Agen and Jewellery Making

I started my Agen visit with a cracker meal at the La Grande Brasserie, at the Agen train station. This Brasserie has been here for many years and Rick Stein recommended it. So I had plannned to get in early with a booking, before Caroline was to pick me up at 3pm to head to their rural home for my 11 night stay/9 day intensive jewellery making course.

The ambiance and service were much more than I expected, given my few recent experiences at stations in France - including Paris.

The truffle pasta starter was - very truffly! And the veal white and tender. I ate about 2/3 of each and passed on desert to try not to let lunch become too soporific.

Staying in one place for 11 nights has been sooo good to not have packing up imminent for a while. The home and studio, about 20 minutes from Agen, is idyllic. And my accommodation is very comfortable, private and quiet. I am the only student for 9 days - very intensive.

The studio.

The home.

And this old girl is sweet, and waits in the morning outside my door for a rub.

The jewellery making is challenging. The focus of this course is to build skills, so there isn't as much design as I had expected, and when there is design naturally it is constrained toward manageability. There are many more stages and repetitious aspects to making things. So we have a lot of projects going at once and lots of moving between them - which can be quite challenging for this old and head-injured brain. And, oh boy, the mental and physical gymnastics involved in using many tools on slippery clay! And just getting little pieces on a card picked up off the counter, and taken to the dehydrator for drying, without them rolling off etc. is at first challenging. The days go by fast.

We have been out to two village markets. It seems every village has a church and a square in the centre, and a market in the square. When sitting back having coffee, with half a croissant (Caroline likes halfsies too) you notice how much these markets are also a place for meeting up and socialising.

This first market was in a picturesque village.

The second market was in a pretty village with a lovely church backdrop. And it was evocative to be sitting having a coffee when the bells chimed. And loud!

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b7ea7d_931c6c578aa4414bb3fa9b6c757ce31a/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Caroline's neighbours joined us for coffee and we forgot the time, so we had to make a dash for the cheese shop before it closed at 12.30pm for 2 hours, and that Caroline said had the best brie. I purchased a substantial wedge of runny truffle Brie.

Well, it's late and I have to design a piece for tomorrow. We start using bronze tomorrow. It is said to be a bit easier than silver to work with, but a lot trickier to fire. No let up.

Next post I'll tell you about my meals here. Darn fine French food every lunch and dinner. And local wines. It's a good holiday!