“La meilleure maison irlandaise de France et de Navarre”
Reviewed August 10, 2012 NEW

Non seulement on y est reçu aimablement, mais en plus on y mange comme des dieux (Martin a été aux fourneaux de son propre restaurant, en Irlande, pendant des années). La maison est agréablement meublée, la terrasse fraîche et ombragée, et le petit-déjeuner délicieux. Et en plus, les hôtes sont charmants, ils font l’effort de parler français et, ce qui ne gâte rien, ils ont de la conversation. Plus que recommandable.

An unusual visitor today, knackered on his long migratory flight this stork stopped off to rest on the church tower. Fifteen minutes later he was off- presumably south for the winter.

Just looked him up, he is a white stork and on his way to sub Saharan Africa for the winter. Because they ride the thermals rather than flap in flight they prefer to fly over land. This fellow was on his way therefore to cross Spain north to south before crossing the med at the straits of Gibralter. Bon Voyage M. Cigone.

This comforting sticker arrived in the post from TripAdvisor this morning.
Thanks to all the people who have recommended us to them.

Last Sunday, in the Vide Grenier in Puissergier I bought this little Théière which I feel would have been used for Tissanes and Infusions as well as Tea.

The lid comes off to reveal a little place to put the leaves.

Which in turn comes off so you can clean the pot.

Nifty Out Eh?

AND the little Dote fits in beautifully with the other Théières over the sink. (We can never have too many as the French often look for something Herbal rather than our house tea- which is Barrys of course.

The Cost ?- One Euro.

The sun back lights our grapes on the terrace this morning, they are only a by-product of our attempt to vine -cover our terrace and by the way the sparrows are devouring these there won’t be much left to eat anyway.

But the vine also progresses, some more years to go maybe……

“Le Presbytere – best French cooking, by an Irish chef”
Reviewed July 30, 2012 NEW
This was our first experience of Le Presbytere and the hospitality offered by Síle and Martin Dwyer but we hope it won’t be our last. From the instant we arrived everything was done to make our stay a delight. Going canoeing? Síle proffered towels and river shoes. To the beach? Martin produced a beach umbrella. But it is the food, cooked enthusiastically by Martin that completes the experience. Dinner each evening consisted of great food and interesting conversation – while we were there we met guests from Ireland, the UK, Spain, Germany, Holland and France. On our last evening there we had dinner that started with prawns cooked in butter with sorrel grown in their own garden, chicken with lemon and thyme and dessert of caramelized puff pastry with nectarines cooked in brandy and walnut and toffee ice cream. Dinner is served on the terrace overlooking the garden and with lovely views of the evening sky. There is even a nightingale singing from the tree in the garden. And our bedroom was very comfortable with great attention to detail, including proper bedside reading lamps. This is indeed a very special place.

I remember when I was in UCD in the sixties going to buy an electric kettle for my bedsitter in a strange old-fashioned hardware shop in Grafton Street, now long defunct.
There was a rather large lady ahead of me at the counter (it was that sort of shop) who was buying an alarm clock, she was explaining , with great good humour, to the man in the brown coat (it was that sort of shop) how it needed to be a particularly LOUD alarm that was difficult to stop. “I have been late for work three times this week already and threatened with the sack if I don’t mend my ways “she told the man- and indeed the whole shop at this stage as we all hung on her words. Maeve Binchy, for this was of course she, had the most wonderful ability in scooping the whole world into her life I am firmly convinced that she was without guile or pretence she just presented herself as she came and her enormous personality carried her straight to our hearts.
That same personality was exactly what came across when she wrote her pieces of journalism, spoke of her experiences on radio and television and then later made gold of her novels.
In the early seventies my posh bed-sit days were over and I was sponging off my sister and brother-in-law in Rathfarnham when tragedy struck that family badly and my brother-in –law was killed in a car crash, leaving my sister with three and a half babies. My sister didn’t know Maeve but somehow she got to hear of this tragedy and, in typical Maeve fashion, she decided to do something positive.
She invited the family out to her house in Dalkey for an afternoon; there she entertained them royally with presents bought individually for the children. My sister was very touched by this and it makes one wonder how many similar acts of kindness Maeve quietly performed in the same way.
The playwright Frank Mc Guinness once stayed with us in Waterford and he told us how extraordinarily helpful she had been to him when he was taking the first steps in his career.
But it must be her extraordinarily funny radio pieces which I would want to remember her.
Somewhere in the RTE archives there must be the piece which left me weeping with laughter when I heard it for the first time several years ago.
It describes how, as women’s (and therefore by default, cookery) editor of the Irish Times she illustrated a piece about cooking beef with a picture she found on her desk which she thought would be appropriate. Back home in Dalkey, watching the news on TV she discovers that she has used a picture of a human heart just about to be transplanted by Dr, Christian Bernard. She runs out on the road in panic and madly hitches a ride into D’Oilier Street to stop the presses.She herself should certainly be allowed to tell the rest of the story, I imagine it will be aired by RTE before the end of the week; listen out.
Good bye Maeve, you will be missed.

Cooling down this afternoon in the Mc Carthy’s pool with raspberry Kirs- well it was 35 C……..

For the first time in about six weeks we have the house to ourselves, a natural and unprompted hiatus in the middle of a busy season (well nearly unprompted, we did a little judicious refusing to ensure our solitude.)
We will be alone until Friday when a much loved nephew comes to visit so there is nothing to disturb our tranquillity.
That this coincides with our local festival – Des Terrasses et Del Catet- is fortunate indeed. Tonight there is a production of As You Like It in our local Chateau at Astis, tomorrow an amazing acrobatic/dance troop-Face Nord- in nearby Causses et Veran and on Thursday a performance by my new favourite diva, Madeline Peroux, in the Chateau de Mus.
In the meantime I immediately decided to do all those things one can only do in a house empty of clients.
Firstly I had a long and luxurious breakfast, Smoked haddock and Poached Eggs on toast, more toast and jam and loads of coffee. This was followed by a long and luxurious bathe (a rare occurrence in a house with showers) – I say bathe rather than bath deliberately as this involves filling our enormous bath (about 5 ftx3ft) with hot water and wallowing there like a humpbacked whale for about an hour with a book.
“With a book “ is also a part of the serendipitous moment as, just a few days ago an Amazon order arrived with two books, one by, and one about; Patrick Leigh Fermor- viz Ill Met by Moonlight by Stanley Moss, and In Tearing Haste the letters between him and Debo Mitford/Devonshire. Now I am spending my time dipping with great enjoyment between the two.
In my defence I will say that both of us have been working extremely hard at our retirement careers for the last two months so these days are certainly well deserved- and I will also add that in about a half hour Sile is going to start cleaning all four guest rooms and I have been volunteered to sanctify the bathrooms . Bathos indeed.

The Festival del Catet started this morning with some Arabian Sacred Music down our Ruelle (turned into a mini Amphitheatre for the occasion). There was a problem immediately discovered, they were one chair short for the group. “Would we in Le Presbytere have a stout wooden chair to spare?” So Arab sacred music was appropiately sung from an Irish Kitchen Chair from the Mardyke Cork

N.B. Green Kitchen Chair.

In full swing.