Biscuit Blog: McVitie's Marie biscuits

McVitie's Marie biscuits

When I saw these, I imagined they a British version of the Galette style biscuits from Brittany in France, a type of biscuit I enjoy and brought a lot home of last year when I visited Sables D'Or.  They are similarly circular with writing on the topside.  However, the glaze which is common on Galettes was missing.  As I tasted them, I found they also lacked the snap which is typical of a Galette and the flavour lacked the creaminess and sweetness.  In effect these Maries are simply Rich Tea biscuits with a slightly different pattern.  They are not even as thick as they are portrayed on the packet and that packet is small so you would expect something better than just another Rich Tea.  It is a shame McVitie's have not really tried to bring in a British Galette,  This is not a bad biscuit, but I cannot rate it hardly as it falls short of what it seems to promise from the name and packet.

Rating:
*****

Returning To Sables D'Or

Six years ago, I produced a posting about my childhood memories of holidaying at Sables D'Or Les Pins in Brittany in northern France: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/memories-of-sables-dor.html  Conscious that I do not have a great deal of holidays left and seeking something that would not end in the kind of disaster my holidays usually do, e.g.:

http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/when-holiday-is-worse-than-no-holiday.html
http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/camping-in-me-first-era.html
http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/canal-boating-running-gauntlet-of.html

I decided to go back to Hotel De Diane in Sables D'Or and sit there for a week.

The holiday was largely a success.  I aimed to go with Condor Ferries which use catamaran ferries that should shave three hours off the travel time across the English Channel.  However, being relatively small vessels they are affected by the weather much more than traditional ferries.  On both the outward and return crossings the sailings were cancelled.  In the end I had to return by Brittany Ferries, taking nine hours in total, but a very reliable service.  As it was, the Condor Ferries service saved no time.  In the last couple of years they have ended their sailings from Weymouth and from 2014 ended direct sailings from Britain to France.  Instead you are taken to the Channel Islands where you have to wait at least 2 hours, sometimes overnight, until a shuttle ferry from France arrives to take you the final stage.  Thus, the time saving is lost and often you will have to pay for accommodation on Jersey or Guernsey.  This rigmarole is repeated on the return journey.

Anyway, the ferry difficulties shifted my holiday by a day and meant me paying for another night in the hotel in France.  I also was very sick on the outward crossing.  It has become apparent that in contrast to my youth I now cannot sail on board a ferry even in calm seas without becoming ill.  I put it down to the inner ear infection I caught in Berlin some nine years ago.  It has affected the woman I was travelling with then in a different way but she has still had to abandon motorcycling.

In many ways the resort is similar to that portrayed above.  It was opened in 1924 and despite modern technology retains old world charm.  The houses shown in the picture are still there and it seems many French have holiday homes in the area as do some British.  Rambling, horse riding and golf, despite being things I did not engage with, remain important in the area.  The casino is still there, but did not seem open while I was in town.  Sitting between St Brieuc to the West and St Malo to the East, the hinterland is traditional rural France with quiet roads and pleasant villages with locations for horse riding and fishing.  The coast is a mixture of rocky headlands and large beaches from which the tide goes out a long way.  In June most of the visitors were the elderly there for the walking.  There were quite a few Germans in camper vans too.  I am sure it gets much busier once the school holidays start.

My parents stayed at the resort in 1965, 1966 and 1972; family friends also stayed there in that era.  I am not sure now if the Hotel De Diane was the hotel they visited, because it is run by the Rolland family, who have held it for four generations and that is not the name of the proprietors that my parents knew.  I think in fact they stayed at the much larger hotel less than a metre away next door.  It, however, has now closed down.  The Hotel De Diane, named after a valley rising from the town, is compact and has an award-winning restaurant which has good food though a small menu.  Everywhere seems to have been affected by nouvelle cuisine and it is very difficult to get anything traditional.  I suppose this is a result of catering schools and inspectors in France.

The hotel is modern inside and nicely appointed; the staff are very friendly - many seem to be from the Rolland family.  There is a waitress from northern England in the restaurant who shows off how people can have different characters when speaking different languages.  She squawks at British guests in English and speaks softly to the French guests in French.  A good place if you want somewhere quiet to stay.

Hotel De Diane, Sables D'Or-Les Pins, eastern Brittany, France

At this time of the year the beach which is immense at low tide, as can be seen below, is largely deserted.  There is an onshore breeze and some people sail or windsurf.

The Beach at Sables D'Or at Low Tide

The tiny chapel, seen in the picture at the top can still only be reached at low tide.  It is a real mission to reach it across the rocky causeway.

Chapel on the Islet of St Michael at Sables D'Or

The small town of Sables D'Or-Les Pins has a few restaurants of different standards, a couple of pizzerias and creperies.  Erquy down the road remains a functional town still with a fishing fleet.  Like many towns in the region it has a very large, very clean beach.  In fact how clean the beaches was stunning to me though I am familiar with award-winning ones on the South coast of England.

