable produce.
Fruit stalls with fine displays of Apricots, White and Yellow Peaches and Nectarines as well as Black and White currants, mounds of Raspberries and tons of black cherries which are right on season now and delicious.
I spotted a large Cote de Boeuf that thumping T bone steak weighing in at about two kilos with a price tag of €14 on it and waited while the butcher filled the orders of the other people in the queue. As I waited I noticed that there seemed to be quite a lot of pictures of horses in the stall, I then suddenly realised that my Cote de Boeuf was in fact a Cote de Cheval.
At that moment M Le Bucher asked me if I was ready to order.
I stuttered, “ C’est Cheval?”
“Mais Bien Sur Monsieur., Je suis Chevaline” said the butcher with a smile and I slunk away.
I’m not quite brave enough for horse yet.

I then spotted a little jam maker where I bought some Confiture de Gingembre for Sile (her favourite) and bought a favourite of mine, some Banon de Chevre, that almost liquid Goat Cheese from the mountains of North Provence, which comes wrapped in Chestnut Leaves.
Then I spotted the real Mc Coy, a beef butcher and thought there I might get some Vrai Cote de Boeuf. The butcher here, as all the stall holders was in no hurry to finish with each customers and all were addressed as friends.
I cast my eye over the stall while waiting and there spotted one of my favourite cuts of beef which made me change my mind instantly and decide to pick Jarret instead of Cote de Boeuf.
These delicious cushions of beef , interleaved with unctuous seams of gelatine are the shin, one of the cheapest of all cuts of beef but now getting more and more difficult to get in Ireland due to our fast food nature which cannot wait the hours it takes to cook these beauties and condemns them to the mincer and the fast food grill as hamburgers. These little cushions weigh in at about a kilo each and mine cost €7.00, or about €3.50 a pound.
The butcher asked my how I intended to cook the shin.
Surprised I explained I wanted to make a Gardiane de Toro.
( a traditional stew from the Camargue, [the Gardianes being the men who herd the bulls there,] made with slow cooked beef and Olives)
He approved, would I chop them or slice them he asked.
I will slice them, not to small I said , and sear them on the pan first.
He nodded.
He permitted me to buy.
While at the market I also bought some mushrooms, some tiny sweet and fleshy Niceoise olives and a piece of Lard, or streaky bacon from the Charcuiterie.
Colm, who is far more of a purist than I stopped me buying herbs, saying that we could get free wild Oregano and Thyme in the Peuch, the little hill across from the house.

The following day we made the Gardiane.
It was so good we ate it for three days in a row, finishing it regretfully for today’s lunch.
I have two visitors and a wife arriving on Thursday.
I fully intend to make another for them.

Gardiane de Toro
(for 4 to 6)

1.25 kg (2 ½ lbs) Shin of Beef in the piece
Olive Oil for frying
250g (8oz.) Bacon in the piece
20 Black Olives (stoned if you like)
1 Head Garlic
8 Shallots
250g (8oz.) Mushrooms
2 Glasses red wine
125ml (¼ pint) stock (or water)
1 tsp. Chopped Fresh Thyme
1 tsp chopped Fresh Marjoram or Oregano
1 strip Orange Peel
Generous grinding of Black Pepper.

To cook the dish:
Chop the bacon into chunks and fry in a pan until brown.
Leave the fat on the pan and tip the bacon into an ovenproof casserole.
Peel the shallots and the garlic and leave whole.
Fry these in the remaining fat in the pan until brown and add to the casserole.
Halve the mushrooms and fry in the same fat until brown (you may need some extra olive oil for these)
Add these to the casserole.

Now cut the shin in slices and brown on both sides in the pan in oil.
Season with salt and black pepper and add to the casserole.
Throw the wine into the pan and dissolve any sticky bits on the base.
Add to casserole along with the stock and the orange peel and the olives.

Cook this at Gas 2, 140 C, 280 F for about three hours.
Check after a half hour, it should be simmering gently but not vigorously.
Adjust your heat accordingly.

Serve with rice or noodles or with boiled or mashed potatoes.
(Mashed potatoes, with a large quantity of butter in, is the best but the most sinful )

The floors in Le Presbytere were all in perfect order when we bought it so we determined to let them decide the colour schemes for the rooms.

The Family Room tiles were a little like Mary Quant daisies and we decided to match the strong pink of the petals for the walls, well for three of the walls, on Mr Nunns advice we painted the wall opposite the window white to achieve maximum light.

The colour turned out a really French washed out Terra Cotta, a perfect colour for Languedoc as it is the colour of choice on the exterior of most houses.
It came from Devine Color and is called Cameo.

Nota Bene the beautiful painting job on the ceiling. (ahem)