Our journey from Paris to Angers on the TGV was a quick and uneventful one, and Francoise was kind enough to pick us up at the station and take us back to the house near the Lac de Maine – and had a pot au feu (a hearthy stew of beef and veg) waiting for us – which really hit the spot (not that I was exactly starving after the rather robust lunch and afternoon crepes we’d had in Paris).
After then the typical holiday season social roulette continued, where we had left off in Paris. On Monday we borrowed Francoise trusty Laguna, and set off to visit Mathilde’s granddad and grandma. First off was Grandpa Robert, who lives in the tiny Sarthoise (Sarthe being the departmenet north-east of Maine-et-Loire, where Angers is located) village of Saint-Denis d’Orques. He was on good form as usual, and entertained us with photos from their recent trips to Andalucia and Marocco (I hope I will be as adventurous as him when I’m his age…). We then drove on to see Grandmother Ida in Evron, in the Mayenne (that being the department just north of Maine-et-Loire – where Mathilde’s dad comes from). We decided to have lunch before the visit – which proved to be a rather difficult mission as Evron doesn’t seem to be a very happening place (at least on Mondays). We eventually found a cozy creperie (which was busy – not surprising since it appeared to be the only open restaurant…). The visit went well – Ida was on pretty good form as well (although I get the impression Ida struggles a bit with my French – must be my Finnish accent or something…).
On Tuesday, Stephane, our good friend from our years in Guildford (who seems to feature in most blog entries involving pubs in England…), who comes from the Sarthe, had kindly agreed to come over to visit us in Angers. It was nearly what one could call an emotional moment for me – as Stephane has decided to leave the safe confines of Surrey University to work in San Diego (now that must’ve been a tough choice – Guildford, Surrey, vs. San Diego, California) – which means it’s going to be quite tough for him to appear in future blog entries involving English pubs. Oh well, life goes on. Anyway, after sorting out a place to sleep for Stephane, we jumped on the bus and headed downtown for an aperitif with CoCo (this being all she had time for, busy as she always is). We then proceeded to have dinner – and ended up in a rather special restaurant. Located in an old church, the theme was medieval – with pretty authentic looking décor – there was even an option to rent a medieval costume (free for kids). The food was a bit pricey, but pretty good (I had quails for starters and goose as a main dish – pretty unusual stuff). And the quantities weren’t exactly of “medieval feast proportions” – more like French haut cuisine. Still, we enjoyed the meal. From there we headed down to the legendary (apparently?) Angers bar “Central Bar”, where we met up with Nathalie and Sandra (friends of Mathilde from her years in the north of France) for some more drinks. Sandra was kind enough to drop us off at the house – where we finished off the evening in style (or lack of?) with some Calva and palm wine (another speciality of Francoise’s – great stuff).
And then, Christmas Eve was upon us! Me and Mathilde were charged with preparing the dinner – and we decided (to my slight discomfort – accentuated by the raging hangover) to prepare something Finnish. After some frantic surfing on the internet for recipies, we decided upon salmon soup as a main course and some “piparis” (kind of like gingerbread cookies) for desert. Thankfully the xmas eve dinner was a very private affair –only 4 of us. We found nearly all the ingredients, and did manage to put together a pretty decent meal (everybody finished their plates and nobody got food poisoning, at least). Although it has to be said we struggled a bit with the gingerbread pasty – must’ve been the recipy. Unfortunately in France santa claus brings the pressies on the morning of the 25th (in Finland we get them on the eve of the 24th – practical for ol’ Santa I guess to drop them off in his own country first ;-) – so had to wait a bit for them.
The morning of xmas day was spent preparing the big Christmas lunch – this time Francoise’s children Marc and Nathalie were joining with their families (I was assigned to oyster-opening duty with Herve). Before lunch, for something more, though – PRESSIES! I was rather happy with my presents which included some binoculars (good to spy on the neighbours with), a book on Leonardo DaVinci, and a DVD collection on the history of cinema by Jean-Luc Godard (can’t go wrong with that!) and of course several bottles of wine. The food was absolutely delicious, of course, starting off with oysters, followed by some great pate, beef tongue and other delicacies. After a few hours of well-needed rest (French Christmas meals are rather filling), Muriel arrived with Paul, Lucas and Alix. After “the second coming of Santa Claus”, we were treated to yet another delicious meal (more oystes – I’m really getting the hang of it). Of course with Paul, Lucas and Alix around, no point hoping for any rest – so the rest of the evening was spent playing with various toys I felt a bit old for (maybe except for Alix’ Nintendo DS).
