At the beginning of the week, we picked the last of the artichokes off the plants and presented them to our neighbours who received them with obvious enthusiasm. We were just as pleased to get rid of them, as letting them rot on the plants was really not an option. A while later, just as we were about to sit down to lunch, there was a ring of the doorbell and there was Mr Neighbour, come to invite us over for a ‘starter’. His wife had cooked the artichokes in a very smart electric steamer which was plugged in on the verandah where we subsequently sat and ate. She speaks no English, his is minimal but he also knows a bit of German as he comes from the Alsace region of France, and of course there are many words in German which bear a close resemblance to Afrikaans, so between all the bits of languages we could summon up amongst us, we ended up having a very jolly couple of hours. And the steamed artichokes were actually delicious, although still a vast waste of effort, in my mind! I find it difficult to picture the scene at the first attempt to eat this vegetable – it has prickles on the tips of the leaves, which have to be cut off before cooking; then it has to be boiled or steamed for nearly an hour before it is ready to eat. Then the leaves have to be peeled off one by one, dipped in vinaigrette and only the very bottom half centimeter is eaten, the rest being too fibrous. After about fifty or sixty leaves have been peeled off and eaten in this way, the heart is finally exposed, and this is the real delicacy. First, though there is a nasty hairy layer which has to be carefully teased away from the ‘meat’ of the heart, until voila! It is exposed. A circle of flesh about half a centimeter thick and perhaps two centimeters in diameter, with the same consistency and taste as a sweet potato is what the diner is rewarded with after all this effort. Not for me thanks! Give me a real sweet potato any time. But at least we are now are pretty good terms with the neighbours..
He weather forecast for the rest of te week had not been very promising, but we took a chance and ventured out on Friday. First to the weekly market at Vic Fezensac about fifteen kilometers away to buy, believe it or not, Cumberland sausages! An enterprising English couple, realizing that a lot of English settlers were pining for tastes of Britain started a business selling foreign foodstuffs at the local markets. They sell things like English tea , tins of baked beans and packets of biscuits which one can’t get here, and for the South Africans they have Mrs Balls Chutney and Rooibos tea, with a few pots of Vegemite thrown in for the Australians. She has also managed to find a local pig farmer who is prepared to make sausages according to her recipe, so she has Cumberland sausage, Lancashire Sausage and just plain pork sausage and they are truly delicious.
After the market, we traveled on a bit further to a little town called Valence-sur-Baise where we stopped at the side of the River Baise to have our picnic lunch. At this point, the river is quite large and there are boats which are able to cruise up and down, with Valence being a sort of ‘port’ on the river. Our lunch hour passed very enjoyably as we sat in the sun on the bank and watched various people messing about in their boats.
At two o’clock when the world starts to wake up again, we drove on to the Abbaye de Flaran, which is a Cistercian Monastery. Being Cistercian, it is very austere, but also light and airy which makes a change from the usual terribly dark church interiors. As it happened, there was an art exhibition on in the monastery section, and we spent a long time marveling at the Picasso, Gainsborough, Monet, Braque and many other works. We were amazed, yet again, at the complete lack of security for these priceless paintings. We are obviously far too South African to be able to throw off our security-consciousness in a couple of weeks. I’m quite sure we are the only people around here who lock all the doors at night and when we go out, but we do now leave the car unlocked in the driveway all the time. Great progress!
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