A Paradocs Abroad

Our observations of Christmas in a small town in France are that two things are important: Church and Food.

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I don't know if it is always like this or simply due to the surprisingly warm fall we've had but the flowers here have not stopped.

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Our photostream on a calendar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sada_images/date-taken-calendar
(For the geeks, add date-taken-calendar to the url of a flickr photo stream.)

Click on any the photos on the calendar and you'll get a view of all the photos taken that day.

Cool or what?

If he had only stopped to make his quick release be in his favourite position he would have got to the round-about a minute after the crazy speeding driver who entered the round-about without looking (or slowing or yielding).

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There's a few new photos in our Flickr stream from our adventures over the past 3 weeks.

Susan just left for her weekly session of hill intervals chanting, "If it ain't rainin', it ain't trainin'". It's a fast changing Breton day here, with alternating periods of sunshine, and cold rain, but with an overall cold bite in the air.

Me, I'm still waiting for my ribs to heal after a crash 3 weeks ago, and somebody has to go to Les Caves du Corps du Garde for some bottles of wine...

I made this last night, and it was delicious. Used 3 kinds of fresh saussage (including a little merguez) from the traiteur instead of kielbasa. Left out or substituted some of the things we don't have in our diminished kitchen here (sour cream, horseradish, anchovy paste, fresh herbs).

Paired it with some country bread, and a 2003 Syrah (vin de pays des Côtes de Thongue). The merguez and strong broccoli taste were well up to such a "big" wine.

Heating up the left-overs for lunch now...

I just saw a TV commercial for foie gras during the morning new magazine show. Can't decide if that's more evidence of how seriously the French take food, or just something completely over the top...

While Vancouver has been under the big storm, we have been having lovely to okay weather. As a consequence we have had two Sundays rides in a row each just under 100 km.

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The mussels on the market are terrific at the moment. This meal was a recollection, and a redemption...

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The first of November in France is the day people attend to graves.

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It wasn't exactly a dry day and it took a bit of persuading to get Doug out the door.

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Everyone knows about French cheese. There are hundreds of varieties. Our Saturday market in Saint-Renan has at least 6 cheese vendors. Three of them have selections rivaling the Les Amis du Fromage shop in Vancouver; and they are in trailers that they move from market to market each day!

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We've uploaded a bunch of new images to Flickr over the past couple of days:

• Images from our visit to the Musée Rodin in Paris on 24 September
• Susan's images of Notre Dame de Paris (mostly through the trees on the river side) taken on 25 September
• Images from our stay at Timberline Lodge on the south flank of Mt. Hood where we attended the Eatern Pacific Ocean Conference (EPOC) during the last days of September

There are a few other miscellaneous images that didn't make it into one of the sets above - dig around in the photostream if you're interested...

The time zone may be weird, but we had a beautiful, sunny 20°+ day today, that made the beginning of our winter training for PBP 2007 pretty easy to start.

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According to Google Maps Saint-Renan is located at about 48° 26' N, 4° 37' W. Only a little south of Vancouver's 49°+ N, but 2/3 of the way to the western edge of the GMT time zone, even though we are in the Central European time zone, 1 hr ahead of GMT...

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In kilometers it's about 10,000 (taking great circle distances from Vancouver to Montréal, Montréal to Paris, and adding in the 600 km from Paris to Brest). But we live in time, not kilometers, and it's a lot of hours, further complicated by 9 time zones difference.

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Time for another trip - this time to Vancouver, Oregon, and Parksville...

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Life has been pretty busy since we returned from England on the 2nd of September.

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Big, meaty artichokes started appearing at the market a week or so ago. They're €0.50 to €0.90 each. With some homemade black butter sauce for dipping they make a terrific appetizer.

Last week I received a letter (well actually my letter didn't come until Thursday but Alain my host received an email on Tuesday), to tell me I had to attend a medical appointment in Rennes. This is part of my Carte de Sejour or working in France... I'm not sure which. Anyway Alain very kindly called everyone to see if it was possible for me to visit the IFREMER doctor or a doctor in Brest. No go. A two hour train to Rennes was a must.

