Today I are mostly being a Lady o' Leisure

Whiltst J is working hard at uni and his dissertation I have found that I have quite a lot of spare time, I thought I'd write a quick post, whilst I sit here with my Green Pasta cooking and my chilled glass of Made In Provence St Lucie 2007 Blanc http://www.saintelucie-provence.com/, just to give you an idea of what this lady of leisure gets up to!

Mondays are lovely as J has no lectures so we usually go climbing at M'Roc, the best climbing in Lyon http://www.salle-escalade.com/, we usually have breakfast, make a packed lunch and arrive about 12ish as it takes an hour to get there. We climb until about 3 then stop for lunch, ducking under the daggers shot from the eyes of The French who are horrified at this blatant disregard for 3 hour lunch rule. They usually arrive at 12, sit down for lunch, eat salad, a baguette, a roast chicken, a tarte aux pomme, washed down with a leffe (climbers dont do wine in the day time), have a cigarette and THEN climb. You can spot us a mile off with our sandwiches and lunch boxes, politely declining the offers of beer. Kt + Beer + Climbing = sapeur pompiers and a trip to l'hopital. We try and leave around 7ish and head home, aching in a good way, for a quick dinner before collapsing with un verre de vin rouge and some Desperate Housewives.

Katie 'Nifty move' McG

Stretch-J-Strong

Fancy-Footwork-McG

The friendly dog at the climbing centre

Jon Grrrrrrrrr-igson

McLimpet

Man in Shorts in March = British

Tuesdays J has lectures from 10 so is out the flat from 9ish. After the usual breakfast, shower and internet based blurb its time to get creative. Weather permitting I head out armed with a fancy I-know-what-I'm-doing camera case and J's camera, a few pennies for a petit cafe and a big city to photograph. I like to head down the into the old town via the HILL.
The Hill is beautiful. An old cobbled street that drops down with one of the external walls fortification on the left hand side and panoramic views over the city on the right. On a sunny day its my favourite place in Lyon. It meanders its way from St Just where we live and into the streets of Vieux Lyon. You can guarantee there will be a citroen BX or a Renault 5 parked somewhere along it and a man on a bike with a string of onions round his neck, just to make it perfect.
However, its a Jekyll and Hyde hill.
In rain its near lethal, even equipped with mighty stomping boots its a giant water slide.
In ice you have to be loony even contemplate setting foot on one of the 'Cobbles of Death'. It hurts.
Its also a magical hill as at 4am after you've missed the night bus, had a quick visit to the all night bakery whilst dressed as 80's Jane Fonda and fuelled by a few drinky its great. You can even run up it!

The Hill, looking up from Vieux Lyon to the halfway church

Vieux Lyon

The view at the base of The Hill

During my hours of wandering through Lyon as a 'photographer' with the aim of taking 'The most French photo', I have learned some important lessons.

1) Pigeons are NOT good subjects (although I am inexplicably drawn to them....)
2) Americans have an inbuilt sensor that allows them to detect an arty farty photographer want-to-be and will ALWAYS stand in the middle of that beautiful shot.
3) The old men sitting outside cafes with a thirty year old cigarette glued to their lips and a never ending coffee being very french are a lie. They don't exisit. And if they do - they hide from me.
4) Men playing boule at 4pm on a Tuesday are not just enjoying the 3 hour lunch too much, they are most likey unemployed, middle aged and not the sort that you want to take a quick piccy of.
5) Japanese people will take a picture of you taking a picture, then sit on your lap to take the same picture as you are taking.

Having learnt these lessons I have moved away from pigeons and have sucsessfully taken what I hope to be the 'Most French photo' yet, will let you know when I have it developed and post it here if its a good 'un.

