So, off we go to Angers in the Pays De La Loire for a trip around the Musee du Cointreau, the only liqueur I enjoy to be truthful. We made it to the musee after a particularly enjoyable lunch, where I told the lady who made my chocolate desert, roughly translated "I am a very happy woman, I can die now". She enjoyed my French and Rolfy enjoyed my inability to charm other ladies.
Now then. Cointreau is made from only THE PEEL of oranges, and if you have any in your cupboard, hidden away by the fig liqueur and the old bottle of Baileys, that square bottle of orange joy was made in the room you see here. Go and put some in your glass tonight. Or on some ice-cream.
These are some calves with earings and a mini me next to a big street lamp.
After this we went and found a vineyard so we could buy some wine direct from the vineyard. After driving for some hours (because it was off season, and everywhere was closed) we finally pulled into one that looked vaugley inhabited.
After reading a sign which appeared to say, "If the cave is free of the people, please ring the bell on the ceiling for elephant jam arse catapult" (actually, it had been a long day and we couldn't be bothered to look up every other word in the dictionary, so we guessed most of it. We rang a bell and a balding man in French looking jumper, with the same haircut as Uncle Dave Knipe waved at us from his patio doors. He was on the phone and smoking wildly. His name was Olivier Faradeau and he made some damned fine wine.
He spoke English with great effort, but not much finesse. We bargained. He showed us his vats. We drank more enourmous 'tastes'. We failed to negotiate a good deal. As we left with Olivier clutching our filthy lucre, he stopped us - I was hoping he was going to tell us that we spoke French like Marie Antoinette and had a palette comme un conneseur. Mais non. He stopped us to say "Mesuierdamme!" (Clearly he'd drank so much of his own product, he thought Rolfy and me were not two people but one hermaphrdite), "Mesuierdamme! J'aime la Worthington's, et J'adore la Boddington's!" We turn to see him waving these horrid little cans at us, "C'est le creme du manchester, non?" our reply did nothing to help the entente cordial, but sometimes politeness is uneccessary in the face of such hideousness.
More soon......
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