Cellpic Sunday: Poinsettia

With the festive season over, our poinsettia was starting to shed its leaves all over the floor, so it had to be expelled from the house. Its temporary new home is the back step, where it got very wet from the almost constant rain that fell last week.

Cellpic Sunday 12 January 2025

Cellpic Sunday: Incongruous Pink

The French countryside is pretty rugged, especially in the winter, and any signs of human habitation or exploitation are usually no more than utilitarian and predominantly in shades of brown or green.

Accordingly, it was a little unusual to find that this nearby farm gate was secured with a tie in two shades of pink.

Cellpic Sunday 5 January 2025

Cellpic Sunday: Christmas Fayre

The ‘superette’ in our local village is pretty well stocked with fresh and prepared food, the more so at this time of yea. This is the display of some of their Christmas specials from this year, including such local….er, delicacies as veal sweetbread vol-au-vents and beef tongue in sauce.

We’re French, but not that French, so we stuck to roast beef…

Cellpic Sunday 29 December 2024

Cellpic Sunday: Early Sunset

4:30 in the afternoon one day last week. The nights are drawing in…

Cellpic Sunday 1 December 2024

Cellpic Sunday: On a country walk

A walk along a country lane yesterday yielded this spectacular cloudscape.

Cellpic Sunday 10 November 2024

Leading lines, anyone?

A little 30-minute constitutional last Friday morning led us down a narrow and rarely used country road with pastureland on each side.. The low autumn sun cast long shadows and the tractor tyre tracks at the entrance to this field produced enough leading lines to make anybody happy.

Cellpic Sunday 3 November 2024

Cellpic Sunday: Late bloomer

It’s been warmer than usual so far this autumn, which may explain why, even at the end of October, some flowers are blooming and clearly still have more to offer..

Cellpic Sunday 27 October 2024

Cellpic Sunday: My first espresso martini

I don’t often drink cocktails nowadays, but recently I tried an espresso martini for the first time. I don’t think it’ll be the last.

Cellpic Sunday 20 October 2024

Cellpic Sunday: Rooms with views

We were away last weekend on a (very) special occasion trip. Our destination was the city of La Rochelle, on France’s west coast.

En route, however, we broke our journey in the city of Poitiers, where we stayed overnight in a budget hotel whose chief attraction was its proximity to the railway station. We certainly didn’t choose it for the views:

On the other hand, in La Rochelle we splashed the cash on a suite in a considerably more upmarket establishment, where the views were a signifcant step up from the poor relation in Poitiers.

Cellpic Sunday 13 October 2024

Cellpic Sunday: The Curious Cat

Our recent walk around the nearby village of Rancon seems to have aroused the interest of one of the local inhabitants.

Cellpic Sunday 29 September 2024