St.Briac sur Mer

One sometimes wonders if the effort required to travel is amply rewarded by the pleasures of the destination. 18 hours into the 22 hour journey from Atlanta to St. Briac sur Mer, Brittany, the answer was looking shaky. Flight delays going out of Atlanta led to rushed terminal changes at Newark, which were nothing compared to complete disorientation upon arrival in Manchester, UK, followed by yet another flight delay. The arrival in Rennes marked a turning point, with no problems with the rental car, and a short hour's drive later, we were pulling up to Les Essarts in St. Briac sur Mer.

We were greeted by Sofie, the property's house dog. She had her suspicions about our character but let us enter, where we found everyone out to lunch at the Perette's. Unfazed, we toured the house and, plagued by fatigue, selected a bedroom on our own with a view overlooking the sea. After a brief rest, we started to feel the magic of this beautiful house and the lulling sound of the waves crashing outside our window called us to the water. Jacques promised that the water was cold but that you didn't notice once you were in, so we suited up and followed him along a wandering path overlooking the sea down to a beautiful horseshoe shaped beach.

The water was indeed brisk but nothing compared to Averill in the fall. Plus it was salt water and there were waves to play in and we were soon all soaked. The last of the travel fatigue slipped from our pores as we leaped and jumped in the sea.

Blogspot isn't uploading photos for some reason but you can find some on flickr.

Tomato Update

Tomatoes are mostly growing wildly but so far only one actual fruit, although I may have found one tiny on this evening on one of the plants out front. It seems like the front yard two are a tad happier although some of the back yard ones (particularly the Bush Celebrity) are blossoming wildly. Just no fruit. Not sure what's up with that.

Tomatoes at 1245

This Memorial Day weekend, we focused on....tomatoes! And tomato containers. The original goal was to add two plants to our existing two (a Brandywine and a Cherokee Purple), which I planted about a month ago and which have gotten to be about 4' tall. Only one fruit so far, and they've been experiencing blossom drop, but I ordered some special blossom set spray from Burpee that everyone seemed to like, so here's hoping.


We started a Pike's where the plants were two for one -- which was a sign of the plant quality -- had to look hard to find good plants but ended up with a Celebrity, a Big Boy, a Better Boy and something else. Then went over to Hasting's, which is where we should have started. From there, we departed with a Mr. Stripey (Alan's choice), a Yellow Jubilee, a Yellow Pear, and a Grape Tomato. All went into various containers, including a reuse of one of our cat litter containers to attempt an upside down tomato plant, which were all the rage in the internet forums. That was yesterday's DIY adventure. Today's was to create a homemade self-watering container.

Community Supported Agriculture

Awhile back the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran an article about Emory's efforts towards serving regional and organic food. It stimulated me to look for Community Supported Agriculture programs in the area that were taking new customers and we signed up for the one from Farmer's Fresh Food. We pick up our weekly bag at our local Whole Foods on Wednesdays and every week have 5-7 items, including vegetables, herbs, and on one occasion, eggs. It has introduced us to some new foods like kale, collards, and turnips, which are surprisingly delicious when roasted with onions and garlic in olive oil. We also get lovely fresh lettuce, with so much flavor compared to grocery lettuce.



This week we got this huge cauliflower, whose taste is so sweet and texture delicate. All in all, we love getting our vegetables and fruits this way and it's leading us to new choices which is fun, too.

Weekend visit to Parker's Ferry

We just returned from a brief visit with Suz and Jim over at Parker's Ferry, Jim's plantation which is a beautiful natural oasis on the banks of the Combahee River. It's about a 5 hour drive from Atlanta--not too bad. We did the usual -- walks on the dikes, alligator and bird watching, a trip to Plum's for lunch in Beaufort. And some shopping for the nieces and nephews. All in all a nice change of pace. Plus Suzy cooked some yummy meals.

I asked Alan what his favorite thing was about Parker's and he said, "the quiet." I might concur, although I answered "the color palette," which right now has the bright greens of spring and this weekend featured slate blue skies with puffy thunderheads. It was very nice to get a bit of respite.

Spring in Atlanta

Spring is so incredibly beautiful here. These are taken in our back yard.

Sports weekend in Atlanta

This weekend we said goodbye to the 07-08 Thrashers and went to our first (and likely only) Braves game of the season. It was the first time we had been downtown since the tornado that struck on March 15. The destruction was still obvious, with many windows still out in the Westin, CNN Omni, Georgia Pacific, etc. The Tabernacle is covered with a blue tarp and looks to need some major help. Small pieces of glass were everywhere. What a mess.

The Thrashers pulled out a 4-1 win to end this horrible season. Ilya Kovalchuk was named MVP, which he was, and the crowd pulled a nice chant of "Kovy, Kovy" for the first time that I've heard. Time for playoff hockey. Just not, unfortunately, for the Thrashers.

Sunday we headed down to Turner Field with our friends Merry and Ann. Holder Construction, who is building our Psychology Building, had called last week and offered tickets to the game. I am not a baseball fan and almost said "no" but thought that Alan might like it, so said "yes." On Friday, Brad from Holder brought the tickets by and called me twice to make sure I understand all the directions, etc. I was frankly a little puzzled. I mean, I knew where Turner Field was and figured out that we could manage to get ourselves in the stadium with no problem.



Only when I got home that night did I open the envelope with the tickets to see that they were for the new Suntrust Club. Row A, seats 6-9. Wooha. What a trip. We drove up to the stadium, showing our parking pass as we passed barrier after barrier, cruised up to the door, handed our car keys to the attendant and headed inside. In the club lounge, there was a full bar, an omelet station, crab cakes, and tapas. All very tasty. And the view from the seats was just ridiculous. We even had flat panel displays in front of us so we could see the TV coverage and attendants fetching drinks and food.

Thank you, Holder!