Okay, a day off the painting today and a couple of blissful nerdish hours spent on Photoshop attempting to turn my tabletop into a logo for the Chambre d’Hote

Here is the sequence so far:

I may never get there but it looks like our book on the Dwyer Family (see left) is travelling well.

Des Kenny of Kennys in Galway wrote to us lately to say that the family book is doing classy things for us in The USA:

You will be glad to hear that the book is now in the Library of Congress Washington, New York Public Libraries, and the Libraries of Harvard, Yale and Notre Dame (amongst others) universities.

We now have about sold three quarters of the print run and are delighted with this.

Both the rewards and penalties of buying an old house like Le Presbytere can be summed up in the ceiling of our biggist bedroom, which we have started to call The Family Room.

When we bought the house there was a low ceiling in this room (which was actually two rooms which had been devided from its original about 100 years before)

In the course of removing the partition wall and turning it back to the size originally planned we discovered that the false hung ceiling concealed a beautiful classic ceiling with plastered moulded beams.

Some parts fairly damaged

And others rather pleasantly bockety.

The penalty has been happening over the last two days as Colm and I armed with scrapers and tons of Spackle (Pollyfilla) are attempting to achieve a surface to which some paint will adhere.

All this of course has to be done a la Michaelangelo on scaffolds and ladders with the arms always above the head.

There are moments I must confess that I wonder whether we shouldn’t have left well alone.

Now that Colm and I have finished painting the main room in Thezan I have had a chance to put the furniture back in and start wondering how it will look when finished.

As we have kept the colours mainly monochrome, Black Limestone, Gray Paint, with Oak floors and Woodwork we are going to rely on our pictures to bring in some colour.
None of their positions will be decided until Sile comes out next week.
In the meantime I cant resist putting some on the sideboard.

Colm and I took a day off and roamed around the foothills of the Pyrenees.

An eye painted into the bottom of an airshaft in Salses Fortress near the Spanish border

The Thumb of Queribus Castle, an mountaintop Cathar castle .

Near the Grau de Maury, vines all the way to the mountains

Canagou, my favourite Pyrenee, this time from 100klms nearer than my terrace

That is the name of the paint we are covering the kitchen/ living room with in Thézan. This a shot of the work in progress and it is painstaking I promise you.
It took the two of us three full days to do the ceiling alone and now we are begining to cover the walls.
Constant readers will notice that The Woman in the Wall has been painted out.
Some you win ………….

Working constantly up ladders for the last week has sharpened my appetite some what – that and the wonderful supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables – so that now I only recognise food and paint, and wine of course.

Because the local product is so good it is really possible to eat extremely well here without having to rob a bank.
Take last night’s supper which I cooked for myself and Colm and which we enjoyed on the terrace, still in the high twenties even at eight o clock.

Having seen the quality of the Aubergines, Peppers and Courgettes in the supermarket they were a must. In the supermarket I also came across some fresh garlic, still damp from the earth and moist inside like an onion. Couple this with an excellent free range chicken (half the price of our Irish ones) so a Chicken in Ratatouille was inevitable.
This is not so much a recipe as a rough guide to make this.
I first cubed an aubergine and fried this in olive oil until brown and cooked through, essential as aubergine does not cook as it boils in liquid and aubergines -like potatoes- are not pleasant to eat unless cooked through.
I then put these into a casserole which can cook on top of the stove, or use a saucepan, sliced one courgette and browned that in the pan before adding to the aubergine.
The large Red Pepper got likewise sliced and fried until soft before joining the courgette.
Next I sliced the garlic and just tossed it in hot olive oil for a moment before adding two large sweet tomatoes which I had sliced.
Once they softened I added a couple of tablespoons of Sherry Vinegar (my latest favourite vinegar, balsamic would do fine) and adding these to the other vegetables in the casserole.

Next I jointed the chicken into eight pieces, two breasts, two wings, two thighs and two drumsticks and browned these also in olive oil before adding to the casserole.

Then I put the pan on to simmer gently for about 30 mts, made sure the chicken was cooked through, and ate the bird with much pleasure and a few Ratte Potatoes which I had simply boiled in their skins (and then ate, in the Cork tradition, skins and all)
A simple and delicious supper in which the quality of the local ingredients made very special.

After that we shared some tiny discs of Goat Cheese from Rocamador, a kind or ripe goaty Brie, and finished with the sweetest cherries I have ever tasted.
This is my very first time being in France in June in time for the Cherries.

All this was helped down by the local Rosé, Mas Blanchard, which is cheaper than mineral water in Ireland.

I know there is a danger here in your reaction to this meal.
It is, as they would tell me again in Cork, Well For Me.

But it is all reproducible in Ireland, substitute some of our excellent new potatoes for the Rattes and some Strawberries for the Cherries and you are half way there.
The well heated terrace is more difficult to provide though.

This is the middle of the top of my iron table I bought in the Brocante last month.

It seems to combine a certain ecclesiastic atmosphere, suitable for a presbytery, along with a similiarity to a plate-well it is round- as well as being not too unlike the logo for Languedoc.
In other words, if it is approved by by daughter Caitriona, I rather hope I have found a logo for Le Presbytére.

I’m back in France, drove down the entire length of Le Hexegone yesterday with brother-in-law Colm to do some painting in Le Presbytere
Not a crunb in the house of course so today went and did some shopping.

I discovered that the fruit and veg are wonderful here at the moment and very cheap ( probably due to the warm early summer we are having ; it is 35 C today on the terrace)
One box of Apricots (40 in the box) cost me €4.50.
Half Kg super sweet local Cherries cost €1.55
A Large Aubergine, a Courgette and a Large Red Pepper along with a kilo of vine tomatoes came in at under a Euro and 5 litres of my favourite local Rosé was €9, or about €1.50 a bottle.

Todays Apricots ready to be poached gently for tomorrows breakfast (and for breakfast for most of next week)
They will be poached until tender in stock syrup and then eaten with some zero fat fromage frais which I will lightly sweeten and flavour with vanilla syrup.

Cheap and healthy.

Sun breaks through