musings

Made the mistake of checking the Herald/Leader and Louisville Courier Journal for any updates on the House and Senate races in Kentucky. It's pretty depressing. Rand Paul is against farm subsidies but his father in law gets lots of support from them. Andy Barr is unapologetic about belonging to Idle Hour Country Club in Lexington, which historically has had a "no Blacks, no Jews" membership policy. Claims it's not discriminatory because now it has a black member (ONE), who of course is a former UK basketball star. Still no Jews. Also says we need to support the coal industry. Cut the deficit. Cut taxes. (Rand Paul is the tea-partier pseudo-ophthalmologist who is the Republican nominee for the Senate, the guy who beat up on McConnell's protege Trey Grayson in the Republican primary; Andy Barr is the kid who's trying to un-seat Ben Chandler for the House)

And they're talking about David Williams, the obnoxious idiot who controls the Ky. Senate, running for Governor. Steve Beshear isn't exactly a prize as Governor, but the thought of Williams gives me the creeps. I'll have to stay in France.

It's all too depressing. I really should avoid the newspapers.

Still Friday, last leg of the trip

So after we left Pujols, I decided we should go find the bastide center in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, park, find a cafe with a view, and get me something to drink. Trouble is, I did manage a decent photo on the way through, but we never found a way to park and go to the nice bastide square, assuming there actually is one, and I'm sure there is.

So we drove on to Monflaquin, which is up on another of those hills, and on the way back. We'd seen it (drove halfway around it, actually) on the way to Villeneuve and Pujols.

The place being seriously small, we were able to find its church, nice porch, nice square, good

alleys, lovely place to have some Perrier...at left is somebody's

garden down the bastide wall in Monflaquin. At right is one of the buildings we could see from the cafe in the square.

At left (at least, I think it's at left) is the view across the square. More lovely white stone...

Cheers, lillie

back to restaurant Lou Calel, Pujols

Okay, I can't figure out how to EDIT that post I have already made (two posts back, about our lunch at Lou Calel), so here's a photo I took inside the restaurant...

The place was pretty cool. And this is INSIDE (it has a beautiful terrace but was too windy for us wimps), and the view the other direction was down the hill, across the valley to Villeneuve-sur-Lot and beyond. It was a lovely place...

The rest of Pujols

So the village is absolutely gorgeous. Has evidently been restored and cared for and turned into a tourist and visitors' jewel in the last 50 years, and lots of people seem to live there, too. It is beautiful and pristine.

There's an old well in the middle of the main street (there were a couple of photographs of it, clearly taken long ago, hanging on the

wall in the restaurant) that was modified a bit some years ago so cars could get through the street. They turned it into a semi-circle instead of the original circle...

And then there are the flowers, and the lavender, and the views, and the food, of course...it's an

idyllic place...

Friday, 23 July 2010

To make up for Thursday, which is a day in my life I WANT BACK, took a trip on Friday. Original plan to drive to Villeneuve-sur-Lot and then MAYBE go to Pujols or to Agen was modified. These are down south of us in Lot and Gironde or maybe it's Lot and Garonne region, anyway south of the Dordogne, but not by much. Reputed to look more like Tuscany than anywhere else, and this is correct. All these volcanic hills with little villages perched up on them, white stone instead of the honey colored stuff common in the Dordogne area. Drove in to Villeneuve-sur-Lot which of course is a bastide town that straddles the Lot River. Lovely place, and I wish it were as close as Bergerac, as it is big enough to be a place to shop, and I hate Bergerac, as it is so dreary. Problem is, when you get to the middle of Villeneuve-sur-Lot and are looking for a place to park to get you to the old bastide center, you can see this village ahead perched up on this BIG hill that appears to be Pujols. Decided to start there. It was GREAT. It had been well after 11:00 when we had left, and yours truly was hungry, still in a bad mood from Thursday, and demanding food by the time we got to Pujols. Ate at a place I'd read about (which, fortunately, was the first place we stumbled on after we parked) called Auberge Lou Calel. I had their "formule" salad, main course, sorbet a glass of wine and a coffee, and P had their menu campagne, or something like that, three bigger courses, and we had a bottle of wine from Duras.

