France - Tuesday through to Friday (Chèvre Farm & Home)

Tuesday, 7 November 2017

Another cold morning with a touch of frost in the air.  We're definitely heading for winter.

At about nine I skype briefly with Kevin to wish him a happy birthday. His day of course had nearly passed, but it is still Tuesday in Australia, so not too late... :-)

Undecided as to what else we want to do we are just having an easy morning until there is a knock on the door.  It's Michelle, coming to ask us if we want to join her for a short trip to a goat farm to get some cheese.  Of course, we want to, so we pile into her car and off we go.

It is at St Berthevin La Tanniere, not very far away. I have not been able to take a lot of pictures, but I may get some from Michelle at a later stage.  She took one of a huge 'snow man' advertising a Christmas market on the 9th of December and later one of Patricia and me in front of a goat figure at the entrance of the farm.

We had a choice of cheeses, the long rolls or the little round ones.  We did go for the latter, one natural and one with pepper.  At home I don't eat a lot of goat's cheese, because what you get tends to be very dry, when in fact the fresh cheese is nicely soft and creamy.  When we were exchanging in Montfalcon Frank and I tried just about all the different goat's cheeses available, because each farm produces their own distinct flavour and texture.

Following a few photos taken on the farm, Chèvre fermier Le Rouërie:

I understand that these are all alpine goats

Michelle feeding the goats

Aren't we a cute couple?

Baby goats, born a month ago

Lunch was delicious, as of course I had to taste the cheese and after lunch we had a quiet afternoon, only broken by a short walk around town to get rid of our rubbish and recycling stuff.  Rubbish is not picked up here, you just walk to the nearest dump point for it and drop the bag in the big (clean and not at all smelly) containers.

The rest of the evening was taken up by work on the computer, like looking for an airbnb in Versailles, looking into more exchanges for the next two years, responding to email messages, etc. etc.  Never a dull day in my life! ;-)

Wednesday to Friday

Well, what can I say?  The weather has definitely turned and we are now experiencing real autumn weather, including fog and rain.  So, there is no real reason to go out and explore. 

We take care of our daily chores, including the washing and shopping.  In the meantime we are trying to look ahead and hope for a few dry days, as we want to visit Versailles and Paris next week.

Like I mentioned on Tuesday, I have been spending a lot of time on my laptop to do the bookings, respond to the last of the long list of outstanding email messages and now I am looking into further exchanges for the next two years.  

We still see Michelle on a regular basis to 'talk' about daily goings on, like Patricia's blocked drain in her bathroom and a lot of vegetables from their own vegie patch that we are allowed to use, like leeks, carrots, black radish and potatoes.  It looks like I have to go out now and buy some stock or stock cubes for Patricia who offered to make potato-and-leek soup. :-)

That's all for now folks!  Not even a cache has been found....