We have been touring the length and breadth of Europe for over twenty five years searching for wonderful items to furnish your home with. Most of our trips begin in France with either a hasty chunnel crossing or a more sedate leisurely ferry sailing – my personal favourite…I had always resisted using the channel tunnel crossing seeing a relaxed ferry crossing as part of the buying experience. Something Eurotunnel does not offer. Although lacking in comforts and any form of catering, the chunnel is an incredibly quick way to traverse the English Channel. It takes just 35 minutes from Folkstone to Calais. For anyone preferring the confines of their own vehicle, the channel tunnel is the perfect experience, as there you sit rocking from side to side as the train swiftly progresses along its journey nearly 200 metres beneath the surface. I was recently told the tunnel actually does leak in places. Maybe a thought best laid to rest until reaching the other side. 

I can remember my very first English Channel crossing in the late 60’s. A school trip to Switzerland saw around forty spotty second formers ushered into a coach packed to the gunnels with sandwiches most of which would be consumed shortly after rounding the first bend…Dover to Calais ferry crossings at that time were run by British Rail later to become Sealink. To say the ferries were basic is an understatement. I can recall seeing passengers rolling around the ferry decks eating some sort of sausage or hot dog. Some of us clubbed together and bought one…It was inedible..! 

We spent two eventful days on a noisy coach driven by a Belgian driver called Peter – funny how certain names stick with you over the years – with an overnight stop in the north eastern French town of Nancy. Our school had booked us into a fairly basic hotel although clean and warm – our first evening in France!! After spending most of the day watching tree after tree go by on the autoroute and with the constant hum of the coach in our ears, we were relieved to be finally descending from our rooms to a hot meal. The talk, of course, was ‘I’m not eating frog’s legs’ and snails…’uuuuurgh!!’…It’s interesting, I remember those first wafts of French cooking rising from the hotel kitchen and through the hotel corridors. Smells I had never encountered before. Not at all unpleasant quite the opposite. There was a depth in those invisible trails of cooking. Something I have now come to recognise as the smell of a stock pot bubbling or that unmistakeable smell of butter slowly browning in a saute pan. Whatever it was, we were ready to devour it…Something none of us had really experienced before, was a restaurant set menu. We all raced – if my memory serves me correctly – to two large tables and fought over who sits where and the usual…I’m not sitting next to her/him. Finally and sitting expectantly, I remember the western saloon style doors (full length) from the kitchen swinging open and two fairly mature looking French ladies cradling white soup terrines entering the dining room. One by one, they ladled soup into our bowls. The soup had the colour of a classic creamy chicken soup. The hot soup cooled quickly in our shallow soup bowls and the smell and taste was divine although we all still called it frog’s leg soup…

Although not aware at that time, I can see now how certain influences from that trip have stayed with me. The very often imposing grandeur of French design and French furniture. The look of old French Furniture and French antiques. The ornate and elaborate styles and designs from the Louis XIV to the Louis XI periods encompassing rococo and baroque motifs common all over Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although possibly a trick of the mind and with an element of romanticism,  a French antique has a certain look to it. The layers of patina and encrusted dust definitely add to this theme. Period French painted furniture displays all these traits exuding history with its worn and distressed paint work. A classic French painted piece is the housekeepers cupboard or a antique French country sideboard. Although both of these pieces can be found in various styles and finishes both formal and what could be described as everyday, either piece would fall under the umbrella description of French farm furniture or French country furniture.