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Archive Newsletters
News letter number 1: September
2003
Welcome to my first newsletter about
France. I am sending it to you because
you have expressed an interest in France in the past (in fact many of you
have been good enough to buy my books. Thank you!). If it is not of
interest, please reply to this email with the word 'remove' in the header.
I aim in this newsletter, as with my web site www.enhancefrance.com,
to
bring you information about different aspects of France which will help
you
get more from the country - sometimes by thinking a little 'outside of the
frame'. I intend to publish it every second month.
This first letter is devoted to the subject of exchanging holiday homes.
There is an awful lot of money to be saved in swapping homes: but the idea
of exchanging your house with a complete stranger is pretty daunting. The
first question many people ask is 'How can I trust "strangers"
to look after
my home?' The simple answer is that the other party will have exactly the
same concerns at first. As home exchange is a do-it-yourself type holiday,
folks spend time organising their exchanges directly through emails and
phone calls and, by the time the exchange takes place, both should feel
that
they know and trust each other and be comfortable leaving their home
(which
is generally safer than if left empty while away) in the hands of their
exchange partners. Of course people only agree to an exchange if it suits
them and can restrict their exchange offers, e.g. to non-smokers, to
members
without small children, etc.
Whatever the initial fears, house swaps work: the great majority of people
who swap once swap again and again. I've extracted a letter from an
exchange
site (from Ray Baxter, of England) which rather proves the point..
"25 exchanges later...
..since the first exchange we have exchanged with 4 families in Britain, 5
families in France and 2 families in the USA. With some we have exchanged
more than once and at the last count we have made over 25 exchanges in
all.
We frequently visit former exchanges on the way and have many times had
former exchanges stay with us both on holiday and in our home.
What we have learned over the years.
It is rare for European people who live South of us to want to come North,
unless for the sake of their children's education i.e. learning English!
European people who live to the North of us are keen to exchange with us.
You make very firm friends with the friends of the family with whom you
exchange.
If you meet the family with whom you exchange, almost invariably there is
an
instant and continuing warmth and rapport which seems to stem from the
sharing of the intimacies of each others home.
Sometimes you never meet the family with whom you exchange! We have
swapped
4 times with a family from Falmouth and have never met them, and yet I
would
regard them as close friends. I know them well, having lived for a total
of
8 weeks in their house, telephoned, sent e-mails, Christmas cards and
letters!
Our home is always safe and sound.
Our house has always been in a better state than when we left. We need not
have hidden our valuables on that first exchange. We never have bothered
since. We have NEVER had a bad exchange - some have been more enjoyable
than
others, but I would not have missed any of them. There is something
addictive about taking the place of a "native" family in a
different
culture. You are immediately living a life, not being an exploited tourist
-
the hints they leave: "Don't go to the market on a Thursday, go about
1.00
on a Friday when they have all the bargains", "the best and
cheapest
restaurant is.", "If you want to see our country at its best
then go to.,
People couldn't be more friendly and helpful.
"My friend will take you to.", "If you need any more
information then ring
my friends -and they will come round", "My neighbours will give
you a
typical meal from the region and take you to see the best view in our
area".
I could quote so many examples of seeing the reality of the places we have
been to.
Our family has grown up - in many ways.
This says nothing of the effect it has had on our family. All of us have
begun to realize that language is not just a test for schoolchildren, but
a
really useful tool to acquire in order to understand others and enjoy
their
wit and conversation and character. Thomas intends to live in France,
James
to tour the world - Me and Mary to go on exchanging our home because it
has
brought us so much pleasure and insight and deep friendships."
Thank you Mr Baxter. I'm convinced anyway! As soon as we've finished
decorating downstairs, Ann and I are going to give it a try (or maybe
given
the remarks of Mr Baxter we'll just leave the decorating materials out..)
See my web site at
http://www.enhancefrance.com/exchange-holiday-homes-france.htm
for more
information, including providers who (for a small fee) do nothing else but
arrange house swaps.