J finishes lectures at 6 so I usually have popped by the favourite bakery in vieux lyon for a pain aux grain and head home to make some dinner. I now feel truly Lyonnais as I have a blipper, the magical card that you wave as you get on the bus and the happy machine blipbleeps and the light goes green and you get on. Only tourists have tickets dont you know. Anyone whos anyone has a blipper. They are even more magical on the metro, you wave your bag like a Jedi waves his Light Saber and the doors part like Moses and the sea to let you through. I can't help smile when I blip, for now I have jonined them, the People of Blipper.

We have made another great discovery - not ALL french TV is rubbish, at 8.50pm our favourite programme is aired 'Pekin Express - La Route des Incas' http://www.m6.fr/html/emissions/pekinexpress/, a really exciting show where teams of two race across South America without any money and have the occasionaly task to complete. This week was the race to get in the semi-finals, luckily the team we dont like were sent home as they came last leaving out three favourites Auerelie and Pauline sisters from Lille, Cedric et Gerard the Nicois pere et fils and Jean-Pierre (61 ans) et Joel (30 ans) two guys that met the day before they started the race as Joels original partner quit! How exciting! I want Aurelie and Pauline to win but J's supporting Cedric and Gerard... cant wait till next week!

Wednesday is another arty day, today for instance whilst crouching on a suspension bridge over the swollen Saone, I learnt yet another lesson. Suspension briges wobble. Making them pretty unsuitable for taking slow exposure pictures from. I like to think that those that walked passed me thought 'Golly, that girl must be good to take that picture' as opposed to 'What a muppet'. I live in hope.

J has lunchtime off so we grap a baguette from the organic bakery on the presquile (grilled courgette, olive tapenade and goats cheese for less tham a M&S Corination chicken sandwich and a damn sight nicer!), if its nice we sit by the river or in Bellecour. We tend to have an explore of the city too, this week we discovered the most expensive patisserie, run by the daughter and son in law of a 3 Michelin Star chef, and home of the most scrumptious gateaux I have ever looked upon. So lovely in fact, I sunk into tourist behaviour and took a picture. Look at these! They're pieces of art! http://www.bernachon.com/

Yuuuuuuummmmmyyyyyy

Mmmmmwwwwwahhhhhhhh

At 2pm its time for J to head off to his 2-4 lectures so I jump on a metro and up to the Croix Rousse for a meander round the second of Lyon's Roman ampitheatres (the first is 5 mins from the flat) and the hippie district, full of wonderful little shops and the most fantastic view over Lyon, Mt Blanc and the Alps to the left and Fouvriere basilica to the right with the rivers meeting in the distance and the metropolis of Lyon spreading between them and beyond. It really is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited, every day it seems to change in front of your eyes. The city has become home for both of us, it feels comfortable and friendly and we seem to have found our place here, I suspect we'll be back here in the not too distant future.

Thursday is pretty similar to Monday as J now has the day off since finishing his FLE class so we mosey on up to the climbing centre for some serious grimper. Thurday usually means night out too, up until last week we'd meet Vikki and head out to the Smokin Dog (British pub), Flemmings (French Irish bar with cheap whiskys and cocktails on a thursday) then over the bridge to La Pecherie for some glow stick cocktails and live music. One night we collected two nice irish men and a hat in the Smoking Dog. After much merriment we then hop on the night bus (using our magical blippers) and flop into bed!

An Irish man named Ollie

Glow sticks in the cocktails

Glow sticks after cocktails

An Irish man named Damien

The Irish hat, modelled by Vikki

Fridays tend to start a little later than the rest of the week and tend to involve coffee, eh-hem, not sure why..... if we're feeling active it can also be Supermarket Day. Involving at least one bus ride depending if we're Carrefouring or Auchan-ing it, if its Auchan its ever so tempting to head to Port des Alpes on the tram and play in Ikea on the way, making sure we pick up a bag or two of Sweedish Fish to help us survive the horror that is the Auchan. Its approximately twice the size of the millenium stadium, sells small cars and scooters, has two aisles dedicated purely to chocolate, 3 to bread and an area the size of a tennis court soley for ham. I love France.

