back from beyond

So I've been away. To France actually it's been nice to see a blue sky clear up above. Nice to spend some time with my husband and great to eat real food. I've been going on and off to France for 11 years. I'd been a few times before that mostly to Paris and always felt Paris reflected just how you were feeling. If you were tired you would feel tired if you were in love all you would see were people in love if you were stressed you would see stress all around.

Anyway back to what being married to a French man has brought me. Well I have completely changed the way I eat and drink. Food in France is an experience something to take care over and savour. While there are many supermarkets there is still the tradition of buying food everyday from markets. 60 million people live in France and they all need to eat as a result while a lot of the food does not have organic labels on it. It is in fact organic. This brings the taste to another level. What I do always notice first off is there are very few people with blue eyes . Big brown eyes everywhere, the women are so chic, especially the older women and their skin is so clear. Someone asked me recently why is it that the older french women look so chic? YOU notice it in China as well , where is no mutton dressed up as lamb just women growing old gracefully. Not trying to look like a 18 year old's.

So some of this has got to be the way they drink, oh the demon drink. In Ireland we drink to remember and we drink to forget. In France they drink to enhance the flavour of what is eaten quality not quantity. A nice glass of wine with a meal, not two bottles with a packets of crisps as in Ireland. This takes some training to do I was brought up in a drinking culture when I went to collage in Bristol there were about 5 of us from Northern Ireland almost all big drinkers. I could not believe there were people the same age in the UK who never touched a drink or who would sit nursing a half all night. It was alien. I remember reading an article at the time about Queens student union the figures were hazy but what they were saying was at the students union in Belfast there was twice as much money taken in the bars as was given out in grants to the students. That was a time of the 60p pint.

So why do the French and Irish drink so differently? I remember doing a course in Dublin and one of the modules was about oppression it said in oppressive cultures there is always a tendency to addict to drink or drugs or both a way of releasing the pain of the oppression. I suppose that's a bit what it felt like to me growing up,how do you release yourself from the everyday nightmare of some of the things that go on around you? Not immediately because I was brought up the the country and we had fresh air around us but the whole bigger picture was pretty darn sad really. Anyway you follow what your parents do and while my parents were both not around the adults around took a drink as a way of entertainment. Or never touched a drop.

In France my in laws have a cellar, my father in law has been collecting wine for many years and knows the value of a great bottle of wine and the power of a bottle of champagne with your starter. Nice little tastes of things and being with my husband for 11 years has changed my drinking habits to that of the french.Life is so much clearer without a hangover. Quality not quantity. This in turn must effect your skin.

There is actually a book written about "why French women do not get fat", its quite famous, I must dig out the author its all about how to eat and drink and stay looking good. I confess I have not read it but I started to and realised that it was a lot of the thing that my mother in law does and habits I had changed since getting married.

Sent is another thing, the french invented perfume, they didn't like washing and the french court invented it . I once visited the perfume labs in Grasse in the South of France where they concoct their brews.In every French village there will be at least one perfume shop. Do you think that might work in Portaferry any time soon? The French have a very keen sense of smell I know is a sweeping generalisation but all any French person I know smells things before I do and knows the power of a good smell.

I remember my husband in Dublin being able to tell every women in the office the name of her perfume.They were very impressed but he said what do you expect, I'm french.

Chocolate now there is a thing, the french love dark chocolate. In the village where my in laws live there are four chocolate shops, that specialist chocolate shops with someone in them making the stuff, Not importing in dairy milk. I didn't understand the fuss about it but I know now my tastes have changed.When I eat milk chocolate it tastes like chewing fat. I remember something about during the war there was not enough co co so in the UK they added fat and milk and never went back. (But you would need to check that out). Small tasty things in moderation.

So anyway www.paysdenyons.com is where they live it was picked for retirement because it is the driest region in France and with health issues is good to be in the heat.Its all olive trees and lavender bushes.

While there I reconnected with a gallery in the village and I now have some of my china prints there. She is very interested in my sailing paintings so I think that might be their destination after Clotworthy. Anyway its still nice to be back in Belfast and you know what the sky is blue today and it's Thursday so that means it's late night Art. Lots of e mails to get through. Some interesting things going on over the next couple of weeks so I'll pass on the info. Bye for now.