That website, www.enhancefrance.com
continues to grow both in subject matter
and popularity. It is my - admittedly unhumble - intention that it will
become the most popular French-related site on the web for English
speakers.
I have recently placed a discussion board there, where you can ask
questions
and help others. That is another objective of the site: to pass on
information for the good of everyone. So, if you know about France, live
there, or are French, you are particularly welcome to pass your
experiences
on. If you are looking for information, please visit. You might save
yourself a lot of trouble. As Bismarck remarked: 'Only a fool learns from
his experiences. The wise man learns from the experiences of others.' The
web - and discussion boards - gives us, the public, a rare tool. Unbiased
information.
The site is currently receiving around 300 visitors a day, about half from
America, a third from Britain and lots from Australia and New Zealand. The
'Pays Anglo-Saxon' as the French call us English speakers! Add Canada,
France, Belgium and the odd visitor from just about anywhere else, and you
have a pretty diverse audience. Have a look around. If you have
friends or
colleagues who are interested in France, please pass this email on to
them.
If you want to contribute to future issues, please mail me:
alan@enhancefrance.com
Anyway, that's all for now. Speak to you again in a few weeks.
Regards
Alan Biggins
If you ever visit France, save time and money by visiting
www.enhancefrance.com first
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Newsletter number 2:
November 2003
Hello
everyone. This is my second news letter from www.enhancefrance.com
I hope that
it proves welcome. If you don’t want to receive a newsletter, please
reply with the word ‘remove’ in the subject line.
If you do
find it enjoyable, please pass it on to anyone else you know who shares an
interest in France.
This time it’s
about recipes. First a recipe for a good Christmas. Secondly, a recipe to
darken up the New Year - for Twelfth Night
First, ahem,
my recipe for a great Christmas. My two books on France, A Normandy
Tapestry and Selling French dreams, thankfully, always prove popular. Many
of my newsletter readers are also readers of the books. Thank you! Now’s
the time of year to order copies as Christmas presents, either for
yourself, if you haven’t read them, or for friends if you have. Put a
message in when you order and I will even dedicate them for you: a unique
gift at a very reasonable price. The ordering page is at
http://www.normandy-tapestry.com/ordering/ordering%20part%200%20-%20currency%20of%20order(SREG%20for%20UK,%20PAYPAL%20othersy).htm
My second
recipe is, as I’ve said, for the New Year, and specifically for Twelfth
Night, when all the decorations come down and what was bright becomes dark
again. This is a delicious French recipe ‘galette des rois’ which also
has a real taste of French culture.
Twelfth
night, the 5th of January, always makes me think of
Shakespeare, and cold winds whistling through dark castle rooms, and snow
on the air and frozen guards on the battlements when ‘knights were bold
and winter nights were extra cold’. It’s the day of Epiphany. You can
take your pick as to whether you think it celebrates a pre Christian
festival - the triumph of the sun after the dark days of winter - or a
Christian one, when the infant Jesus was presented to the three kings of
orient, Caspar. Melchior and Balthazar. Anyway, hidden in the galette is a
small porcelain figure (you can buy these in France, but otherwise you
must your imagination.) This represents the king - baby Jesus. Whoever
finds the king (hopefully a child, if there’s one present) becomes king
or queen for the day. Give them a hat!
Make your
galette on the 5th of January and you will be celebrating in
exactly the same way as just about every French household.
Anyway, on
with the recipe….
Galette des
Rois aux amandes
PASTRY
ingredients, as below, or use 450g/1lb packet of puff pastry:
250g/9 oz
plain flour
half
teaspoon salt
200g/ 7 oz
unsalted butter
150ml/
quarter pint (approx) of chilled water
dusting of
icing sugar
FILLING
ingredients:
115g/4 oz
unsalted butter
115g/4 oz
caster sugar
3 egg yolks
4 drops real
almond essence (not flavouring)
3
tablespoons kirsch
115g/4 oz
ground almonds
1 small
porcelain figurine/gold ring/dried bean
PASTRY
sift the
flour and salt into a large bowl. Cut in 85g/3 oz of the butter with a
sharp knife until the mixture resembles crumbs. Mix in enough water to
make a non-sticky dough. Knead gently, cover and leave for 20 mins.
