11.04 Day 207 . . . Pékin Chickens!!

I woke to find the Snoozing Princess still asleep and so decided to do some more social media surfing. At just gone 1030am the Snoozing Princess awoke and immediately got up to leave the room. During this short walk Tre asked me what the time was . . . I looked at my phone and replied ’1030’ to which I got a very quick reply of ‘ Yeah right’. I turned my phone so that Tre could read it - ‘Oh my god , why did you let me sleep that long, why didn’t you wake me?’ . . . so apparently it was my fault 😳
Fairly rapidly we were downstairs having breakfast, as I had mentioned that at this rate we wouldn’t make it to the Arc Charity place by closing time at 4pm - I think I hit a nerve. After brekkie Tre marinaded some chicken for dinner tonight and I remembered I needed to use the pork skin I bought today to make some scratchings!!
Breakfasted and showered/ready we headed out in Rox. We took the back roads, our newly found direct route to Sainte Soline, again driving through an untold number of rapeseed full fields.
We arrived at Arc so that I could pay for and collect the two books I had won the previous evening. Whilst there we had a look around and picked up another couple of books, one on keeping pet chicken (less of the pet bit) and another on antique identification. Tre has designs on being the next big thing on Antiques Roadshow with a brilliant French Brocante find. To be fair it is worth knowing what you are looking at out here, there are lots of little hidden gems in the Brocantes and Vide Greniers. After paying for the newly found books and the charity auction winnings, we stopped to have cake and tea’s. Tre selecting a lovely cherry and almond affair, whilst I selected a rather lovely looking Bakwell cake - which when eaten reminded me of a mouthful of petrol when syphoning a car! Not the best.
From Arc we drove to Melle, we needed fuel but I also wanted to check out the local Mr Bricolage (Wickes) as I was under the belief that they stocked bee keeping equipment. Parked up we entered. We then did a full sweep of each and every aisle and found no bee stuff at all - however we did discover some very nice ride on lawnmowers, which weren’t to expensive either. That bit of research is tucked away for a future date . . . and not too long.
Mr Bricolage completed we decided to pop around the corner to a garden centre we’ve not visited - Game Vert.
As we walked towards the store we immediately saw a large cage with about 30 chickens and one very regal looking cock inside. Having spent five minutes checking these out we walked to the front door, only to find more cages with very different chickens within - Poule de Soie, Caille Caramel and also Poule de Pékin - the last of which were quite comical.
Inside we did another full sweep finding everything for animal welfare, beekeeping equipment - which cheered me up, country lifestyle clothing and more expectedly gardening equipment. Outside we found the majority of the plants with some lovely small fruit trees which I think Tre and I will be back for.
On finally dragging ourselves out of the shop, we decide to not now go for fuel (but to get that tomorrow) and just to head home - which we did.
At home I immediately started on making the scratchings, so the pork skin didn’t go out of date, after which I coated the marinated chicken Tre had prepped earlier with sesame seeds. The latter we popped in the air fryer and were soon sitting down to have it with a salad.
The pork scratching were also completed as the evening went on, whilst watching some TV with Tre . . . . and sampling the warm pork scratchings!
Just after 10pm we retired - Tre needs her sleep !!Read more