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We just spent a very cool afternoon visiting the museum at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. It was one of the "afternoon-off" activities that are part of the Workshop on Targetry and Target Chemistry that Doug is attending here.

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We spent our recovery day after the Mildenhall 300 km brevet lazing around the Mildenhall Rally, watching the grass track racing, and chatting with new and old friends.

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We spent last week doing a 4-day tour inland, and farther south in Brittany. The idea was to ride some 150+ km days in preparation for next weekend's Middenhall 300 km brevet in the UK, and at the same time, see more of Brittany. We rode pretty hard, and had some rainy days, so there aren't too many photos, but they start here in our Flickr stream.

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There was a comotion out in the square earlier this evening - sirens, and revving engines. We went to investigate, and discovered that a bike race was going past on rue St. Yves.

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Today we went for a little ride (50 km) and went down to the south-west point Pointe de St-Mathieu where there is the ruins of a monastery and a modern lighthouse.

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We have rented a house for the Fall (September to early January). It is such a relief to have it sorted out.

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This morning when I went out to the market I was pleasantly surprised to be understanding many of the conversations of the people I passed. Someone asked me the time, and I did hesitate in knowing what they'd asked, nor in replying "dix heures et demi". I worked a little bit of small talk into my purchasing at the cheese stall, and the roast chicken seller. I even had the courage to go up to a couple I have seen several times and ask them about their pair of Newfoundland dogs.

This is very cool because I have been coming to the realization that I speak, write, and read French much better than I hear it; but hearing and understanding is probably the most important thing I need for the daily interactions I have with people. Susan has gotten much better at hearing than me because she interacts with French people for several hours every day, and chats with them at morning coffee, and lunch.

So, I guess my French may actually be improving. It just takes time to wear the new patterns into my brain, I guess.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. It's been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of work, and lots of cycling. I just posted a story about last Sunday's ride, and I uploaded some new photos to Flickr this morning. We're making really good progress on the Strait of Georgia model, we found a furnished house in Saint-Renan to rent from September to January, and Doug's parents are coming to visit in October, after they tour Normandy.

Wim's post on the bc-randonneurs list drawing attention to the fact that ACP has posted the preliminary route for PBP 2007 was the inspiration for this ride.

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Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. A rainy day.

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The rain cleared, we removed the troublesome mudguards from Doug's bike, and got on the road at 10:00. Fair-warning that this ride story is rather long. But hey, it was a memorable day, and this blog is our diary as well as being entertainment for our family and friends...

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Well, sort of... It rained Saturday morning, and a little more Saturday night - the first rain we've had in a couple of weeks (though it's not as hot here as in central France).

Just before we were going to leave the house Sunday morning for the 08:00 Vélo d'Iroise ride it started raining again. We did a mad scramble to put mudguards on my bike, and failed.

Having the luxury of lots of time to ride, we decided to ride later in the day. It's almost 09:00 now and the sun is starting to peek through.

We were out walking around Saint-Renan last evening looking at potential rental apartments when we noticed a building in Place aux Cheval with signs for FFCT (la Fédération française de cyclotourisme), and another club, Vélo d'Iroise.

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Last weekend was the Medieval Festival in St. Renan. The town has 100's of costumes and many people have their own.

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July 14th is the French National Holiday. I've always heard it called Bastille Day, but the French around here seem to just call it "Fête National".

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Today is the day before National Day and IFREMER is closed.

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Menhirs (a Breton word that translates literally as long stone) are standing stones that were erected at least 5000 years ago. This one is the Kerloas Menhir and it is the closest one to the house we are living in at Saint-Renan. It is about 5 km away, atop a 132 m high ridge. It is said that it can be seen from 30 km, but I've not been able to pick it out from more than a few hundred metres away.

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Got the bikes together today (photos) and went for a ride in the early evening.

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Susan and Doug moved to France at the beginning of July 2006, for a 6 month sabbatical leave.

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