The Home Stretch

Where ever did that phrase come from.....I am feeling baseball...and the stretching they do at the 7th Inning but if you know please enlighten me. That is the phase I am in now "the home stretch". The Wildsmiths have all been and gone...we had some amazing good times in the two weeks they were here!And Bruce and I had the opportunity to get to know Jamie's very special friend Katie a little better as we all dined on French food and drank Burgundy wines....probably more than Katie cared but that is us Wildsmith's. Bruce left on Sunday May 27th heading out on the 6:46 train to Dijon and then onto the Charles deGaulle Airport. I am anxious to hear from him how it all went as I will take the same route home on June 9th. I would have loved to have been with him...it was difficult to see him go...and Mary who bought a phonecard and has been telephoning me periodically phoned me later in the day and got a few of my tears. However, I am OK now and realizing I would have spent a fortune to change my ticket...God bless Air Canada...and would have only been going home to a slew of black flies...surely they must be peaking as I speak..ugh! So instead I went to a wonderful concert of Brass Instruments put on by present students of the Conservatory of Music in Dijon and also former students....who really could do their thing! There were a dozen French horns...not often you get to see that many...and for the first time I realized they put their hand up the large opening called?? to hold onto the instrument... I will have to watch that more closely whan I see our local symphony....there were also trombones and trumpets and coronettes...the location was the St Etiennne Chapel on Place Ziem....probably built in the 1600's...a long narrow structure and the acoustics were amazing...probably too small for the amount of wind that was being blown around from that much brass. They played everything from tangos to my favorite, a piece called" Young Henry at the Hunt" I am sure you get the idea of the hunters being called on the French horns....Violette Amiot stole the show though...a 30 something young woman who played the percussion...she had about 3 kettle drums arranged around her and she exuded rhythm. So that small event kept me happy for the day while my mind crossed the Atlantic with Bruce. He e-mailed me this AM from 100 Acres just before he left for his Sommelier Course and his test on Australian wines.
Can you believe this...it is another holiday in France...some religious holiday which even the French are not too sure about....not sure what it is and who and what will be open....it does not matter as most people are glued to their TV's now as the French Open is on. We had lunch last week with a wonderful Winemaker from Volnay a woman named Josette who is at least in her mid seventies ..she stopped making wine in 1993...and she was telling us that she would be watching the tennis for the next 15 days... I believe it finishes around the time I will be leaving.
Anyway, May is certainly a month of holidays...the last one being a Thursday and then eveyone took Friday off so it was quite a long weekend. And then you have to remember that the French automatically start with 5-6 weeks vacation every year ..none of this 2-3 weeks we Canadians seem to settle for.
I want to make sure as I enter this "home stretch" that I not just fritter away the time reading etc..so I am planning finally to take the train to Dijon....do not let me backout...and tomorrow I am having an Aussie couple I have met...my age...for lunch. Not that I am cooking ...I was down this AM and ordered a lovely quiche Lorraine from my favorite spot for those..however, I probably will do veggies cold asparagus and green beans yes French green beans and put strawberries on ice cream. and of course wine...hopefully it wll be a good 3-4 hour lunch! Bruce left me with 12 bottles of wine.... he just kept buyinh wine.... 4 I am supposed to bring home and the rest I am to drink or put to cellar. So here is the story regarding the cellar...the wonderful young couple who own this apartment and two other rental places actually own a wine cellar under this apartment building. The Town of Beaune has many many cellars or caves underneath it where wine has been stored for centuries. Anyway last week Bruce and I were invited to a wine tasting of a relative of our landlords who makes excellent wine in Savigny les Beaune. It was wonderful but already having what Customs allows us to bring home plus a little extra we were sorry to be passing up these wonderful 2005 vintages when our landlords said ..well if you want to store some with us we will move them to the new cave when it is ready which should be fairly soon...So we now have wine stored here in France for our return next May! And if I cannot drink all that I have here at the apartment...which I am sure I will not... I will move that to the cellar for next year also. We have a very hard time passing up this wine we are trying at these tastings. This recent tasting was very interesting as we were tasting with the "vigneron" the person who actually made the wine...he had no store of bottle from previous vintages as all of his wine is sold to local folks. In fact several dropped in while we were tasting to pick up their supply and one discretely told me..."this is the best winemaker in Savigny les Beaune". I must say it is hard not to think so when you are in his Cave drinking his wines and also having the privilege of trying some still in the barrels...the 2006 vintage which has not yet been bottled. Now there are wine tastings everywhere here ..all up and down the Cote d'Or.."degustations" and the tour books say to stop at the winemakers tasting and try them out. But many times the winemaker is in his fields or unavailable or his English is not so great and our French as bad...so they are not too successful...however this tasting had been arranged for us and was an amazing experience! We were very privileged. So today has dawned a little cooler than the past week or so and it seems to rain in spurts..soft rain for about 20 minutes and then sun...after ordering my quiche this morning I went over to the Place de la Halle where they are holding a 3 day Antique Exposition. It was very similar to what we would hold at home...a small fee to enter and inside about 20 dealers have thier antiques all on display. Lots of old linens and Quimperware...books and furniture. The prices seemd very high to me but then I also kept translating them from Euro's into Canadian dollars which adds another 60% to the price.... the display I found most intrigueing was of old military items...a German helmut from the 2nd World War which he was asking 485 E for but was willing to sell it to me for 400E ..he said I could get 800 ? in Canada ...he also had an Americam helmut and French helmuts...I hope I told you in previous blogs that when I am here in France I become very interested in the 2nd World War....and Josette the winemaker rom Volnay was telling us about that era when she was young and Volnay was occupied by the Germans and what it was like.... Bruce and I cycled to Meursault last week and passed through Volnay...it is on a hill and has a beautiful view of all the vineyards below. As we were looking out over the area I could not help but think about Germans marching through this area and taking over the towns....once the French army gave up people in the Towns had very little weaponry and were better off keeping what weapons they had and using them as part of the Resistance Movement. When I come home I think I will make a more detailed study of this time in France. Anyway I am off now dinner is calling and I have a bit more tidying to get ready for my guests tomorrow. Hope Spring is starting to show its head in whatever part of the world you find yourself and welcome back to my Blog. Bisous from Miss A as Bruce calls me or Princess A as some friends in Baltimore call me..hi Cindy and Pearl...got your last e-mail!!