Highlights this month -

• Florence Astarie - member of the month
• Book Club - New book for October
• Gardening - Bringing in the harvest

Message from our President 

Bienvenue!

Welcome to the website of the Dordogne Ladies Club International. We are a vibrant and enthusiastic community of women of all ages and nationalities (with English as the lingua franca) who have settled across a wide area of the Dordogne. The DLCI was formed almost 35 years ago with the original aim of cultural exchange and providing mutual support for new lives in another country and we remain true to that today.

There are many opportunities to meet regularly, both informally and through more structured events, which are designed both to entertain and inform. We enjoy exploring the beautiful countryside through our guided walks. We are also very proud to acknowledge that we raise significant funds for local charities.

Some of our members work and many, though retired, are active on a voluntary basis in our local communes. Some of us have been in France for many years and others have only just arrived. Whatever your situation, you will find a warm welcome from the DLCI.

I hope I have whetted your appetite and that after you have browsed our website, you will get in touch! I feel very privileged to belong to such an active and friendly association and I look forward to meeting you in the near future.

Cordialement

Kathy John

Dordogne Ladies Book Club 
With Autumn upon us its even nicer to sit down in the afternoon with a cup of tea and a good book.  Our Book club meetings are now in place for Monpazier, St Foy and Bergerac and take place week commencing the 5th October.   We have a new list of books recommended (having been read by members) and Suggested (the books which we are interested to read).  This makes the process of choosing the next book to read much easier.   We have new members joining the Book Club and bringing their own reading experiences which is great.  Brian McPhee has generously offered to make a donation to the DLCI from the royalties he received from the sale of his book to the members who have bought it.  A very kind gesture.  We have included a passage from the book above and hope it will encourage you to think of reading it and maybe joining us in the book club. 

To join the Book Club or for more information please email: Patricia.a.fielding@gmail.com 
Once you join you will receive a copy of our book list and have access to our facebook page.   You are very welcome to come along to our meetings share in the discussions and a coffee and cake. 
​

Book Club Passage 

 For October we have chosen to share with you a passage from the book we chose to read  "All Visible Things" by Brian McPhee the husband of Sheila one of our members we hope you agree it demonstrates the eloquence with which this book is written. 
​
"Leonardo de Vinci speaking to his secretary
(fictitious) Paolo, after looking at the plans for yet another procession:
"I thought you understood, Paolo.  These works - the fetes, parades, circuses, are as nothing.
Diversions yes, a fleeting pleasure on occasion.  And the portraits and altarpieces and murals - the same.  They are nothing but a means of providing money.  I have some facility and so I sell
my skills.  But what is important, what will be my legacy as you call it, are my studies.  I would see every panel, every canvas go up in flames before I would lose even the slightest of my notebooks. .................. Paolo, the true legacy of the ancients is in their writings.  The dramas of Sophocles, the poetry of Virgil, the histories of Herodotus, the mathematics of Euclid, the wisdom of Plato -
these are what we inherited to our great benefit.  And these are the names we recall with honour."
He sat back in his chair as he finished more serenely. 
 "When we accumulate enough wealth, we will settle somewhere quiet, you and I, and dedicate ourselves to a synthesis of my investigations.  And if I do not complete the task, this will be your
mission when I am gone, to complete the work. 
This is the true purpose of your training."

Permission kindly granted by Brian 

Gardening Column
​by Christine Lees

Bringing in the harvest

Whilst we have now had some very welcome rain, and my winter vegetables are at last starting to grow properly, the forecast for the next week to 10 days is mainly rain and much lower temperatures. If you still have green tomatoes, they are now unlikely to ripen outside, so it is a good idea to bring them into the house or greenhouse and if possible spread them out in one layer.  You can also make green tomato chutney.

Similarly tender vegetables such as courgettes, squashes aubergines and peppers should be brought in and you can make chutneys from many of them.  Squashes should keep successfully for a couple of  months if laid out separately in a relatively cool room. Peppers will freeze successfully if cut into chunks or halved and placed in freezer bags, you do not need to open freeze them first, and chillies can also be frozen whole in bags.

I grow a lot of winter vegetables and find that winter lettuces, chicories and endives, and Swiss chard are best covered with fleece to raise the temperature and keep insects away. 
In the summer leafy vegetables also benefit from being covered with fleece to retain the moisture from watering and to stop the sun scorching them. Brassicas such as kale, cauliflowers and broccoli should be covered with pigeon proof netting, which will also keep cabbage white butterflies from laying their eggs earlier in the summer. Keep the netting tight to avoid birds catching their feet in it. Leeks which I planted months ago are definitely now benefitting from the rain.

If you have summer bedding in pots, window boxes and hanging baskets you can replace them with winter pansies, violas, cyclamen and heathers to have a cheerful winter display.

All the spent vegetable plants and summer bedding can be composted,

This is also the time of year to buy spring flowering bulbs,  and you can now plant daffodils, Dutch irises, crocuses and alliums for next spring and early summer. There are also many more unusual bulbs in the shops. Tulips are best planted in November to avoid disease.  All the bulbs will come with planting depths on the packets which you should follow, easier with a bulb planter which will have depth measurements marked on it. You can also plant hyacinths outside or in bowls for the house.