Swedish Fish

J like Swedish Fish

Saturdays and Sundays always involve at least one market and some meandering round the city, Saturday is Bio (organic) market day at the Croix Rousse and Sunday is the Quai de Saone market where you can buy almost anything you could ever want for a few euros. We tend to choose out vendors by judging who is selling the most local and seasonal veg(and therefore most environmentally friendly), the second round of selection involves price but they are usually all pretty evenly matched, we then resort to who looks most friendly. This process suits us very well and when we first arrived we were loyal to the nice lady with the home made wine and every tomato variety possible. One sunday, a mature gentleman, obviously a regular was being served before us in the que, he handed over a 1.5 litre container, nice lady asked if he would like it re-filled, 'no' he replied to her (and everyone else in the que's) horror (sharp intakes of breath all round), he quickly continues, bowing his head and looking at the ground, I'd like two 75cl's, my wife won't let me, says I drink it too quickly.... We took this to be a good sign and bought a bottle of her unlabelled juice - as we suspected, it was yummy. Unfortunately she hasnt been there recently due to the season, shes a summer lady.

We now purchase from 'nice old man near the bridge next to the sausage brioche lady'. He has a small selection of truly homegrown veg, reassuringly covered in mud and he'll always add a leek or two to the bag after you've paid. He also has the most delicious winter apples and a variety of potatos which he'll talk you through so you make the right descision for what you want to cook that week. French markets are truly an experience, Tescos dont teach you that you need a different potato for every dish the way our market man does!

So thats a week in the life of me at the moment and its great!

Wine fair part II : La Mort du Chariot

The lovely, sunny morning of the 8th March 2008 started well, spring had arrived, the birds were singing and we had our chariot. More importantly, the second wine fair of the year had arrived in Lyon.

And we had tickets.

Free tickets.

We woke early, rubber the sleep from our eyes, donned our best clothes, packed some lunch and together with our chariot we headed off to meet Vikki at the metro. We were on our way to some serious wine tasting.

A short time later, just after the doors had opened, we were in and holding our free glasses. Having learnt well last time we trundled round with an air of confidence and 'oui, je deja connais'. We we're pros at this wine fair lark. look, we have a chariot.

We started with the whites, focussing mainly on the Alsace and Jura, supping Rieslings and Vin Jeunes, Gewurztraminers and Macvins (clearly a scottish wine, Mac-Vins?! Perhaps McVin would be better, I'll suggest it next time...). The first discovery of the fair was the French have no idea what a gooseberry is, which resulted in a few amusing conversations with some of the Alsacienne wine producers (after consulting the dictionary they are called 'groseille a maquereau' or 'mackerel redcurrants' and are considered inedible). One of our favourites was the Domaine Bliemerose 2005 Gewurtztraminers (available through the Wine Socitey), although we chose not to buy from them but we can't remember why....

The wine was starting to have a slight effect and (to J's dismay) Vikki and I found ourselves following men with amazing moustaches, truly believing that becuase they had impressive facial hair, they would know a good wine...

Man with moustache = Wine boffin

Lunch time was declared and we munched our way through a considerable stack of carbs. THEN came the purchasing, we had a short list of the wines we liked and went back for un autre petit degustation and the first purchase. Then a moment of horror overcame us.

Where was the chariot?

J had been left in charge whilst vikki and kt went on their moustache following adventures but now, after lunch. WE NO LONGER HAD THE CHARIOT. (Sharp intake of breath required please)

Panic overcame us and we split up in a vain attempt to find our little wheelie!

We searched all over the Alsace - but no! Headed south to the Jura - not there either! We even scoured the Champagne!

It wasn't looking good, especially when there were at least 30 identical chariots in the building!

Kt dispared and had to have a glass of wine to calm her (good place for it really...), Vikki realisng the true extent of the situation - we would have to C A R R Y the wine, swiftly joined Kt. J was on his second tour..... but then, joy of joys, our knight in shining wine bottles....