Roll out the
pastry on a floured board to about 5mm/quarter inch thickness. Dot it with
one third of the remaining butter cut into dice. Fold the pastry into 3,
as if folding a letter to go into an envelope, then again into 3 in the
opposite direction like a napkin. Cover in a cloth and refrigerate for 20
mins. Repeat this process twice more and leave for another 20 minutes
chilling before using.
Divide
pastry in half. Roll each half into a round (shape) of 23cm/9 inch
diameter. Let them rest while you make the filling.
FILLING
Cream butter
and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whisk in 2 of the egg yolks,
almond essence, kirsch and ground almonds. Work together until you have a
smooth paste.
Rinse a
baking tray under cold tray. Place one of the rounds on the tray and spoon
the paste onto it, leaving a 5cm/2 inch margin all round. Hide the ‘king’
in the paste.
Beat the
remaining egg with a little water and paint the pastry margin. Place the 2nd
round of pastry on top and gently press the edges together. Chill for 45
minutes.
Preheat oven
to 190c/375f/gas 5. Using a sharp knife, make a lattice or star-shaped
pattern on the pastry surface, but do not cut through to the filling.
Pinch the edges together. Paint the top with the egg wash. Bake the
galette for 30-40 mins until pastry is crisp and brown. Transfer to a rack
and cool. Dust with icing sugar and grill for a minute if liked.
Bon appetit!
Alan Biggins
(with thanks to my wife, Ann)
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News letter number 3 -
Booze Cruise to Calais
- April 2005
Booze Cruise to Calais – news letter
number 3 from EnhanceFrance
1.
About this edition of the newsletter
This edition is all about an offer
which, if you live in Britain, can save you a good deal of money, and
even give you a free trip to France. A store in Calais offers a deal
whereby if you order your booze from them, they will prepare it for you,
so that you just turn up and collect it. (It’s only 10 minutes from the
ferry port). The whole collection process is quick (15 – 20 minutes),
painless and saves a lot of money (saving about 40% on UK prices).
That’s a very useful deal. Where it gets
simply amazing is that if you order £300 worth of drink from them, and
travel and collect it on the same day, they will refund the price
of the ferry crossing! (using specific companies).
So, for your £300, you get about as much booze
as would cost you £500 in Britain, a day out on the continent and a free
crossing as well.
(I’ve also used the offer as the basis
for a surprise long weekend break with my wife. Although that wasn’t a
day trip, so we didn’t get the ticket price back, as Seafrance offer
unlimited period returns for well under £100 and French hotels are about
half the price of British ones, it was still cheaper than going away for
a weekend in Britain, plus the savings on the booze of course!)
2.
Planning
I intended sharing the trip with a
friend. We joined forces in planning the route, working out the car
capacity and ordering the drinks (more detailed information on all of
these on my
web site). My order was for £160 (44 bottles of wine, 2 of spirits
and 60 litres of beer), Roger’s was for £210 (72 bottles of wine).
Enough wine and beer to take us through a good few parties and
barbecues. He went for mostly New World wines, we choose French.
Unfortunately, due to delays with Calais sailings (now thankfully
resolved), Roger couldn’t make it in the end, so the lads’ trip was
cancelled and I took my daughter, Alice, with me instead.
3.
The day.
Preferring to steer clear of the motorways in
rush hour, we booked on the 6.45 a.m. ferry from Dover. We set off in
good time to get there (for more on working out journey times, see my
web site). As our ferry (Hoverspeed) only took an hour to cross, we
didn’t get much of a doze, but 8.45 French time, was a perfect time to
arrive for our day out. We were keen to make a day of it, there being
lots of interesting things to do in the area. (on my website, I give
details of several good days out within easy reach of Calais)
Once in France, we headed for Montreuil
– about 45 miles from Calais (I have stayed in this small town before on
a weekend break and I wanted to show it to Alice. There are details on
how to get to Montreuil on the web site.)
