Belle Ile and The French House

The House on Belle Ile

   The French House: An American Family, a Ruined Maison,               and the Village That Restored Them All --by Don Wallace                                             

Before checking out THE FRENCH HOUSE from the library, I read a review posted there by another reader. She stated that the book was not what she expected when she checked it out. What she expected to read about was a couple buying a ruin in France and the trials and tribulations they faced in trying to restore it while spending more and more money trying to complete the project.  After reading the description of the book provided by the library,  that is exactly what I expected as well. Though there is some aspects of that,  it is less about the house and more about people.  It is about the authors and the people of the village who befriend them and invite them into village life. The author (Don Wallace) and his wife buy their ruin on Belle Ile off the coast of Brittany where they plan to spend several weeks a year. Both Wallace and his wife, Mindy, were born and spent their early years near the ocean; Mindy from Hawaii and Don from Southern California. Mindy earned a law degree along the way and both were writers, and surfers. On Belle Ile they spend time on the beach surfing, they hike the hills and search out fresh food in the markets and establish genuine friendships with their neighbors and the islands inhabitants, as well as discovering the islands history.   So who hasn't dreamed about moving to France (A Year in Provenance) or Italy (Under the Tuscan Sun) or some other foreign locale, buying and old house, restoring it and despite facing many frustrations and challenges and then living "happily ever after"? I know I have so I enjoyed reading about people who actually lived it.

Surfers of Belle Ile

Beach on Belle Ile

Hiking

At the end of the book the author and his family still come to Belle Ile for several weeks in the late summer but much has changed, old friends have died, children have grown up and many of the old houses have been or are being renovated (thankfully many in the Old Brenton way), more Paris people have built houses on vacant land, there are more surfers,more tourists. But the sun is still warm, the seas and skies still blue, the waves still good and friendships still endure.

I grew up in a part of California that reminded me of Wallace's description of parts of Belle Ile, a small beach community away from a large city, where every summer I spent most of my time on the beach with friends, loving the ocean, the sand and blue skies. There were many surfers, riding the waves or sitting on their boards, calmly bobbing along, looking out to sea waiting for a perfect wave. I now life far away from the ocean, landlocked, and I often miss being by the sea. The description of changes on Belle Ile reminded me of my home town, which is still beautiful but certainly has changed from the days I grew up there. Housing is expensive, new people have moved in, open land developed with either housing or restaurants and stores, but among them all many have remained living there moving into what is now thought of as "old age", often I wish I was still there, but I know what I miss is the place it used to be, not the place it has become.

Giving up Baking

I used to be a pretty good baker, but for some reason I have lost the skill! I don't know if it is a "high altitude" problem or if I have just lost my touch. I tried this afternoon to make some Whoopie Pies for Baby Bird's Birthday--her request. My first batch were the traditional chocolate ones and several things went wrong; I made them too large, baked them a little too long and some fell apart while I was taking them off the cookie sheet; going from bad to worse I used Marshmallow Fluff as a filling in the two halves of the pie. It was very sticky and hard to spread, but after filling the pies and putting them on a plate the filling seemed to start really oozing out between the halves! Lemon is another favorite flavor of Baby Birds, so I thought I would do a second batch with lemon zest and juice in the cookie, hoping that that batch would turn out better. WRONG! Same problems--and now I am ready to throw in the towel and give up trying to bake. The pies are just one in a growing long line of failures. Well, I don't need the sugar anyway.

         This what they should look like.

I didn't bother to take a picture of the ones that I made, they were just too pathetic looking.

What is the best way to lose weight?

A few weeks ago Baby Bird and I agreed that we needed to lose weight but we differed on the way to do it.  Baby Bird is dead set on following a program that is supposed to "jump start your metabolism" and I want to follow a plan that reduces the amount of sugar, fat and carbohydrates eaten. Both have a lot in common, but I think her plan is just too hard to keep track of, eating certain foods on certain days, certain veggies on certain days, some veggies are okay all the time. To my older brain, it is too confusing and too hard to keep track of all the combinations and schedule of eating certain foods. For some reason she is dead set on following this routine (most of the time anyway, there are times when we both fall off the wagon and eat cake or ice cream or some other off limits food)--I think she is being stubborn and she can't understand why I can't keep it straight!



       Let's see, if this is Wednesday, it must be this:                  

and if it is Friday, it must be this????

1. I think this much easier:

Oil, no oil, squash, no squash, green beans, asparagus, beef, chicken? The debate rages on...

Over Sharing

It's been quite a while since my last post for several reasons, but mostly due to something I saw last week on CBS Sunday Morning--An editorial (you know those where one person giving the opinion is sitting alone and looking into the camera), I don't remember the name of the woman who did it, but her topic was new words, words that have become a part of our language, the word she talked about was "Over Share".  She talked about how much "Over Sharing" goes on in our world today. People are using social media to share almost everything (sometimes with disastrous or tragic results) from what they are eating or feeling, or where they are on vacation or doing for the weekend and anything you can imagine. So it lead me to think about this blog..is it Over Sharing? I mean does anyone really care or want to know about our Holiday Traditions, about a recipe to make Peanut Butter Truffles?  I began to feel self-conscious about it and as a result I have not blogged for a while (I don't know what Baby Birds "excuse" is, except she is back to teaching and taking care of the family). One of the ideas behind starting this blog was to have some kind of record of what I consider important, what I enjoy doing, whether it be cooking, eating, shopping, volunteering, reading, as a record for my Grandchildren to read after I am in the Nursing Home with dementia or "gone", but I wonder, will they be anymore interested in that later than they are right now? As teenagers and a just turned 20 year old, their lives are about themselves, I am sure that my quiet little life is extremely boring and I don't think they are interested in "what makes me tick". And so I wonder if my tweeting (as in tweet tweet and not Tweeting #) is not more than noise in the wind?? I enjoy at times putting my thoughts to paper as it were, so I guess I will continue and maybe I will get over feeling self-conscious about putting it all out there.