The next day continued pretty much the same, playing with the kids. Good fun, but rather tiring, I must say (especially the Twister Mat game which is basically a mat with spots of different colours – where you need to place your hands and feet. You would’ve thought it would be easy for me with my long limbs – think again, I didn’t win once!). We were sorry to see Muriel take off with the kids – the house felt so empty after that ;-).
In the evening we headed down to the local Irish pub in town - less than imaginatively named James Joyce (then again, when do Irish pubs have original names?), where we met up with Aude and Magaye for a couple of well-deserved (I thought so, anyway…) pints of Guinness. And more christmas presents were exchanged ;-). What with all the hustle and bustle of the last couple of days, we called it a night pretty early on, this time...
Saturday we spent digesting all the xmas food we had eaten, mostly. In the afternoon Dorine and Aldo came over for coffee and piparis. Aldo is Peruvian, and was an excellent guide for us when we visited Arequipa in Peru a few years ago – he lives in Paris now with Dorine. It was good to catch up with them, since it’s been a couple of years since the last time we got together. They seem to be enjoying their life in Paris - hopefully we can hear more about it once we get together for a proper meet-up in the near future, either in Paris or the South.
On Sunday Francoise’s children came over for lunch again (this time also Xavier and his girlfriend Aude) – so yet more delicious food was eaten (including foie gras – yummie…). We also ate the buche de Noel that I had prepared (OK, with “some” assistance from Francoise and Mathilde) – the traditional French Christmas desert (basically composed of eggs, sugar, butter, chocolate and flour – simple yet delicious). In the afternoon we were joined by Nathalie and Patrick and their children – including my dear godson Florian. We took them down to the Lac de Maine where we checked out the local playground (and endured the freezing wind…). Florian impressed us all by repetedly beating us all in sprint contests – he must’ve won at least 10 gold medals throughout the day. Tired as we were once we got back to the house, we rewarded ourselves with some piparis and hot chocolate.
After then the typical holiday season social roulette continued, where we had left off in Paris. On Monday we borrowed Francoise trusty Laguna, and set off to visit Mathilde’s granddad and grandma. First off was Grandpa Robert, who lives in the tiny Sarthoise (Sarthe being the departmenet north-east of Maine-et-Loire, where Angers is located) village of Saint-Denis d’Orques. He was on good form as usual, and entertained us with photos from their recent trips to Andalucia and Marocco (I hope I will be as adventurous as him when I’m his age…). We then drove on to see Grandmother Ida in Evron, in the Mayenne (that being the department just north of Maine-et-Loire – where Mathilde’s dad comes from). We decided to have lunch before the visit – which proved to be a rather difficult mission as Evron doesn’t seem to be a very happening place (at least on Mondays). We eventually found a cozy creperie (which was busy – not surprising since it appeared to be the only open restaurant…). The visit went well – Ida was on pretty good form as well (although I get the impression Ida struggles a bit with my French – must be my Finnish accent or something…).
On Tuesday, Stephane, our good friend from our years in Guildford (who seems to feature in most blog entries involving pubs in England…), who comes from the Sarthe, had kindly agreed to come over to visit us in Angers. It was nearly what one could call an emotional moment for me – as Stephane has decided to leave the safe confines of Surrey University to work in San Diego (now that must’ve been a tough choice – Guildford, Surrey, vs. San Diego, California) – which means it’s going to be quite tough for him to appear in future blog entries involving English pubs. Oh well, life goes on. Anyway, after sorting out a place to sleep for Stephane, we jumped on the bus and headed downtown for an aperitif with CoCo (this being all she had time for, busy as she always is). We then proceeded to have dinner – and ended up in a rather special restaurant. Located in an old church, the theme was medieval – with pretty authentic looking décor – there was even an option to rent a medieval costume (free for kids). The food was a bit pricey, but pretty good (I had quails for starters and goose as a main dish – pretty unusual stuff). And the quantities weren’t exactly of “medieval feast proportions” – more like French haut cuisine. Still, we enjoyed the meal. From there we headed down to the legendary (apparently?) Angers bar “Central Bar”, where we met up with Nathalie and Sandra (friends of Mathilde from her years in the north of France) for some more drinks. Sandra was kind enough to drop us off at the house – where we finished off the evening in style (or lack of?) with some Calva and palm wine (another speciality of Francoise’s – great stuff).
