Just Humans Being...

We have spent yesterday exploring this lovely area of Brittany. Nice to do when it's a quieter time of year. We drove to Port Navalo at the end of the gulf where it was warm and sunny. We found lots of quiet villages. Marshlands. Maps. Lighthouses. We watched a storm come in while we ate our picnic. There was a cormorant sat on the rock just out at sea, but the camera hasn't picked it up. Lots of the beaches were covered in red seaweed. Chateau Suscinio A 13th century castle with connections to Henry VII and the War of the Roses. We enjoyed a walk around Port Navalo's headland before the stormy weather started! Such a warm and quiet day!  Love Kay and Sime xx

Day 6 of  World Vegan Month. We've been out all day exploring the Golfe du Morbihan...which is lovely and on return, we wanted to make something quick. As we had a few carrots and lentils, we decided to make a quick version of our lentil soup. It turned out a bit thin, but was tasty, warm and perfect with the crusty bread we had picked up. The place we are staying in has a blender, so we were able to whizz it up. We used 4 cloves of garlic, 1 onion, 4 carrots, 1 potato and approximately 2 tablespoons of red lentils (we would normally use more, but it was all we had). We boiled/simmered the lentils, added the potato and fried the rest of the veg with soy sauce and also added cumin, smoked paprika and black pepper. We whizzed it all up with some soya milk too and unfortunately this was the only photo we took, just after we put the soup back in the pan to warm through... Here is a more reliable recipe from a post some years ago...you can add fresh cori

We have travelled from the Auvergne, through the Loire and are now on the south east edge of Brittany in a lovely space. Finding places with kitchens is always important, as we like to cook! Tonight's dinner was fresh organic broccoli from the Biocoop, which we steamed for 5 minutes, then fried with 5 cloves of garlic and 1 red onion in soy sauce with dried basil and black pepper. We also added a tin of mixed beans and sweetcorn and finished with the juice of half a lemon. We served it with last night's leftover tabbouleh and a mixed salad. It's always good to have an opportunity to cook when travelling and it doesn't have to be difficult or long-winded. This place is perfect and it's obvious that the owners are enthusiastic cooks themselves, as the kitchen is well-equipped!  Another nice space to be!  This is Day 5 of World Vegan Month. Love Kay and Sime xx

We were travelling from the Auvergne to the Loire Valley and had a plan to visit the Biocoop in Saumur to buy supplies for dinner, but as usual we got distracted - stopping off and taking different interesting routes and consequently arrived too late. We had a few things to eat, but not really enough. On our journey, we had the spinach and spirulina cuppa soups, some peanuts and bananas. Then we felt a need to "carb up" and had just 15 minutes to fly around the supermarket and make our purchases. We bought tabbouleh, carrot salad, salad leaves, cornichons, baguette and as Sime was craving potatoes - we bought some very cheap tinned spuds! We already had this vegetable and basil chutney... And houmous from our last Biocoop visit. For desert we found these soya red berry yogurts. Day 4 World Vegan Month. Our feast while on the road...More tomorrow! Love Kay and Sime xx

Tonight's dinner has been leftover Haricot Bean Bolognese which Sime added tofu and borlotti beans to make it go further, he fried the tofu in soy sauce and we served with rice, which we always cook with turmeric (yes we do eat a lot of rice!) and green salad. The Bolognese also has lots of garlic, onions, mushrooms, red pepper and courgette. Tomorrow we are off on the road again, so it we will show you what foods we pick up and eat on our travels! Love Kay and Sime xx

Today is Day 3 of World Vegan Month. We hope you will watch the video and if you are not vegan - perhaps you will consider a change. The Vegan Society have lots of information to help you make a start on How To Go Vegan And we are always more than happy to help. Please DO IT!!! Love Kay and Sime xx

Religion is still a big thing in rural France, especially in the Auvergne. We've seen it all before - the volcanic rocks with virgin Mary statues towering over communities, the altars and crosses just outside villages. The views from the statues are amazing, so always worth a climb.  Friday (All Saint's Day) was a day of families gathering. Everywhere was quiet and we took the opportunity to explore. Saint-Pierre church at Novacelles is a lovely little building. With a warm and cosy atmosphere. Day of the Dead is all about honouring our deceased loved ones, so we lit candles. Our Lupe died just days before we came away on our trip. Our beautiful companion of 14 years. We are still hurting and know when we arrive home next week we will miss him dearly. We continue to wish him a goodnight every night, as we do Fleaby (our other old boy) when we're away from home.  Lupe is buried just outside our bedroom window, under

The light is terrible in this kitchen at night, but here is our Day 2 food post for World Vegan Month. We've made a Bolognese with haricot beans and veggies and served with a green salad. Here is a previous post for the recipe: Our Bean Bolognese Recipe Enjoy! Love Kay and Sime xx

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts." ~ Rachel Carson ~ Isn't it beautiful how nature has a desire to cover up abandoned human junk? All our stuff lying around roadsides, in driveways, gardens and waste ground slowly being absorbed by nature. We find it fascinating and although it's sad to see so much discarded stuff around, we love how nature always fights back. Luckily, we both share similar views as to what we consider to be beautiful because otherwise, we probably wouldn't have our little house. It needs lots of TLC and was so overgrown when we first saw it - as it was again this visit, but we both absolutely love it and don't see it like others do...our new neighbours think we are crazy to have bought the house, although it's more the size which makes them laugh rather than the condition.  We think it's rather sad that so many folks don't

We have set ourselves the challenge again to share posts of our food every day during November for World Vegan Month. As we are eating leftovers tonight from last night's stew, we thought we would show you our rather bland looking, but delicious lunch... Rice with miso and sea vegetable soup thrown in! We always have some sachets of miso soup or paste in our picnic basket for a quick snack and they are great for when we are travelling. If we're on the road, we can usually fill our flask with hot water for the day, although there are not many French hotels with kettles in the bedrooms - we usually ask the staff on reception or if we're having breakfast, just fill our flask then. We've not managed to find a French alternative that we are happy with, so we usually make sure we have plenty for our trip...Clearspring is our favourite. Happy World Vegan Day! Love Kay and Sime xx

We often get shocked at how much folks are willing to pay for vacations. Even if we become billionaires...no don't laugh, you never know...we will no doubt continue to travel simply.  We love camping for starters, so we can't imagine not doing it and then there's a real joy in bargain hunting hotels and holiday accommodation. We tend to camp if we can do more than 3 nights and the weather's nice. If it's not so good, then we usually look at self-catering accommodation and easily find great places. When we're on the road we tend to find cheap motels for overnight stays and book a few hours before arrival to save money. These can be anything from a motel chain to a more fancy pants country hotel...on our last trip to France we found ourselves staying in the grounds of a vineyard in Burgundy and it was lovely!  A lot of small hotels open up to business travellers out of season and when they still have rooms available, they reduce their prices and

Halloween and All Saint's Day (La Toussaint) is a big event here in France and it has been for a long time, probably as big as in North America. We remember being in Paris with our kidlets many years ago over Halloween and seeing lots of decorated places and kids dressed up, which we didn't really see much of in the UK at the time. Our hotel overlooked one of the city's large cemeteries and on November 1st, we woke up to an incredible sight - the cemetery was absolutely buzzing with people bearing flowers and gifts...it was fascinating for us all to see and experience.    At the moment, we are house and kitty sitting in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region of France and there is much activity in the cemetery of this rural village this week, as families honour their dead loved ones. Today has been a quiet day for us, we are happy to stay away from the Halloween celebrations and instead just enjoy the peace of this lovely house, cuddle lots of kitties, feast and relax.