Welcome to The Good Life France Newsletter which this week comes to you from Honfleur in Normandy.
I’ve been travelling a lot lately, Nancy (eastern France), Normandy, Paris, Lyon, Avignon and Provence, and I’ve got heaps more travel coming up including the Christmas markets of Strasbourg, Colmar and Riquewihr, and the Christmas chateaux of the Loire Valley. But my next stop will be Cognac and La Rochelle, come with me via Instagram where I’ll post photos and videos!
I’m working on heaps of articles for The Good Life France Magazine and website, but I also have an idea for a book about the 101 best places to visit in France, so lots of research is needed, I have a much longer list than I should have, and I’m whittling it down! I always love your suggestions too, personal recommendations are great to have, so, if you’ve been somewhere and loved it and it’s top of your must see in France list – please feel free to hit reply and let me know!
Meanwhile at home, my 7 cats and 4 dogs are enjoying the rather mellow autumn we’re having. Bread Man, he delivers the bread to all the little villages in the Seven Valleys where I live, says he loves this season because it’s perfect for soup suppers with a crispy baguette, and for baking cheese with a big chunk of crusty country loaf. He’s a born salesman – I bet you can guess what we had for supper last week! Anyway I told him I love this time of the year because it reminds me of Bonfire Night when I was a kid.
“Bonfire Night. What is zis?” he said
It’s a bit complicated but I gave him a potted version of how in Britain we celebrate a failed plot to blow up the House of Lords and all in it, including King James 1 of England on November 5, 1605.
Bread Man was astonished.
“Like a Bastille Day, but not a Bastille Day?”
I guess it was sort of, except that it didn’t involve that many people and it didn’t result in any major changes to how the country was run. Well, the King’s “deliverance” was honoured the next November 5th, and a few years later somewhere in England, a town decided to make an effigy of one the ring leaders of the plot, one Guy Fawkes, and to burn it on a fire. And hundreds of years later we still have “Guy Fawkes night” or “bonfire night.”
When I was a kid we celebrated with a bonfire in the garden, let off fireworks and scoffed toffee apples (pomme d’amour, or love apples in French) and used to hawk a ‘Guy’ – an effigy around the streets and ask strangers for money to fund the fireworks! Those were the days!
Bread Man was completely gobsmacked by this historic tale, and has promised to make me some salted crème toffee apples for the day. He never misses a sales opp when one crops up and will be telling that story to his French customers and wowing his British customers with toffee apples the whole of next week!
Bisous from a tiny village with a big heart in the middle of nowhere France,
Janine
Editor
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Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Living the Dream in Rural France all available as ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online. Her new book How to be French – a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de vivre, is out now – a look at the French way of life.
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