And then, Christmas Eve was upon us! Me and Mathilde were charged with preparing the dinner – and we decided (to my slight discomfort – accentuated by the raging hangover) to prepare something Finnish. After some frantic surfing on the internet for recipies, we decided upon salmon soup as a main course and some “piparis” (kind of like gingerbread cookies) for desert. Thankfully the xmas eve dinner was a very private affair –only 4 of us. We found nearly all the ingredients, and did manage to put together a pretty decent meal (everybody finished their plates and nobody got food poisoning, at least). Although it has to be said we struggled a bit with the gingerbread pasty – must’ve been the recipy. Unfortunately in France santa claus brings the pressies on the morning of the 25th (in Finland we get them on the eve of the 24th – practical for ol’ Santa I guess to drop them off in his own country first ;-) – so had to wait a bit for them.
The morning of xmas day was spent preparing the big Christmas lunch – this time Francoise’s children Marc and Nathalie were joining with their families (I was assigned to oyster-opening duty with Herve). Before lunch, for something more, though – PRESSIES! I was rather happy with my presents which included some binoculars (good to spy on the neighbours with), a book on Leonardo DaVinci, and a DVD collection on the history of cinema by Jean-Luc Godard (can’t go wrong with that!) and of course several bottles of wine. The food was absolutely delicious, of course, starting off with oysters, followed by some great pate, beef tongue and other delicacies. After a few hours of well-needed rest (French Christmas meals are rather filling), Muriel arrived with Paul, Lucas and Alix. After “the second coming of Santa Claus”, we were treated to yet another delicious meal (more oystes – I’m really getting the hang of it). Of course with Paul, Lucas and Alix around, no point hoping for any rest – so the rest of the evening was spent playing with various toys I felt a bit old for (maybe except for Alix’ Nintendo DS).
The next day continued pretty much the same, playing with the kids. Good fun, but rather tiring, I must say (especially the Twister Mat game which is basically a mat with spots of different colours – where you need to place your hands and feet. You would’ve thought it would be easy for me with my long limbs – think again, I didn’t win once!). We were sorry to see Muriel take off with the kids – the house felt so empty after that ;-). 
In the evening we headed down to the local Irish pub in town - less than imaginatively named James Joyce (then again, when do Irish pubs have original names?), where we met up with Aude and Magaye for a couple of well-deserved (I thought so, anyway…) pints of Guinness. And more christmas presents were exchanged ;-). What with all the hustle and bustle of the last couple of days, we called it a night pretty early on, this time...
Saturday we spent digesting all the xmas food we had eaten, mostly. In the afternoon Dorine and Aldo came over for coffee and piparis. Aldo is Peruvian, and was an excellent guide for us when we visited Arequipa in Peru a few years ago – he lives in Paris now with Dorine. It was good to catch up with them, since it’s been a couple of years since the last time we got together. They seem to be enjoying their life in Paris - hopefully we can hear more about it once we get together for a proper meet-up in the near future, either in Paris or the South.
On Sunday Francoise’s children came over for lunch again (this time also Xavier and his girlfriend Aude) – so yet more delicious food was eaten (including foie gras – yummie…). We also ate the buche de Noel that I had prepared (OK, with “some” assistance from Francoise and Mathilde) – the traditional French Christmas desert (basically composed of eggs, sugar, butter, chocolate and flour – simple yet delicious). In the afternoon we were joined by Nathalie and Patrick and their children – including my dear godson Florian. We took them down to the Lac de Maine where we checked out the local playground (and endured the freezing wind…). Florian impressed us all by repetedly beating us all in sprint contests – he must’ve won at least 10 gold medals throughout the day. Tired as we were once we got back to the house, we rewarded ourselves with some piparis and hot chocolate.
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