Blog

Did you know … ? The French baguette.

The baguette and the croissant, which we all associate with France, is not French at all but Austrian.  Both were introduced to France by one August Zang, from Vienna, in the nineteenth century.  August Zang opened a bakery in Paris and sold Viennoiseries :  the quintessentially French baguette and croissant are, in fact, copies of […]

Posted 9 years ago

The Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916, one hundred years ago.

The Battle of the Somme, more formally known as the Somme Offensive, raged in the north of France from 1st July 1916 till November 1916 when an end was called.  It was a First World War battle between the Germans on one side and the British and French on the other side. During that first […]

Posted 9 years ago

Are parents the best people to deal with their teenagers?

Those terrible teens. The best way to deal with teenagers is to get rid of them.        Years ago, when my now-taller-than-I-am babes were just little, a girl-friend sent her thirteen year-old daughter to boarding school.  They just didn’t get on, she explained, and it was the best solution. I was horrified.  How dare this […]

Posted 9 years ago

An entrepreneur in France

An English entrepreneur in France. I never imagined I’d be an entrepreneur of any sort.  And now that I am one, I cannot imagine being anything else. I trained as a teacher and taught French and Spanish for twelve years.  My father was a doctor and my mother a professor of Latin.  My background, therefore, […]

Posted 9 years ago

Snippets of French history. General Leclerc.

Interested in France ?  Book a holiday with us www.seasidefrance.com or e-mail rochebonnemanagement@hotmail.co.uk   Leclerc (on the left) talking to his men during WWII As you drive around France this summer you will notice that many roads are named after General Leclerc.  Indeed, the French do tend to name their streets after famous people, famous […]

Posted 9 years ago

My last book for now: “Kefani”.

     Tags for Kefani will be: #Africa #family #childhood … to give you an idea.  Available in paperback and on Kindle. Extract:- The Head Man said a few short words and then indicated to my father that he could start. I didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying, and I leant against […]

Posted 9 years ago

Famous French writers. Albert Camus. Snippets of French history.

Interested in France ? Book a self-catering holiday in the Charente Maritime. www.domainederochebonne.com   Albert Camus was born to a pied-noir family in Algeria, which was then French.  The term pied-noir, sometimes considered derogatory though it shouldn’t be, refers to French (or European) people who lived in Algeria during French occupation.  The term is usually […]

Posted 9 years ago

Mornac. Places to visit in France

Interested in France ?   Go to www.domainederochebonne.com Mornac (Mornac-sur-Seudre) is a fishing village about 10 -20 mins’ drive from the Domaine de Rochebonne.  Like so many of these places, when we first came here it was a dark, dirty and smelly backwater.  In the past ten years or so it has been renovated and […]

Posted 9 years ago

The island of Oleron: nearby places to visit

  The bridge over to this island is just a few kilometres from our property (seasidefrance.com) and the more hardy cyclists among us may wish to do the trip by bike.  The bridge was completed just as we moved to that area in the 1990s, is free of charge (whereas there is a toll on the […]

Posted 9 years ago

Jean de la Fontaine: great French writers

  Jean de la Fontaine 1621-1695 When I was a girl, attending a French school on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific (as one does) it was obligatory to learn some of the Fables de la Fontaine.  I can still recite some of them. Jean de la Fontaine was the eldest of […]

Posted 9 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

A Call From France
French Sand
Kefani: An African Childhood
The Man With Green Fingers
Saying Nothing