We were recently invited for dinner with the family of one of Molly’s school friends. They are a lovely family and we are really thrilled that Molly and Jeanne are friends. Jeanne’s mother had suggested that the two girls go to their house and spend the afternoon preparing a meal for the two families, which was a very sweet idea.
So Molly and Jeanne spent the day slaving in the kitchen (with a bit of playing thrown in as well I imagine 
) and the rest of us turned up in the evening. It was a wonderful evening – the girls had prepared a starter of goats cheese on toasted baguette, followed by baked fish with rice, all topped off with some delicious apple tarts.
Jeanne’s dad makes his own wine from the grapes at one of the Vendee vinyards, so the vins de la maison were flowing freely all night. Lisa kindly offered to drive home as it would have been way too rude for me to refuse the top-ups to my glass 
All-in-all the meal was beautiful and the company thoroughly enjoyable. Jeanne’s family speak no english at all, so this was a night of us speaking 100% french all night. Quite a big challenge for us, but we rose to the occasion and the conversation never dried up.
I think we are all starting to realise just how far we have come over the last year in terms of the language. This time last year we could never have even considered having a dinner party with only french being spoken but now we are quite happy in that situation, and the kids even more so. They are all doing so well now that I think they have well and truly overtaken Lisa and I in their ability to communicate.
This is great news to us, as giving the kids a second language was one of the big reasons for coming here and we can already see how glad they are to have it. Now, if only they could start giving us lessons so we can keep up with them, that would be even better!
As I mentioned last week, Saturday saw the annual Paella Night in Foussais-Payre, organised by the school. Its another one of those occasions that really brings the school community together to help prepare for and produce a great nights entertainment.
We gladly volunteered to help get the room set up for the night. The teachers all work really hard at these events and it’s only fair that we help out where we can. Plus it would be a great opportunity to have more of a chat with some of the other parents there. We must keep practicing our french! So the whole family went along in the afternoon armed with scissors and selotape to transform the empty hall into a seaside extravaganza!
The afternoon was a frenzy of cutting, stapling and sticking with everyone pitching in to create a blue and white seaside ambience. The tables had candles in sea-shells and Lisa helped to make some little paper boats to sit alongside them. There were balloons to blow up and a fishing net to mount on the wall. There was even a full-sized sail from a windsurfer that took its place at the front of the hall. I had the slightly dangerous job of climbing onto the wobbly steps to secure said sail and to tie up the balloons. Luckily I escaped unscathed and without any broken bones – quite a result for me!
It was a really good afternoon, topped off after a while by everyone retiring to the kitchen where those in charge of preparing the nights feast were cracking open the wine. Never ones to shy away from a chance to socialise over un peu du vin, we joined in and met some really great folks. Of course we were far too polite to refuse a second glass, and the sangria just had to be tried. And how could we risk incurring the wrath of the locals by not sampling the red wine too?
All in all a very pleasant afternoon. Luckily we had walked down to the hall so the walk stagger home again helped to sober us up
Well aware that we probably wouldn’t be eating any time before 11pm, and mindful of the fact that the wine would once again be flowing, we had something to eat while we watched Strictly Come Dancing. If only we knew how the disco was going to be later we could have taken notes….
The do started at 8.30, so of course we got there for 8.30 and of course we were virtually the first people there. One day we will learn…
There were 8 tables, each with people assigned to them. We were on the table closest the dance floor (they must have known…) with Nathalie & Thierry. Molly and Rosie were with us at the table, but Joe was able to have his meal early with the rest of the children on a special table at the front. This was very handy as it meant that he could eat with his friends before they all went off to another room for fun and games while the adults enjoyed the rest of the night in peace
With the kids safely off being entertained, we helped tidy away their tables and chairs and then it was time for the evening to kick off properly. The bar was open – more sangria anyone? – and the crowds gathered. We did feel a little out of it at first as we had arrived so early and established outselves at the table it felt odd to move and plant ourselves in the middle of the crowd at the bar just so we could try to join a conversation. We have come a long way in terms of being able to chat socially with people, but when in a crowd it is still really hard for us to keep up. So we hung back this time, slightly disappoiinted in ourselves, but promising that we would be more confident by the next event.
