Just spent the last hour and a half ironing the shirts, the long sleeved winter ones. I must confess to the mortal sin of procrastination and never iron the brutes until I am down to my last. However now, hopefully, it won’t take long until I move into the short sleeved, polo and t-shirt summer.
Waaaay easier to iron.

As I have already said it is now 10 years since I started to write this blog and blog lives, like cat’s should be at least multiplied by 10 to emphasise their ephemeral nature.
On the 10 March 2005, 10 years ago today i wrote this piece on prawns and since that now counts as 100 years ago in blog years (a true antique) I doubt that there is anyone reading this who was around for its first airing- a true benefit of blog longevity.

Prawns
We in Ireland are particularly fortunate with our native Prawn. Called the Dublin Bay Prawn it seems fairly prolific in the seas which surround us.
This particular crustacean is not unique to our waters , it is just that his name keeps changing as he moves about.
In English he is also known as the Norway Lobster, in France the Langoustine (both names giving you a better clue who his close relatives are) but the name under which he became a culinary film star was the one the Italians gave him ; Scampi.
As Scampi he became the doyen of the bistros of the 60s, 70s and even 80s. He even had his film star scandal when unscrupulous restaurateurs began to cut monk fish tails into appropriate sized pieces as sell them as Scampi.

I got back into my car and slowly drove away.

This is me playing with the Panorama button on the iPhone in the Presbytere living room

Today, on a notion, we decided to take a little stroll to see Le Trou des Corbeaux ( The Hole of the Crows) over Cessanon. Thirty minutes the walk guide said and “facile” in other words an easy stroll.
Well after 30 minutes (which included a few stops) the uphill gradient turned to vertical so we had to scramble on all fours to get to the cave.
Now we have to admit it was impressive, but, what we hadn’t taken into consideration was that “what goes up, must come down” and going down was hell. We kinda ladelled each other down the steep scree, I would go ahead, root myself and then hand Madame down to a point ahead of me.This worked quite well but “facile” and “thirty minutes” .Forget it.
Was it worth it ? Absolutely. Would we do it again ? Never.

This pair aren’t a pair at all, The jug is Czech and Síle found it on a stall on the way to Limoux from Carcassonne.The cup and saucer is French and came from a Vide Genier on the opposite end of the Languedoc.

This amazingly elegant wooden bowl was made by Irishman Roger Bennet and was a present from Clive Nunn

Síle found this in the Trocante in Beziers where, for once, they had not spotted its potential. It is in fact an English marmalade Pot and about 200 years old (she paid a fiver for it)

Just after we had bought Le Presbytere I spotted this at an antique fair,(It is an old cruet, used in the Catholic Mass) when I asked the man how much he said a tenner, fine-I said- I must have it because I have just bought a Presbetery. Well then- he said- lets make it a fiver.

There was an old larder in one corner of what is now our livingroom with a meshed in aperture on the wall to keep it cool. We took down the larder but kept the cool box which we glazed on the inside. It now seems to have become a home for glass oddments.

Clive and I spotted these tiles in a Brocante in Beziers which Clive put up at the back of my sink. All are hand painted, none the same but related.

These old teapots, gathered in various junk shops are also related but not too closely.

Can’t resist to put up another shot of my Chandelier of Funnels and also my wonderful glass lampshade spotted by Clive in a fair in Pezenas.

Love this painting which I got for an embarrassing little sum in a Girl Guide Bazzar in Annecy.

This is the original hinge of our cloakroom door, dont make ’em like this anymore.

This was the poster for the Feria in Beziers the first summer we were here. It is based on a photo by Canu who was from the town and is of Manolete

On exactly ten years ago on this day I put up my first blog.
Here it is again, exactly the same, ten years after.
It has been a great 10 years.