Monsieur Henri Gsell
http://www.vigneron-independant.com/annuaire/desc_adherent.php?numadh=1064,
creator of an award winning Riesling and Keeper of the Chariot.
After our first round of tasting he kindly put our chariot behind his stall after realising we were not as clever as we appeared when left it at his stall on our Quest to follow Hairy Faces.

We thanked our knight profusely and exchanged €30 for 6 of his award winning Riesling (luckily we had intedned to buy some anyway, otherwise it may have been a little awkward...)

Still shaken from our trauma, it was necessary for Vikki and Kt to stop at the chocolate stall for a small purchase of handmade chocolate, for our wellbeing of course, eh-hem.

Feeling refeshed and calm we made the other serious purchases, 4 Gewurtztraminers from Tomas Baur at Francois Baur http://www.vinsbaur.com/) and then 2 Gewurtztraminers and 6 Sylvaner from Andre Dussourt http://www.domainedussourt.com/, with a quick stop at the lovely Chateau D'Etoile for the Macvin we kicked ourselves for not buying at the last fair and 2 more Cuvee des Ceps D'Or to replenish our collection (http://www.chateau-etoile.com/).

Then the fun began.

We flitted from one wine to another, stopping off at a stall D12 a few times to watch the rugby feeling slightly guilty as earlier we'd decided to avoid the stall as one of the gentlemen looked as if he'd got lost on a booze cruise from the UK and accidentally bought a vinyead (pictures below should show you what we mean). Turns out he was an ex-professional rugby player and was not scary at all!

Ex-professional booze cruise rugby player, cleary a photo or two was required.

A few random purchases followed, including 2 white Les Pleiades 2006 from the lovely Monsieur Phillipe Richy at Domaine Stella Nova (http://www.stellanova.fr/) and 2 Rose and 1 white from Domaine St Lucie (http://www.saintelucie-provence.com/), we we're drawn to their stall by the lovely labels and luckily it turned out to be a jolly good wine - so we bought some!

Chariot and heads full we decided to call it a day and trundled back home, unsurprisingly none of us could face cooking so a table at Mendos was summonded (same as wagamama in the UK but cheap!) and after dinner we collapsed into our little beds early.

We had an important day tomorrow.

The modest purchasing of Day 1


Kt's left foot was determined to make a break for it and head back into the salon.....

Vikki - so you know what she looks like without a rugby playing wine producer

Day 2, Le jour de vin Rouge.

Having 'collected' a few bottles of red from the neighbouring vineyards around Moire, Michel Morel's 2006 & 1998 Beaujolais, Michel Carrons 2007 Beaujolais and Alain and Daniel Germain 2005 Villes Vignes, day 2 was more about discovering what reds we liked. We started off meandering from stall to stall, again reaffirming what we discovered last time, J likes most reds and Kt (by and large) doesn't like Cote du Rhone's.

A lovely mature couple, Marc et Anne Marie Lepine from Chateau Bizard http://www.chateaubizard.fr/ invited us to try their Vin de Table, we soon realised there would be no bluffing our way through this one. We had been sussed us out. We were then given an excellent lesson by Monsieur Lepine (and a bit of a telling off) as we we're swilling the glasses wrong and using BOTH nostrils, (if your right handed you use the right nostril and left handed use the left as they are the dominant nostril). Our first purchases of the day were 3 x vin de table and 3 x Ravin d'Archas 2006 Rose. After wishing us un bon degustation and inviting us to visit their Cave for another lesson, with a wave they sent us on our way, just that little bit closer to understanding the mammoth world of wine.

