Combourg Castle
Built in 1025, the Castle is still privately owned and occupied. It is open to public visits at limited times and is exquisitely furnished and decorated. Fabulous paintings, inlaid exotic hardwood and marble furniture pieces...the place is just yum! It is our castle of the month!
Show and tell
Shortly after we arrived, I wrote that I had two blacksmithing projects I wanted to do this winter. One was a support arm we want to take back to the Island for a large hanging planter, the other being a set of doors for our humble little wine ‘cave’ that we have here.
This allows us to be gone for months at a time with home exchange and rental guests present and know that the grog is secure. The design was chosen by Janice as we walked through the village of Vaison La Romaine in the South of France last winter when she spotted hand forged grill work in a business window. A few pictures later to recall details and it was as good as ours.
This is by far the largest 52” X 43” (133cm X 110cm) and most complicated piece I have attempted yet, weighing in at 139 pounds (63 kilos). Upon seeing it, friends here joked that it was obvious that you “could take the boy out of prison but you can’t take the prison out of the boy”. We loved it simply because it has such a medieval look about it.
Either way, I estimate that it only took about 41,000 hammer blows and 10,000 pulls on the bellows to put it together, so you could easily make one for yourself. Meanwhile, Janice has been painting like gangbusters and finished another lovely addition to our living room.
Eating crow
I rarely forward email jokes or other “send this to everyone you know” emails, but occasionally if something strikes me as particularly funny or relevant I will forward it to a few folks who I think would enjoy it or find it useful.
Last month I had a friend (name withheld to protect the guilty) send me an email with disturbing information about a new tax on real estate our government was imposing that was tied into the new health care law. Frustrated by an administration that couldn't spend money faster if it stuck it between the pages of junk mail coupon circulars and cramming them into apartment boxes, I forwarded the information to several people. Shortly thereafter I heard back from a few who gave me an earful.
Seems that I had failed to properly fact check the details and that while based on a kernel of truth, the information was basically incorrect, grossly exaggerated and applied to virtually no one I knew.
Uh-Oh…. (Pucker factor starts here)
Needless to say, the offended where from way over the other side of the political aisle. Still, I stand corrected and I apologize.
My bad.
In an effort to make nice, I offer this modest contribution to help fund what I am sure are many new crucially necessary social programs, bailouts of every stripe and assorted giveaways.
Lobster fishing
My buddy Loic asked me if I would like to go lobster fishing with him in some of the local bays this month, so off we went. He has a little 8’ (2.5m) dingy with a 2 HP motor that he uses to shuttle back and forth to his sailboat, so we loaded the pots and set out for the big catch.
It is hardly rocket science as you attach some bait and drop the suckers (the pots that is) in about 20’ (7 m) of water near some rocky out crops, then return in 24 hours to see what's shakin'. We ended up going out several times and caught an assortment of crab and blue tail lobster.
Loic, set to catch the big one
Anyone with a clue as to my culinary predilections knows perfectly well that anything that wiggles in salt or fresh water would never find a place on my plate. That doesn’t mean I can’t have fun joining others though in their search for nirvana. Two summers ago, Janice, Ian and I went to Maine for a week, where Ian bought a #@%&load of lobster and he and I spent an entire day cooking and smashing them to harvest the meat.
Still, it cracks me up that people will spend thousands of dollars (or Euros) on equipment, countless hours driving back and forth, plus time preparing and cleaning... to catch $10. worth of fish. Gotta love it.
Surgery
Remember last month I wrote that the Epistle was not going to be a diary of all our aches and pains? Ok, let’s do this fast then. I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee for a meniscus 2 days ago. The bad news is that the doctor said he found a lot of wear on the cartilage so at some point something more serious will need to be done. So what happened to the lifetime guarantee on parts and labor?Since I am publishing this, I am not dead, yet. There now, we are done. Moving on….
One in a Thousand
Surely by now you know that I have not used our monthly letter to you to promote stuff. Well except maybe to show you short videos of the areas we are in at any given time. This month I will make two tiny exceptions. The first is a short video about our Thousand Islands and the 6th book our friend Ian is publishing.
What is special about this is that the video below has super shots off all that surrounds us at the island within 5 minutes by boat (or soon within 1 minute by plane :) and the release of a brand new type of technology that publishes a book for the IPad and includes not only the text but photographs, videos, music and interactive maps in high resolution quality. This is not your mother’s Kindle.
Click on the arrow to see the video
The second is a little more personal. For some time now, we have supported a micro lending charity of sorts called KIVA. It allows you to help fund small entrepreneurs all over the world by making small start up loans to get them on their business feet, so to speak. Relax, I am not going to ask you for any money! What I am going to ask you to do is to click on this link
and donate $25. of someone else's money. You see a fellow supporter is allowing people to be introduced to KIVA by allowing you to make a $25.00 donation on his nickel. You become a big time generous philanthropist...for FREE!
You loan $25.00 to an entrepreneur of your choice and it doesn't cost you a dime. How generous of you! Pay it forward by clicking on the link, follow the prompts, pick your recipient and see that the end total cost to you will be $0.00 Hurry, this will not last long...
B17 museum
It happened again. We were minding our own business, driving down some country road minutes from the house, to one of the endless beaches, bays and headlands in our area when we happened yet again across another WWII monument with a US flag.
Seems that a couple of American B17 bombers had dropped a load of bombs on St Nazaire to the south and were on their way back to England, when they were shot down over the village of Pleubian less than a minute from the coastline. The predictable outcome played out with some killed, most of the rest captured and one made it back. He was promptly given a brand new shiny bomber and sent back to drop another load.
This museum is privately run by one man who remains so grateful to America 70 years after the war that upon hearing that we were visiting Americans ourselves, ran out and got a bouquet of flowers for Janice.
New email address
Some of the more observant have noticed that we have a new email address. Not to worry, you need not take notice of it at all. Replacing an email address with a brand new one is an onerous task as we have used the ‘old’ one for 20 years. It would be impossible to track down how many people, places, businesses and web sites have our ‘old’ email address registered to so we don’t want to lose it.
Going forward, we were looking for something easier and shorter to have, especially when you are trying to spell it out to an airline reservation agent from Turkmenistan. Unless you insist, this will have absolutely no effect on you as all email sent to our ‘old’ address is forwarded to our new one, so you don’t need to update your address book or change a thing. That is why we didn’t send out a change of address notice. For purists though, our new address is mjlhome@yahoo.com
They do things differently here
OK, so this might not be your idea of lawn art but when in Rome...
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| This is Veterans of Foreign Wars day in our village. It is held at the church on the town square behind our home. Note freshly painted statue of "Joan of Arc" |
The Island of Brehat is a spectacular place to walk in the spring.
It allows no vehicular traffic (except mini farm tractors to haul goods)
It allows no vehicular traffic (except mini farm tractors to haul goods)
Actually to sample what we have all around us within easy driving distance see the video below
We will visit again next month from California
