The receptionist in the hotel managed a smile, but out in the car-park the woman parked in front of my bike had a scowl for me, the server and the customers in the bakery were not amused, and every citizen wandering around the town with a shopping bag looked disapprovingly upon the world and, I felt, on me especially.
I pushed off into the hills thinking that the French penchant for formality and love of tradition could be taken too far, they could just get too far up themselves sometimes.
Still, they keep attractive cattle, this breed seems to supply the milk around here.
On I go, up hill and down dale, grumpy, cold, damp.
I’ve got a sandwich for lunch but would rather find a restaurant, don’t want a grumpy old cold soggy baguette, I want a hot food, I want wine … and this appears
An interesting prospect.
The entrance is ramshackle, featuring rusty garden furniture, old bits of machinery and cages with decorative chickens and even parrots, who call noisily. Is it even open? – a faded sign seems to indicate “ouvert”.
Then a portly short chap in workmans clothes wanders out and enters a small shed marked “WC” – there is life here.
I approach with some trepidation and push open the door – inside is warm, a dozen people are seated around three large tables, I ask for “Une personne” and a place is found for me at one long table between a married couple on my right and the man from the WC on my left, opposite similar (not brothers surely?).
The waiter is a young chap dressed in casual drab clothes and sporting a neat slicked-back mohican hairstyle, held in place by jewelled pins. Would I like an aperitif? Would I! I ask for a white wine. It is some time before it arrives because food is being distributed. I’m in no hurry though, I’m settling in, this place looks good. We are in a kind of dilapidated lean-to conservatory, there are three long tables around three sides where customers are distributed.
The wine arrives followed by a suitable interval for me to finish most of it, ahhhh.
First course is a choice of a plate of charcuterie or “Crudutes”. I want vegetables. What wine would I like? This place preserves the tradition of automatically serving wine with the meal, included, naturally. Eat without wine? Unthinkable. I choose Red.
The Crudites are a large tomato sliced and large pile of shredded carrot with a vinagrette dressing, and a boiled egg on top, and a jar of home-made pate to help yourself – just in case you felt you were missing out on the pig-meat. It is all delicious, well I don’t care what it tastes like, people here are smiling at eachother! I have a large carafe of wine to get through, things are looking up!
The aperitif has relaxed me sufficiently to start talking to the couple on my right. “This place was a surprise for me, a lucky find” I say. The same for them, they are driving from Poitiers to somewhere close by (didn’t catch the name of the town) where their children live. They are drinking rose wine which the chap rates highly – why don’t I try some, he would like to try the red. We swap bottles. The rose is good but not as good as the red, so I maneuver the bottles into the middle – let’s share.
Main course is sausage and mash. The sausages could have been better and I don’t see the point of mashed potato under any circumstances. The sliced fresh baguette in the bread basket was much nicer, the communal bread basket is FULL of nice fresh bread.
Then the cheese course, no question about this either, naturally you want cheese. It’s not great, except that even a modest cheeseboard here is better than most places in the UK. I go for a couple of slices of Tome, one is soft, one hard, both good.
I decline desert, but ask for coffee.
Which comes in a lovely little glass. By now most of the other diners have left, so I take a picture of the interior …
With the last of my wine and water.
And I manage to get back on the bike and progress, but stop in a lovely little square about half-an-hour later in St Yrieix-sous-Aixe where there is a pretty church.
Churches with these external bells always attract me, then inside this one has some really good modern stained glass
And a rather lovely icon on a stone slab.
The font is from the 12 century they say, but the rest of the church was destroyed during the hundred years war and rebuilt in 1490s.
100 years, just imagine.
More roads, more farmland, more roads, more river. Until I arrive at Limoges.