The full name of the town is Montreuil
sur mer, though that’s a bit of a cheek, as it’s up on a hill at least 6
miles from the sea. That having been said, this was France’s first, and
for centuries only, outlet to the sea (via the river I guess), all
coastal points north belonging to the Spanish Netherlands (until 1678),
all points South belonging to England (intermittently until the
sixteenth century). For that reason, the French took great care to
fortify the town and there is a fine walk round the walls and an
impressive citadel. Its military importance continued through the
centuries, as it was the headquarters of Field Marshall Haig, Commander
in Chief of the British forces during the First World War.
It is about 45 miles from Calais on the
N16 (which is partly a toll road, though you can avoid that part if
speed’s not critical - as we did - by leaving it at J29 and following
the old N1, direction Abbeville).
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The road takes you through the
town gate and up into the high town.
It’s
wise to avoid parking in the blue bays (which are for locals),
but to follow the road on, to where a very large square appears
on your left, where there is free parking.
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We started our walk round the walls at
10.40 (as I said, we had taken it very easy from Calais). The ramparts
are grassy with good clean paths on them, although the safety
precautions are typically French, so that there is four feet of grass
between you and the edge, where the walls drop forty foot vertically. If
you have young children with you maybe another destination (such as
Wimereux perhaps, see my website) should be considered. Below are
allotments, trees and a view over the countryside. Half way round the
wall walk is the citadel, a very strong site on a spur at the highest
point of the town.
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By the 19th century, Montreuil
was a sleepy medieval town on the coaching road from Calais to
Paris. The writer Victor Hugo spent a brief stay here and was
inspired to use it as the setting for his famous novel. Les
Miserables, about the turbulent years of the Napoleonic Empire
and the 1830 revolution. There are tours of places in the town
connected with the story. |
The tourist information office (which
you pass on the wall walk) is very good and has a range of interesting
leaflets. We got back to the main square at mid day. As Alice was
suffering slightly from travel sickness, it hardly seemed worth trying a
‘gourmet’ restaurant
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(We have stayed in the past at
Les Hauts de Montreuil, which was a nice play to stay, though we
found the gourmet food in the restaurant disappointing, and the
restaurant staff condescending.)
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So we plumped for a meal in one of the
hypermarkets on the way back. The food was good and cheap. We also took
time out to work our way through the hypermarket to buy cheese, a couple
of books (Alice is studying French) and some odds and ends as ordered
from home (we must be some of the few ‘Brits’ to arrive back from France
with a mop bucket and laundry basket).
Then we headed back to Calais to pick up the
booze. It was a painless experience which took about 15 minutes. Of the
18 different products we had ordered, all were ready for us, on a
pallet. We wheeled the pallet through the checkout, where a check was
made that all was as ordered (it was), then we paid. The weight of the
bottles was 202 kg and the bottles fitted in the car with plenty of room
to spare. (More about weights and allowances, on the
web site.) As we had time, space and weight to spare, I couldn’t
resist nipping back in to get a couple of more cases.
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Then I was persuaded by Alice to
drive into central Calais to find a boulangerie to buy a crispy
baguette and some cakes. We parked on a piece of waste ground
(free, one of the minor joys of France), strolled across to the
town hall, back to the car and back to the ferry in good time
for the ferry (had we been a few minutes earlier we would have
caught the earlier, on which the accommodating ferry staff told
us there was room).
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We left Calais at 5.45 p.m. and were
back in England at… 5.45 p.m. The run up the M25 and M1 was very
forgiving, and we finally got home about 8.00 p.m. I had driven about
450 miles but didn’t feel too bad on it. A profitable and enjoyable day
out.
If you want to save a packet on drinks
and get a free ferry trip to France, visit my web site
http://www.enhancefrance.com/booze-cruise.html
If you know of anyone else who might
find this offer useful - perhaps to stock up for a party or wedding, or
just to save money - please pass this email on to them. They might be
interested in the other parts of my web site, which is designed to
enhance your visit to, and knowledge of, France in many ways.
Best wishes --- Alan Biggins
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