Friday 26 October 2012

A Restaurant with a Heart!

When we were staying at La Matha at the beginning of the October, one day, we had lunch at Comptoir de Genès at Saint-Genès de Castillon.  We have eaten there a few times before, and always enjoyed eating from the menu du jour.

This time, there was something on the menu that I had not tried before - Duck Hearts. These were to be grilled and served with frîtes.  The waitress, who was English, had expressed her own reservations, but had commented that all through the week, customers had come back to eat it second or third times.  I decided to give it a try.....  Well, what can I say - they were really, really delicious!

They came on a couple of skewers, with a bucket of fries.  Just like small sirloin steaks, which I suppose is right, as hearts are muscle and not offal like kidneys or liver.

The wine selection was, as ever good, and all the food we ate was of the highest order.  This was definitely the best restaurant we dined in during that stay.  Highly recommended!

Monday 15 October 2012

Videos

It has always been a frustration the difficulty of conveying how big the house is.  La Matha is Tardis-like in its qualities - the large open plan living area is far bigger than most of the photos can convey.  For that reason, I took some videos some time ago, but whilst I can take reasonable still photos, I am by no means accomplished at video photography!  The results were juddery to say the least.

A family friend who enjoys taking the odd video was staying at La Matha in mid-September, and volunteered to take a promotional video.  This was so much better than my efforts, and as a result, I have loaded this onto YouTube and embedded it in the main website: http://www.la-matha.com/videos.html.

I'm not sure if this will attract any more people, but it might help to persuade people that it really is a large house!

Going East along the Dordogne

Last year we did a day trip eastwards, ending up at Sarlat: http://la-matha.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/another-trip-from-la-matha.html.  This time, we decided to do a similar trip, but starting at Sarlat, so that we could spend a bit more time there, and then make a couple of stops heading back more or less westwards, so that the journey home was not so long.

Sarlat is a great place - a Bastide town with loads of history.  We found a walk suggested in the Dorling Kinderlsey Eye Witness book, which took us round the centre of the old town.


After Sarlat, we headed to Domme for lunch.  Domme is south of Sarlat on cliffs above the Dordogne river, and is a lovely old town, with spectacular views around the river valley.  It does have a  Cave, which has plenty of stalactites and stalagmites - a guided trip around the cave takes about an hour.

From there, we headed back to Baynac, which we had passed on the way to Sarlat.  Baynac has glorious castle on the top of the cliffs, with the village squeezed down on the bank of the river.
 Click on the picture below for a stunning panoramic view:

After Domme, we headed south again for Monpazier - a delightful Bastide town.  We arrived at about 17:30, so all was very quiet.  We had a glass of wine in a bar on the square before heading back across country to La Matha via Villareal and Miramont - a route with some ridiculously straight roads! 




Les Jardins du Sardy

This is a place we have publicised on our website: http://www.la-matha.com/Local%20Area%20-%20Gardens.html, but have never visited.  Some family members went recently and told us how good they were, so we paid a visit.  They are located just north of the road to the west of St Foy on the way to Castillon.  

The gardens have been restored, but, although there is a formal element, they are mainly carefully informal.  We are really glad we finally got to go.  Here are some of my photos.




Autumn Visit

We're now back from a lovely week out at La Matha, spent with some friends.  We did a few chores/DIY stuff, but also did a lot of visiting places, eating out and tasting/drinking wine.  Later posts about the trips we made with some photos.

One big thing that was sorted out was additional insulation for the large en-suite shower room - the ceiling had been insulated; however, the wall behind the washbasin was just plasterboard.  This was the reason why, when the weather got to -15c last winter, we suffered some damage in that bathroom.  As a result, I bought 100mm think insulation sheets and some adhesive.  It took me less than two hours to insulate the whole of the back walls, including our cupboard on the landing and the triple bedroom and shower room.  Hopefully the problems of last winter will not be repeated.

If the weather does get as cold as it did last winter, I also rigged up a frost thermometer for an oil-filled radiator for the large en-suite.  This has now been left so that it will come on if the temperature falls below 0c.

One thing that had been annoying me was that, for a couple of years, a hazel bush had grown so large that it obscured the swimming pool from the master bedroom window (not that I spend a lot of time looking out of that window!).  I had bought a good bow saw, and started to be a lumber-jack.  Soon the whole party joined in the fun - stripping the leaves and making kindling and firewood.  We did not pull up the roots, but will chop down the growth each time it gets too much.

Finally, and all the visitors from this year will be please to know this, we have finally identified the source of the blocked loo and slow draining shower in the main en-suite.  This is caused by bad angles/joins in the pipework from the loo and the shower.  A French plumber called Nathaniel Botti will be sorting this out the w/c 22 October.