There are some sights to see.  I returned to Fort La Latte which I mentioned in my previous posting.  The battering ram from the movie 'The Vikings' is now properly displayed.

Fort La Latte

Prop Battering Ram used in the Movie, 'The Vikings' (1958)

I enjoyed visiting the historic town of Dinan and for some reason found Lamballe a town which houses France's national stud, very pleasant too.  St Malo old town is a tourist attraction but did not seem overwhelmed by it.  This maybe because I was early in the season.

Dinan

Lamballe

St Malo

Even St Malo which has a commercial port has a long, attractive beach, it seems compulsory for towns in the region.  Being an adult rather than a child, I had freedom to go where I chose.  Unlike many members of my family,   My car did great service getting me around the countryside.  Drivers in rural France seem more patient than their equivalent in the British countryside who always seem offended that you are simply there.  My sat nav despite containing maps of France pleaded that it lacked the memory to cope, so I ended up map reading which did me well.  I only had difficulty entering and leaving St Brieuc where the drivers were impatient at me looping the roundabouts and where, anyway, the roads were disrupted by road works and diversions.

I found some other interesting places, St Jacut de la Mer is a town with very little bar a modern looking abbey.  However, being a narrow peninsula it is lovely and quiet and I can recommend the 'Awawa' restaurant run by a young couple.  The food there is delicious.  I did not have a bad meal anywhere I ate but this one really stood out.  Jugon-les-Lacs almost due South inland from there, is also very pleasant.  The lakes are artificial but you could not really tell.  As with a lot of the region, I saw loads of wild flowers everywhere and many more bird species than I even see North across the Channel in Dorset and Devon.  It must be a great area if you enjoy walking or cycling.  There was a cycle race open to teams and individuals of all levels while I was in Sables D'Or and a cycle rally in St Malo too.

One thing that struck me was how difficult it was to pick up radio stations that did not play old fashioned French music.  It was as if I was in an American's imagination of France.  I even ended up with a Breton folk channel at one time.  The rocky outcrops of the area seem to play havoc with reception.  I found no petrol station with any staff.  You generally have to pay by debit card and this can get complicated.

The main street of St Jacut de la Mer

Interior of 'Awawa' restaurant

Wild flowers in St Jacut de la Mer

Street in Jugon-les-Lacs

Jugon Lake seen from Surrounding Hills

As you can see from the shot of Jugon-les-Lacs there is a flaw in my camera, a chip in the glass right in the middle of the lens.  I had to replace it.  However, on the balance of what has happened on holidays, this one turned out to be better than the large majority.  I was able to both indulge in nostalgia for my youth and discover new places.  I also found a region, which certainly outside St Brieuc, is very quiet and relaxing to travel around and visit places.  It may be that going early in the Summer helped with this and it would be a different story in August.  No holiday in the area is going to be a staggering experience but it can be restful and that is what I really needed.  Last year's experience meaning I came back even more stressed then when at work, needed to be avoided and returning to Sables D'Or provided that.

On one hand, given this success I began thinking about possibly venturing further afield.  However, I fear now that one success has bred complacency.  Furthermore, there are few places I have been where things have not gone wrong, so I have little idea where I would go next.  I do, fortunately, appear to have broken a 7-year bad run of holidays.  Perhaps I need to go back to the pattern of the 1990s when I only had a holiday every 5 years so as to reduce the risk.  That would mean, however, I have only 1-2 holidays left.  I suppose I should be grateful this one went well.

P.P. 18/07/2015
I came across another postcard of the next beach East along from Sables D'Or and show it here with a picture I took this year to show how little has changed.

I was stood among the pines shown on the postcard, but zoomed in from there to focus on the beach, but you get the feel for it.

What If the Allies Had Invaded Brittany in 1943?

My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘Other Roads: Alternate Outcomes of the Second World War’ It is available for purchase on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Roads-Alternate-Outcomes-Second-ebook/dp/B00J44F2L0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342550&sr=1-1

UK readers might prefer to access it through:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Roads-Alternate-Outcomes-Second-ebook/dp/B00J44F2L0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342343&sr=1-1

Canadian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Roads-Alternate-Outcomes-Second-ebook/dp/B00J44F2L0/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342737&sr=1-25

Australian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.com.au/Other-Roads-Alternate-Outcomes-Second-ebook/dp/B00J44F2L0/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342887&sr=1-25

What If Brittany Had Remained Independent?

