End of August 2008

Very special newsflash!!!!!

Annie and Dominic are now proud parents of Abigail Chloe, born today 29^th August at 10.15pm, weighing in at 7lb 6oz. Everyone is very well and excited and very very tired, it has been a long day.

That makes us grandparents to four darling children, three of which are girls, poor Owen is somewhat outnumbered.

Well no excuse to write the blog today with such exciting news. We have had visitors for the last three weeks non stop including my brother and sister and their partners. It is the first time for Gill and Phil has come to see us in France and we had a fantastic two weeks, albeit a very busy two weeks, which included a couple of days in Pyrenees and a day in Biarritz, many day markets, a number of evening fetes and of course a few Aussie barbeques to meet the locals and other members of the family who live in France,

At last the weather has changed and we are experiencing fantastic sunny days, luckily the pool has been erected and very serviceable. In fact, we have just had a dip. We are now having 9 days without visitors so all hell has let loose in the DIY department, Terry has almost finished repainting the lounge and giving it some damp proofing and I have been in garden, but as they say all work makes Jack a dull man, so we have already had a day out on my uncles boat on D' Lot which was wonderful and very restful. This week end will be full on with lunches and fetes, so we wont be too over worked.

We are throughly enjoying the good life aspect of France and are gathering the fruits of our labour, ie the vegetable patch, the tomatoes are ripening at quite a speed, plenty of zuchinnis and french beans and hopefully our figs will be ready before we leave in four weeks time.

Its our 35th wedding annerversery on Monday, where has that time gone?? I am not sure what we will be doing, Terry asked me what I wanted to mark the occasion, to be honest, I feel so privilaged with our life that there is nothing else I could ask for, we arevery happy with healthy children and grandchildren, a house in France what a life!!!!!

For those of you who have requested it, below is the recipe to my 'famous' tarte:

Tarte a la Rhubarbe et Citron

(I have found this recipe very simple and have used frozen berries instead of rhubarb but make sure you really strain them well or mixture too watery) Bon Appetite

Preheat the oven to 375 (190 C) Gas 5

For 8 people (I think really 6!!)

Cooking time 25 mins

1 tart tin 28 x 3cm (11 x 11 ¼ in)

Shortcrust pastry

For Rhubarb Filling

400g (14oz) rhubarb washed, peeled and chopped into 2cm(3/4 in) pieces

100g (4oz) sugar

200ml water

Lemon Cream Filling

2 egg yolks

50g (2 oz) caster sugar

70mls double cream (I use Creme Fraise)

Finely grated zest of a lemon

Preparing the pastry case

Allow the dough to come to room temp. Butter the sides of the tart tin and base.

Roll the prepared dough out to fit up the sides of the flan dish. Rest for 2 -3 mins Place into tart dish and refrigerate for a min of half an hr.

Blind bake the pastry case – 10mins

Prepare the rhubarb filling

In a saucepan, bring to the boil the sugar and water, then add the chopped rhubarb and simmer for 2 mins, strain into a colander and reserve.

Preparing the lemon cream filling

Beat the egg yolks and sugar in bowl for 10 mins on high speed, until the volume has tripled.

Mix in the cream and lemon zest.

Cooking the tart

Distribute the rhubarb over the bottom of the tart, then spread with the lemon cream filling.

Cook in oven at the same temp for 25 – 30mins

Serving

Remove the tart from the oven and sprinkle with extra caster sugar.

Cool down for 1 hour from serving.