A short time later we came across Chateau La Frerotte with their Lalande-de-Pomerol, http://www.chateaulafrerotte.fr/ , the three members of famille Tarendeau clearly felt sorry for us and we had a lovely conversation with them about the differences between british and french youth, education and wine apprecaiton. It was only after the conversation it became clear to us all Kts french definately does improve in direct correlation to wine consumed as she had managed to do pretty much all the talking (no surprises there then....Kt talking?! Surely not....). We didn't actually buy from them as funds were running low and it was rather expensive, but we were invited for the vendange which was nice!

After lunch we set off again and as vikki's birthaday is soon approaching (9th April for all those who know her) we went in search of bubbles! After discovering that most of the Champagne stalls were a bit scary and sometimes rude, we moved onto sampling some Cremant du Jura. Vix chose a Cremant du Jura Blanc Brut Prestige for €7 and a Cremant du Jura Rose Brut for €7.50 from the nice men at Domain Grand http://www.domaine-grand.com/ . We also purchased a Macvin du Jura that J had his eye on the day before and trundled off to find our next wine.

Stall D16, Domain Mas Amiel http://www.lesvinsdumasamiel.com/ were our next victims, chosen purely because we'd spied a smiley man with dreadlocks selling the wine, an unusal sight at a wine fair. We sampled a few of the lovely reds, including a really really yummy 1980 Grenache Noir Millesieme (only €60!), similar to port but fruitier and chocolatier, you really have to try it to understand! We decided that perhaps that was a little out of our league and settled on a 10 year old Cuvee Special for a snip at €12.

We left the stall realising we had learned yet another important lesson. Hippies make good wine.

Our time at the wine fair was coming to a close and we decided to attempt a new system of selection, one of us decided an number from 1-38 and another a letter from A-G, this system worked incredibly well and we arrived at E14, Monsier E.A.R.L Lucien Schmitt http://www.chateau-d-arlus.com/ , a slighly scary looking man with some rather interesting wines, we sampled a few and a clear favourite was found, a 2003 Medaille d'Argent Paris, Gaillac Rouge Braucol, its a really interesting wine produced solely from the Braucol grapes only grown in a very small area of France, the wine is rich but surprisingly light but has an extrodinary aftertaste of black pepper. A winner with Kt and we decided to buy just the one bottle.

As Mr Schmitt took payment for the Braucol (€10) he gave us a lovely gift of our second favourite, a €10.80 2004 Gaillac Blanc Doux, Medaille d'Argent Bruxelles. Why thank you we said, with big smile and lots of 'what a lovely man!', however his kindness was not to end there and a second bottle appeared, "pour votre pere" he declared to Kt.... more merci beaucoup's and even bigger smiles (they payment for the one bottle had already gone through, we realised that these were REAL presents!) and THEN a €6.50 2007 Gaillac Blanc Perle! Good lord, this gentleman had just given us €28 worth of wine for free! What a lovely man!

With big smiles and a few bisoux later we waved goodbye to Mr Schmitt and decided as poor chariot was looking quite full we could only really try one more. C2 was selected and we headed to Chateau De L'Ou http://www.vigneron-independant.com/annuaire/desc_adherent.php?numadh=10104 for a nice little Muscat, 3 bottles and another conversation later we were on our way home.

The day was about to turn from wonderful to horror filled.

Chariot had been fantastic, behaving as a good chariot should, always giving and never questioning as we toured the wines of France, but now she was full and the work was beginning to get to her.
Her left tyre began to shred as we left the hall.
Her left tyre was shredded by the time we reached the bus and fell off as we got on.
The 100m between the bus stop and the metro was a traumatic journey for us all and it was clear that her time was limited.
J tried in vain to coax her home but by Bellecour it was all too late, the left wheel is now somewhere on the metro line at Bellecour.
The drag marks of metal on tarmac will remain for the foreseeable future, a reminder to us of how hard our little chariot worked.
By the end of the bus ride from Bellecour to the halls it was all over and she was carried home.
La Mort du Chariot.

A sad day for us all, R.I.P Wheelie.

Wheelie the Chariot

Our wine cellar (wine wardrobe didn't sound as good)