My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘On Other Fields: Alternate Outcomes of the Middle Ages’ by Alexander Rooksmoor.  It is available for purchase on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/On-Other-Fields-Alternate-ebook/dp/B008LMT9WO/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342436531&sr=1-8

UK readers might prefer to access it through: http://www.amazon.co.uk/On-Other-Fields-Alternate-ebook/dp/B008LMT9WO/ref=sr_1_9?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342436579&sr=1-9

Canadian readers might prefer to access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Fields-Alternate-Outcomes-ebook/dp/B008LMT9WO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1375772395&sr=8-4&keywords=Rooksmoor

Memories of Sables-d'Or

Having had a comment about my Memories of Warwick Avenue posting, I was prompted to do another posting outlining another set of memories from my youth of a particular location. This is the town that I knew as Sables-d'Or (literally 'Sands of Gold') though I have found its full title is Sables-d'Or-les-Pins, on the Côtes d'Armor, as there are others around the coast of France, notably near Biarritz. It lies on the North coast of eastern Brittany in France, due South of the Channel Islands. Travelling from the UK we used to go through the port of Cherbourg, but you could also go via St. Malo these days, which lies some kilometres to the East of the resort. It is a broad sandy bay lying between what are almost two peninsulas to the East and the West, it is served by the D34a road. It seems renowned now for the kiting and surfing that is possible, presumably because it is near the mouth of the English Channel and faces North. Like many French towns along the Channel coast it is also renowned for its golf club. The only other town I remember visiting in the region is Erquy which is to the West of Sables-d'Or and faces West protected by a headland, it has its own sandy bay, but I remember it as a picturesque harbour with old fashioned fishing boats in it.

My memories of Sables-d'Or are now about 36-7 years old, so I imagine that the place has changed beyond recognition since I went there. I can view street plans and aerial shots of the place but cannot get a feel for what it is like on the beach these days. Perhaps it is best that I do not find out too much and spoil the memories I have of the place in the early 1970s. There still only seem to be two hotels in Sables-d'Or and as the Hotel la Voile d'Or is a modern and only two story hotel, I know it must have been the Hôtel de Diane that I stayed in in my youth and looking at the photos the lounge and the dining room look the same, though they now seem to have a conservatory dining area too. The hotel also prides itself on the fact it has been run by three generations of the same family. It is a three-storey place with 47 bedrooms which with its steeply pitched roof looks like it would be more at home in the Bavarian Alps than on the coast of France. The hotel was very much like the kind of place you would imagine Monsieur Hulot going to in the movies of the 1950s. The decor seemed to be of the early 1960s style, sparse but smart and it still seems to have that elegance which reference the past and the modern at the same time. I remember meeting the hotel manager who would receive all guests in his office, which lay beyond the lounge, before they left. He might have been a member of the family that still owns the hotel. He was probably in his fifties when we saw him, but the thing that stuck in my mind was all his teeth were capped with gold. He was a tall, slender man in the standard French office uniform of slim, dark single-breasted suit, white shirt and narrow dark tie. He had a broad circular face and skin covered with large freckles, he smiled a great deal which exposed all these gold teeth which to a small child was quite alarming despite him clearly being very charming.

I have an assortment of memories. I remember coming down the very wide stairs of the hotel in the morning and being stopped by the maids who would be on their knees sweeping the stairs and I would have to count to ten in French before I was allowed to proceed. I had probably only started school (we did not start until 5 years old in those days in the UK) the previous September. My mother has always been keen on languages and I certainly remember the classic BBC French course 'Suivez La Piste' (1965) books and records (the text seems to be available online in a number of locations now) being around the house. I remember there was single swing surrounded by pine trees on a sandy part close to the hotel manager's office. However, there were few other children at the hotel to compete with to use it. In those days no-one had a television in their bedrooms in a hotel so you had to entertain yourself.

The key events were around the meals. In my memory the dining room was huge, but I imagine that is because I was small. In contrast to Britain the French were more than happy to have children at the meals, though they did have a special 'children's tea' at 4pm as well. I disliked the fact that they always boiled the milk for the children to drink. I liked milk but it had to be ice cold. The menu for the children was no different than that for the adults so I remember having to have my father fillet the grilled trout I was served one teatime. The hotel's restaurant still is renowned for its fish and seafood. I cannot remember the general meals we ate, though I do remember my brother, who was a toddler at the time, living on soft boiled eggs and 'soldiers' (bread cut into narrow strips dunked into the egg).

I also remember two incidents in the dining room which I have been reminded of by my parents in the intervening years. One was the Dutch family with two small children who used to sit at the table next to us. I remember the woman bending over one of the children. In the matter of seconds she turned from speaking to my parents in English, to speaking to her child in Dutch to responding to the waiter in French. This is unsurprising coming from a Dutch person, they all seem to be linguists from birth, but was a real example to British people struggling to speak French poorly. The other incident regards a business party at lunch one day. I can call the sight to memory very easily Given the town is small and the hotel's restaurant renowned, it was probably no surprise that the twenty businessmen (and I remember no women being present in the party) had chosen to dine there. They all wore dark suits and white shirts with slim ties which (unsurprisingly) made them look like they had stepped out of 'The Day of the Jackal' (1973) or even 'Ascenseur Pour Le Chafaud' (1958). I remember the boss sitting at the head of the table with a slanting forehead bald up the centre and a prominent nose, plus a paunch. Anyway, dispute broke out at the end of the meal about what flavours of ice cream the different businessmen were going to have and the boss intervened with a De Gaullesque voice and said that everyone would have vanilla. To some degree it indicated why he was boss.

