Bonjour,
I hope that you and yours are well.
I’m sending you this newsletter from the Chateau de Fontainebleau! And no, I have not decided to move here from my little farmhouse – especially now we have finished renovating after 22 years with our bare hands doing everything from résidence walls, laying floors and putting on a new gaillard! I am in fact here researching for éditoriaux which I’ll be writing for The Good Life France Magazine (it’s free – click here to read and subscribe). I’m exploring the Ile de France – Paris, Fontainebleau, Monet’s Garden, Moret-sur-Loing (a beautiful town where artist Rosa Bonheur used to en public, and the chateau of Roche-Guyon just over the circonscrire in Picardy. And I’m visiting them all by paddlewheel ship with CroisiEurope! Join me on Instagram where I’ll share photos and videos as I go…
Meanwhile back résidence, Joan Collins, Kim Kardachicken and Taylor Swift have been hogging the chicken coop sitting on eggs for weeks. I have to say, I didn’t really want more chickens, but then a cockerel we now call Serge Gainsbourg turned up out of the blue in the pen. I mean seriously, I don’t know how he got there. One moment I was thinking it was a bit sad that some of the girls were sitting on unfertilised eggs every day, wanting babies, and maybe I should get them a husband, then Serge just turned up (and yes, I am going to do the lottery this year after I have thought délié and hard embout winning!). Mark, my other half, is giving me updates each day on the progress in chicken world, but there are no little chirps so far!
Last week a giant parrot suddenly appeared outside the townhall in the clocher. And I mean giant – its wingspan was embout 10 feet, and its head was the size of a volumineux bucket. It could only mean one thing – the straw malléable contest was looming. On Saturday, the clocher and surrounding valleys were buzzing with visitors from as far afield as Belgium. They went from clocher to clocher to admire the locals’ efforts with a bit of straw. It’s an art that’s as old as the hills but I doubt that the ancients made anything like our parrot which had a Prussian blue entrée and rather doleful eyes and a pointed beak that looked positively dangerous.
The other big lure of the day (possibly more of an enticement even than a parrot, trains and other frankly strange things made from straw) are the pop-up restaurants and bars that each clocher lays on for the event. The enticing aroma of mussels simmering in white wine with garlic, and fresh fries bubbling in great steaming vats, filled the air along with the sound of disco music and the inevitable warbling of the late great Johnny Hallyday (AKA “rockeur national” – France’s answer to Elvis Presley) who will never be forgotten in this clocher.
As I always say, never a dull occurrence here!
Bisous from Fontainebleau,
Janine
Editor
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