Bordeaux: help x work/fun

We worked for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week at Le Ramet doing all sorts of tasks

stripping shutters with a hot air gun, then filling, sanding and painting them

A finished shutter next to a yet to be started. Renovating the shutters has changed the way I look at all of those rustic shabby french houses, before I used to thing they were so romantic - now I look at the shutters and think all of those bastards need to be sanded.

I spent a lot of time in the potager, podding peas...

weeding

and making rainbows with the hose

Using the tractor to try and rip out a very stubborn fig.

There were so many animals at Le Ramet - 6 jack russels, 3 great danes, millions of cats, horses, donkeys, goats (not all in the house!)

Chinoise & Tigre

My sister and I used to watch a film called the ugly daschund, it was just like that at Le Ramet - hilarious

Daniel & Patricia our hosts/french teachers/chefs...

Gregg concocting a cognac, coffee and chocolate delight called a push push

I have never eaten so well as at Le Ramet, we were treated to delicious French fare every day - eaten in the particular french way

And another amazing help x experience draws to a close, the car is packed and we head off North

French Daniel's French dressing

The recipe for French Daniel's French dressing, to be used on grated carrot/chopped tomatoes/miscellaneous French things

To make 1 beaker full:

2 heaped teaspoons of moutard

Du sel

Poivre 5 bailes 13 turns

l'ail seche 2 teaspoons

Les fines herbes 5 heaped teaspoons

1/3 balsamic

2/3 olive oil

 Merci Daniel

Bordeaux

We have arrived in Bordeaux where vines replace rolling hayfields

and the sunflowers are all dead. The fields look quite morose with withered black stalks and drooping black heads facing east.

Our home for the next month, the rather fabulous Le Ramet. We are now speaking French all day every day so hopefully it will improve by the time we head back up north to Normandy

The chateau used to produce award winning Cognac, these plaques are remnants of that golden age.

Le Brewery: website design

The new Le Brewery website is now live! Not bad for a months work, and a much needed improvement on the old site, you can check it out here www.le-brewery.com we have also set up a twitter account @lebrewery and new company facebook page. The site was built by Dan Howe who is a rather fantastic web developer, you can find him here

Thaddius Skews and I worked on the new labels, you can see the old Mysterious Lady below

And the new one here!

So our first help x experience is now over and what a blast it has been, so much so that we are hoping to go back to Le Brewery in October for some more hard work, great beer and fabulous company.

Le Brewery: shenanigans

The new Le Brewery website is almost ready to go live which is very exciting and an epic effort from Australian Dan. I will post a link when its up and running.

We were at another medieval festival in Domfront week where we saw a man herding geese (it's another world here)

While i was sitting trying to watch come dine with me, Leila came running down the path to say that a minivan full of people wearing kilts had turned up! They turned out to be a Normandy pipe band who wanted a tour of the brewery. As there were no proper French speakers here I had to give the tour in terrible French with lots of pointing and hand gestures. The pipers then started playing (Oh Flower of Scotland amongst other things) in the brewery shop  - certainly beats come dine with me!

Le Brewery: song

By Jonny Flockton

Le Brewery: Catching crayfish

There are a couple of streams that run through the brewery and we noticed a couple of frazzled crayfish that had been caught out on dry land, so we decided to try and catch some

The crayfish catching device - a potato sack threaded onto a coat hanger, weighed down with a stone and tied up with a piece of string - half a sausage tied on for bait

Our first catch, it was tiny but we were hopefull

and another!!

Catch number 2! The wee buggers got wise to the bright yellow net after this catch so we set them free and had sausages instead

Le Brewery: Medieval Festival Montmirail

We went to help Steve serve beer at the Montmirail medieval festival which was brilliant. Dan was dressed as a monk in one of Steves old costumes (that he later admitted he sometimes sleeps in) and I had on Juliet's old witches outfit with a curtain tie as a belt. The whole town turns itself over to the festival with medieval reenactment people parading around in some quite bonkers costumes.

The beer brother cometh

For some reason there were lots of French people dressed up in kilts, playing bagpipes and loving Scotland. When they found out that I was from Glasgow they were highly excited, this coupled with the fact that they were getting free beer made for some rather happy musicians.

Le brewery bar turns into a percussion set

Le Brewery: BBQ

Le Brewery: bottling

One of the jobs at Le Brewery is bottling up Steve's delicious beer

Me, Christine and Charlotte

Le Brewery

We are now living and working at 'Le Brewery' in Normandy, near...well near nowhere really. We are on a help exchange - the idea is that you go and help people in exchange for food and board, and in this case lots and lots of beer and fun

This is where I spend quite a lot of my time - my new office!

Dan fondling the hops 

This is Steve, le patron, Heath Robinson, the incredible whirlwind

My new favourite toy

Making some signs for the pubs