cake and chevaux

may sound a strange combination, but the riding stables have a canny and cunning plan in hand...every time a rider falls they bring in a cake the following week. So Gregoire being superchefdaddy made a light and fluffy chocolate sponge cake and freestyle drew a horse's head on top from marzipan and icing sugar. Oh what a popular girl Scarlet was - and for her - it makes the prospect of falling again less nerve wracking. News from Sophie and Tim in Kenya and they are ok - safely at home to Nairobi, up to Malu this weekend if possible. Fingers crossed things start to calm down for them and life returns to as normal as possible. The aforementioned alternative theatre evening was very avant-garde for round here - luckily it was also a huge success and everyone left very happy if slightly bewildered by some of the *physical theatre* rehearsal they had seen. "Comedie" round here means Moliere and vaudeville so a modern English language-take on classic French film noir complete with mime and movement was somewhat radical. Still, we are now well known for taking the locals slightly out of their comfort zone - and they are rarely unhappy about it, surprised sometimes, but in a good way.

lost in time

The restaurant has been oddly busy since beginning of January. For example, this week we had a 70th birthday do (Wednesday), an official village do (Friday) and today (Sunday) is a birthday do. All of them have and will end up as drunken burbling songfests - which we have to pick our way through and clean up afterwards. Next week we go cultural and are having a theatre night - open rehearsals with an English theatre company in fact. Will Saint Fraimbault rise to the occasion I wonder? No doubt it will still end up a burbling drunken songfest. Watch this space...

happy new year

snuffles see in 2008. NYE went swimmingly well, finished in the wee small hours, and then we hit Cancale for oysters and surf on 1st January. Weather was gorgeous on the Brittany coast - despite leaving Normandy in freezing fog and shouts from neighbours and friends that we were bonkers. Cancale was sunny and cold and crisp and well worth the hairy first 30 minutes of driving :) Restaurant still ticking over nicely, 'cept I am full of a massive cold and feeling miserable. Why does blowing your nose hurt so bloody much? Still, as Grégoire's grandmother would have said "a treated cold takes 7 days to clear up, an untreated cold takes a week" ....so only 3 more days to go and I should, in theory, be fine.