I have always loved mayonnaise. Loved to eat it but I think even more loved to make it. Before I ever started to cook professionally I had read Elizabeth Davids inspiring essay on mayonnaise in French Provincial Cooking. I say essay very deliberately because, far from being just a recipe this two page treatise and hymn to mayonnaise tells you all about its history and the legends that surround its birth, but also of course, tells you how to make the stuff.
However the bit that inspired me is where she says
“I do not care, unless I am in a great hurry, to let it, (an electric beater)deprive me of the pleasure and satisfaction to be obtained by sitting down quietly with bowl and spoon, eggs and oil, to the peaceful kitchen task of concocting the beautiful shining golden ointment which is mayonnaise”

Make your own mayonnaise, it tastes so much better and who knows, you too
might enjoy the process of making the “golden ointment”.

I have still turned off my comments after persistant attacks from spammers
but should you want to contribute you can drop me an email.

Nice sunny morning today and Madame and I went for a stroll on the Pech (Occitan for hill) which is directly opposite our house. I brought the camera because I wanted to see how the new terrace was fitting in.

Le Presbytere is in the centre of the shot, the terrace, I am glad to say,it looks like it was there for ever and you can see that we have had to put up the canopy against the bright spring sun.

From this view you can also see the amazing higgeldy piggeldy nature of old village houses.
You will see on the roof of our house, at the right, there is an odd piece jutting up.
That is actually part of our house.
It is also part of the old original wall of the village.

If you look carefully you will see the line of the old wall on both sides. Consequently three of our windows overlook our neighbours back garden.

Then if you look to the left of our terrace you will see another small window. That is in fact belonging to our neighbour on the other side, they have two windows looking on to our garden.

We are in the oldest part of the village, parts of our house must date to the same time as the church which was (it is thought) partly 12th century.
In the 800 and some years since houses have come and gone, been added to and subtracted from.
Hence there is not one straight line in our house and all of this is reflected in the randomness of the placement of houses in this part of the village.
I love it.

Wonderful gallery of gargoyles hooting, jeering and catcalling at the devout as they attend the church at Montagnac. (I wonder at their function)

After nine years of owning a house and running it as a business for six of them you forget some of your loving acquired details. Having a few months off here this winter has let one notice some of the details again.

This is the lampshade in the front hall, we found it somewhere in the house when we arrived and gave it a new home. it was certainly hand painted by someone.

The backdoor, rarely used as we go onto the terrace from the French windows in the living room, has become what I will politely call a repository, given a bit of purpose by a potted plant.

Another repository here at the back of the front door has Madame’s abandoned crutches and a lovely bag for bags in just the right colour left behind by Carmel Somers of the Good Things Cafe.

A different lampshade, this one from Edenderry via Skerries and Síle’e family.

An old brocante find, a primitive St Roch- the patron of the house. The original of this is on Mont St Michel

An old Singer base inherited from friend Isabel, painted by friend Finola and topped with some Kilkenny Marble, an off-cut from the kitchen by friend Clive. It has now become an information stant for the guests.

My father’s old shoe lasts, his father had a shoe factory and he used to hand make the shoes for the family. Note where a black patch was put on one to indicitate a place of easment for a bunion.

In La Petite Chambre is a small but beautiful washstand bought in an antiques fair in Pezenas and some framed Mucha prints, a present from the daughters, now perfectly a l’epoch.

These pen and ink sketches were a present from old friend Bogart who inherited them in a sketch book from an old lady in Graiguenamanagh.

A present from Isabel which she inherited from Orchard Corner in Cork on an old Edenderry tray cloth on a walnut secretaire which spotted in an antique warehouse in Beziers. They now all sit together happily in the Chambre Chemineé

These are our much loved encaustic tiles from the Chambre Famille, celebrating the houses renovations in 1926 and they also remind me of Mary quant’s ’60s logo.

The tiles in the Chambre Chemineé, much effort (and success) was put into matching their base colour with the wall paint.

Also in the Chemineé are these painted over and faded images on the top of the chimney breast. They are extremely difficult to photograph !

And in the downstairs loo is this little bashed and worn cupboard bought for €10 in a troc in Carcassonne- it just perfectly houses the spare toilet rolls.