There were foods that were different to the UK. I remember having breakfast in the lounge and having croissants probably for the first time, a food I still love to this day. (In fact it sparks off another memory of staying in a house in France, probably a couple of years later and walking each morning to the bakery and seeing the flames licking up in the old black metal oven as the baker took things out to sell; in the midst of all its modernity history lingers all over France and of course in the 1970s we were as close to the 1930s-40s as we are now to the 1970s). I also remember having coffee-flavoured ice cream in that lounge, which has a bar in the corner. I used to like coffee until I was 10 years old and then drank tea until I started being exhausted every morning in my mid-30s and needed the caffeine to wake me up. In the 1970s there was no decaffeinated coffee or any concern that children would be hyper-active from coffee. Of course the ice cream in France (with its high dairy content) still tastes very different from British ice cream (generally made from vegetable fats).

I cannot remember much about the rooms or even the town of Sables-d'Or. I do remember the beach or the part we went to which was a kind of inlet within the bay. Despite being North facing I remember it being warm. We played a lot there. I had a captain's hat with a blue plastic visor and my brother had more of a bucket hat. We ran around in canvas shorts and striped teeshirts. I remember my brother was bought a large red plastic tractor as long as his chest with a trailer which we filled with sand and drove around. I also remember that 'streams' of water ran through the sand even at low tide and one day I crossed one of these to a wetter area of sand, a tiny island between the streams and constructed my 'adventure path' with various things you had to do, including avoiding the curved pit I had dug and walking in the 'footprints' I had made in the wet sand. It is funny because the seven-year old who lives in my house does just such things with paper-based treasure hunts around our house even today with all the high tech games available. The beach was never very busy, I remember, it is probably different now, certainly with the new sports for beaches like power-kiting and ferries going from the UK to St. Malo which have opened up Brittany much more to British tourists. However, despite that one woman we met on the beach, I remember her being a dark reddish brown and having a black angled hat, came from the town in the UK which lay the other side of the canal from ours, we could have equally have run into her around the shops back home.

The remaining memories are about trips out from Sables-d'Or. One time we walked away from the hotel into a wooded area and in the midst of it was the remains of what we took to be a Roman amphitheatre, though looking back it was probably a Victorian folly version. Oddly it was raised up rather that dipping into the ground, so you could clamber up the steps and do recitations from the top. The curve of the trees gave good acoustics. My parents encouraged me to sing some song I had learnt but I was reluctant to do so. Sometime later on the walk I got the courage to go back and do it but was told it was now too late. I tended to do that a lot when I was a child, I remember being offered a chance to go on a trampoline at a village fete when we first entered and not wanting to until we had circled the whole field and came back to it, by which time it was too busy. Remembering that it sometimes takes a child a while to make such decisions and they can feel terrible when they have missed an opportunity, I remember that with the seven-year old in our house and always make sure he has a second chance. People may argue this encourages prevarication, but I argue it promotes reflection on what we truly want rather than insisting people make snap decisions.

The other trip was to see the castle of Fort La Latte (not 'Alatte' as Christopher Coonce-Ewing has it in his Medieval History Through Film essay on the movie 'The Vikings' ), near Plévenon. This was used for the climax of the movie, 'The Vikings' (1958) starring Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas in which the Vikings attack an English castle. For more on the castle see: http://www.castlelalatte.com/ Its motto is in Breton 'Me zo ganet e kreiz er mor' or 'I was born in the middle of the sea' as it is constructed on an island at the end of a headland and is reached only by a bridge, once a drawbridge. The first castle was constructed in 931 CE but the stone one dates from the 14th century built by the lords of Goyon and Mantignon and in 1715 was converted to be used as a coastal defence fort when it gained its current name. When we went there even 14 years after the movie had been made, the battering ram used in the closing scenes was still there, abandoned by the path and I remember with a small lizard on it. The view as you walk along the path to the headland is memorable with the castle against the background of the sea, you can see why they chose it over a British location.

Anyway, those are my memories of a couple of holidays in Sables-d'Or that owed something to the 1970s but also to the heritage of French hotels and holiday resorts dating back to earlier in the 20th century. Given how many of my holidays have gone wrong, it is nice to remember ones in which I can remember minimal problem and a lot of pleasant experiences.