If you have any trained fruit trees which were not pruned during the summer (as I do!) these should be pruned as soon as possible.  This includes espaliers, fans and cordons or double cordons.  Detailed instructions can be found in good pruning or fruit growing books, or online for example on the RHS website. I have the Gardening Which guide to successful pruning, and you can often find good gardening books at the Phoenix Book Fair ( next one on 3rd October).

Florence Asterie

 Previous DLCI Members of the Month

Click on the members name to read the members story
September 2020 - Sandy Scovell

August 2020 - Alix Sundquist

July 2020 - Liz Berks

Our member of the month is​
​Florence Asterie

In 1984 when I met my husband Yannick in Dallas Texas, I never imagined I
would end up living in Vélines after a life of expatriation around the world. But
here I am 36 years later.  We bought our house in Dordogne for the purpose of
holidays, and to be close to Mussidan where my husband grew up and where his
family was still living, I could not locate where the place was on a map .... I am
a born Parisian and only knew the name Bergerac because of the play. Yannick
was raving about Dordogne and Saint Emilion during our courtship in
downtown Dallas where we used to go after work to admire the skyscrapers
which I was very fond of. I had left France to become, if only in my dreams, a
successful businesswoman... two years later I was married, had a beautiful baby
boy and my business success story ended up right there. We came back to
France in 1989. We were not millionaires; we were missing our families and it
was time to have our second child.... but as soon as my husband got an offer to
go back abroad, we jumped at the opportunity. Yannick was working now for
the French car manufacturer Citroën and they were developing their commercial
networks worldwide. 
Our first posting was Egypt ... We lived in Maadi, a suburb of Cairo where most
of the embassies were located. Cairo was already crowded and dusty but so
fascinating, full of contrasts and contradictions. I had spent a few semesters in
Dallas to complete a Master of Art History and painting and drawing were
already an important part of my life so I was thrilled when I met a group of
women artists living in our neighborhood. They were painting under the
guidance of a well-known Swiss painter Margo Veillon born in Cairo. She was
89 years old when we met and was still painting Egyptian life passionately. I
had the privilege to be accepted in their group and enthusiastically went once a
week to practice still life painting with Margo for almost 2 winters, as most of us
were going back to Europe during the summer. We bought our house in
Dordogne while being posted in Egypt. After three happy years there, one late
June morning I was painting in the studio we had rented with a couple of friends
when my husband called from Paris to inform me that  the following September
we were to be in Moscow where he would start, from scratch, Citroën’s
commercial network. 
We arrived in September, in the middle of the 1998 Russia crisis, the first snow
fell in October.... I was freezing. We did not speak Russian and in the beginning
it was hectic, but we were together, and our two boys were adapting very
well...learning the language, playing ice-hockey, and enjoying winter.  Classical
music, operas, ballets and art exhibitions became central to their education and a
source of great pleasure for us. The Pushkin museum was one of our favourite
Sunday afternoon occupations. I loved going to St Petersburg and to The
Hermitage above all. I studied the basics of oil painting in Moscow with a
Russian painter, Youri. He was in his eighties and did not speak French or
English, so I quickly learned a bit of vernacular Russian language related to art.
Later, once a week I practiced live model drawing at the Academic University of
Art. We lived in Moscow for 5 years and even though I dragged my feet to
come, eventually I ended up loving Russia and its people despite myself.
Nevertheless I was ready to leave... but still sometimes when winter arrives,
nostalgia grabs me , and I think  of those years in Moscow , waiting for the first
snow to fall and muffle the sounds of the very noisy city . I dream of going
back, to visit friends and see places such as lake Baikal where we could not go
because our children were too young, and we had to come back in France to visit
our families. 
We moved back to Paris in 2003 before leaving again in 2006 for Prague. This
time we were only with our youngest son Benjamin, as our eldest Nicolas who
was already 20 and did not join us. It was so easy to fall in love with Prague. My
son and I were devastated when after a year Yannick announced that we were to
move back to France...his job in the Czech Republic was complete. He requested
to be posted to the southwest of France rather than go back to Paris. Our summer
house in Vélines became our permanent residence. Coming from Prague our
small village did not have much to offer in my eyes. Fortunately, after
participating in a Franco British dinner I met and befriended Julie Goatham.
Soon after I joined the DLCI where I met lots of friends with common interests.
I enjoyed being on the committee for a couple of years. It was fun, interesting,
and extremely rewarding, especially, when we met the expectations of our dear
ladies. Now I enjoy living in our village, walking around the vines, and sharing
beautiful dinners with friends from all over the world. Dordogne is such a
cosmopolitan area!  My only wish would be to have more time to paint ...​

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Members on the Map

Charities 

The Dordogne Ladies Club International was founded to provide friendship and support as well as to raise money for local charities.  We aim to do this in a way that is sustainable and maintains the beautiful environment in which we live.  We look after our planet the way she looks after us. 
We are proud that in the last five years we have given in excess of 20,000 euros in donations to local charities chosen by our members.  Each year the members will nominate and choose new charities to receive the donations.