Our predictions proved correct as it was around 11pm by the time the food started appearing. We started with a lovely spicy onion soup, with croutons and cheese sprinkled on top. Delicious! This was followed by the main event – the paella. None of us had tried paella before, but we all like rice, chicken (apart from Lisa, being a veggie) and mussels. So it really wasn’t a surprise to find that we really liked it. The big prawns were a first, having only previously encountered them devoid of head, legs, tail etc. Nathalie gave me a quick lesson on how to eat them – essentially just pulling them to pieces to reveal the tasty meat in the middle. This turned out to be a rather messy task, falling under my “too much hard work for too little reward” heading of foods. But enjoyable all the same.
The whole thing was washed down with a very pleasant bottle of rosé, which once again confirmed our belief that drinking from really small glasses doesn’t make you drunk.
We could have had as much paella as we could eat I think – there was plenty left on our dish and extras were being offered around all the tables, without too many takers it seemed. Paella is very filling! After all this came a lovely traditional apple tart with a slab of cheese (om nom nom nom…). All topped off with a coffee.
Suberb value once again for €9 each adult and we can’t fault the organisation. Everyone chipped in to help in some way – serving. clearing plates, washing up…. A great community event and we really enjoyed the chance to sit and chat with people.
Once the tables were cleared the disco began in earnest.
We hadn’t experienced a french disco before and therefore were unsure what to expect in the way of music. As it turns out it was, shall we say, an ecclectic mix! It ranged from The quickstep to “Achy Breaky Heart”…from traditional accordian music to “Tainted Love”, with Billy Ray Cyrus and Soft Cell being just about the only 2 recognisable sounds out of 2 hours of music 80s-style euro-pop.
It seemed to hit all the right spots with the locals though as most seemed to have a well coreographed dance for pretty much every tune that came up. We had never seen anyone jiving, waltzing or line-dancing to so many different styles of music before. It was very entertaining!
We basically danced for the rest of the night. Well, by “we” I obviously mean Lisa, Joe and I. The girls, being the ages that they are, could not bring themsleves to get up and dance at all. Granted the music wasn’t really very inspiring for them, but they did look funny sitting there sith their arms folded and their best bored faces on all night Meanwhile we danced the night away with Nathalie, until we got to the point where the kids were just about asleep at around 1.30am. We wearlily dragged ourselves off the dancefloor and back home to bed for a big sleep and a long lay-in!
What a great day we had had. the afternoon had been an ideal way to meet some new people and for them to learn a bit more about these crazy english folks who keep turning up. And the evening was a huge success. We are now looking forward to the next event – we’d better get our line-dancing lessons booked!
A while ago I bemoaned the lack of nice, cheap Vendéen wine [here]. Well, my complaints met with a swift rebuttal from my friend Jon over at The Vendee Blog [link], who suggested that actually there were lots of Vendéen wines about and I agreed that we should probably try some before making such bold claims.
So, on our night out at La Rochelle we took along a bottle of Chaignée Cadet rouge, from the vinyards at Vix [map]. And, to be honest, it wasn’t at all bad. I have had much worse wines in my time (unsurprisingly) and it was very quaffable. I’m not sure if it made any difference that we drank it out of the worlds tiniest glasses [evidence here], but at least that meant that it lasted a long time!
Buoyed by our success with this wine, Lisa slung a bottle of “Vendée One” Rose, from Rosnay [map], into the trolley the other day, and, although I am yet to sample that one, she tells me that it too is a rather pleasant selection.
So it seems that, from our brief foray into the wines of our region, there is hope. However, both the wines we have tried were in the region of €3.49 each, a good €1 over what we would normally pay. I know this is down to volumes etc and as the market for these wines increases then prices will fall, but when one is more focussed on quantity rather than quality, unfortunately the mass-produced, cheap-and-cheerful will continue to be our main-stay.
So apologies to the master growers in the region. Your wine is nice and will no doubt grace our table from time to time. But please let me know when you start doing a 10 litre box for €12
