francofiled

 A carefully stored bread roll from a get together at Le Grand Villalin, Quincy, Cher. A few years old now, preserve dried with the memory of friends, music, food and wine. Posted with Blogsy

Hertford House, Manchester Square, London A light rain made us hurry our steps up Bond Street, past the tempting array of small restaurants and into Manchester Square to Hertford House, home of the Wallace Collection . We had learned much about Sir Richard, son of the fourth Marquess of Hertford at various events organised by the Richard Wallace Trust (Lisburn) and this was our first time at his London home. We recognised the building immediately as it bears very close resemblance to his home, Castle House in Lisburn, now occupied by the South Eastern Regional College. Another clear sign was the presence of a Wallace Fountain to the right of the entrance. We had arrived. Inside, what struck most was the sumptuous elegance of the place. A gorgeous red carpeted staircase with marble columns on each side. We went upstairs leaving the armoury collection for another time. There were several galleries. Art everywhere. And left to us as a philanthropic legacy. Wow! Boucher's...

We numbered 60 people at the last réunion of the Cercle Français de Belfast. Early comers were treated to a selection of French songs performed by Ruari Gallagher. Ruari hails from Belfast and has spent the past few years in the south of France. His vocals and guitar accompaniment went down well and we hope to invite him back soon for one of our Extra! events. The Dark Horse Coffee Shop was soon packed and Philip McGrory got the technology going for his talk on the Paris Catacombs. He began by taking us through the early history of the site as one of Paris's main limestone quarries. He explained that in 1780, the main cemetery of the city, the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents near Les Halles was forced to close due to its dire threat to public health. The decision was taken to remove remains of those buried there to the disused quarry site and to establish an Ossuary. Remains from other cemeteries were added with the result that skulls and longbones of around 6,000,000 peopl...

The opening event to launch this year's programme for the Cercle Français de Belfast took place on Tuesday evening in the Dark Horse Coffee House in the Cathedral Quarter. Nearly 50 people turned up and several took out membership on the spot. The programme is a varied one and many of the speakers were present to explain what their talk would cover.  Check out the planned events  here . After the programme was announced some of the participants took to the floor to provide commentaries on photos they had taken on a recent trip to France. Amélie had submitted a photo of a château in her native Franche-Comte and urged us to go visit; Hélène, an inhabitant of Paris showed her photos of the Basque Country and a beautiful coastal chateau close to Biarritz.  Helene's contribution was closely followed by Michael who this and every year heads to Provence in search of Azur blue skies. That colour was much in evidence in his photos of Avignon and Uzes, in the Languedoc. ...

Didn't know these existed - olive shaped and coloured chocolates with roasted olive centres. They came as a thoughtful holiday gift in a nicely packaged metal tin. Different - a far remove from the chocolate eggs we get here. The sweets are produced by La Cure Gourmande in Frontignan in the Hérault Département in the South of France.Will order some more. Next time I'll keep you some. Posted with Blogsy

  Couldn't resist trying out a new picture app to draw this Wallace Fountain in Lisburn.   Posted with Blogsy

I've been using my Kindle reading device for over a year now. Although I love books I am not one of those readers who refuses to have anything to do with the electronic variety. One of the things I thought I would do when I was given the Kindle would be to use it to download French books. A year ago that wasn't so easy because there appeared to be some restrictions on buying from the www.amazon.fr store. Usually there was a message in French to say that the title was not available for your country and that the site was for use by people in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. People I knew had the same experience and others around the world reported something similar online. Sure enough yesterday I visited Amazon France to see what if anything was available, determined that if there was no Kindle availability I'd opt for a hard copy. There was the message on the Kindle store, "Ce titre n'est pas disponible pour votre pays." Now, the title yesterday was a top selle...