His first course was called "salmon mousse" and was great. It's to the

left there, and yes, I realize it needs editing, but hey, at least I managed to upload it, right?

the stuff in the middle here (yes, yes, I know it needs cropping, too) is the magret de canard (duck breast) with potatoes, cherries, and a ratatouille, fantastic sauce...Desserts were great as well. Creme caramel that was coffee flavored inside, and sorbet.

Then we visited the village proper. It was fascinating. First the road outside the wall...

And then, inside the square (another bastide town, of course) there was a HUGE gathering of people just standing around. They were going up to the church, where there was a table on either side of the entrance with a guest book on it, and were signing the guest book. We went inside the church, and all these people were bringing white flowers in and putting them up at the altar; a priest was milling round. I asked if there was a wedding about to happen, and was told no, it was a funeral. So we went back out (the church was nice, but not great, like a lot of the village churches in the area) and across to the tourist office, also on the square, of course. Asked for a guide to the village, and asked the person there why all the flowers were white if it was a funeral about to happen. Turned out it was a baby girl who was about to be buried. Finally a few minutes after the hour, several cars came driving up, one a van full of

flowers, one a van with the coffin and more flowers, and about three cars following. Everybody got out; the funeral guys took a lot of the flowers in to the church, and the priest and family went over to the hearse, everybody gathered round, and he said some prayers, sprinkled some holy water in the hearse, and they brought out this TINY white casket, which followed the priest, and was followed by the family and then the rest of the people who could fit in to the church for the funeral. There is no way all those people actually got in to the church. The church is interesting in that the bell tower is sort of in front of the church and over the gate in to the walled village, rather than being over the west end of the church.

We left to tour the village after the funeral began...

Thursday, 22 July 2010

Terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. Reasons boring. Refused to cook supper, even though had bought some fresh sole at the market; that's how bad it was. Went to pizza place down at the bottom of the hill:

And P had a "spanish" or something pizza with chorizo on it, and I made the mistake of ordering the salad (good) and half pizza combo with their seafood pizza (bad idea, not bad but mediocre...)

Next day HAD to be better, and it was

shopping

So it rained last night, it's sorta stormy today, and it's more than 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. That means it's only in the lower 70's, folks. I need to find tile for the re-do in the kitchen here, so dragged myself to Bergerac (lovely place, is Bergerac...). Guess what! I got there at 12:05, having forgotten that every single one of those places like Lowe's and Home Depot are CLOSED from 12:00 to 14:00. It wasn't a total loss, though, because I stopped in to Grand Frais (which was, indeed, "frais" inside, ICY in fact), which had just opened last year when we were here, and which several people have mentioned as the best place to shop for fresh produce. They were right. So I suppose it was not a total loss. Now I have to RETURN to Bergerac this afternoon for some more tile searching in that lovely, gracious, place (in case you haven't figured it out, except for about block's worth downtown in vieux Bergerac, it's really, really dreary).

Cheers,

recycling

This may be a repeat. They have clearly become very environment-conscious over here, and are serious about recycling. Last year you had to take all your recycling down to the communal bins by the post office, one for glass, one for paper, and one for cans, I think. Now you have to take the glass down there, but you have this roll of yellow bags which you use for recyclable metal, plastic and paper. You put the yellow bag out when you put out your trash to be collected, which is twice a week (and remember, Couze has the enormous population of about 800... or maybe it's 600, something like that). The yellow bags get delivered to some automated thing somewhere which separates them into plastic, metal and paper. You don't have to even wash out the stuff if you don't want to.

And just inside the entrance to the big supermarket in Lalinde, right next to the bars you walk through to get in, is a plastic box up on a pole at chest level to put used batteries in.

There's a (very modest) environmental fee to dispose of old appliances. I think it was 13 euros for the old fridge. This was tacked on to the cost of the new fridge, and the guys who delivered and installed the new fridge took the old one away with them.

Evelyn tells me they have the yellow bags for recyclables in Germany, too.

Checkers sit down at the cash registers (you might like this, Martin). There are no baggers, of course; you do that yourself. And nobody has to do carts: they have these stations outside where they are all chained together. You put in a 1 euro coin or a plastic token (keep them in the car), it releases the grocery cart, you push it into the store, use it, and put it back in the buggy place after you unload your stuff into the car, and get your euro back. They do this all over Europe, including England. And they have these buggy things organized like this in places like Lowe's. It's the same system. You can get somebody to help you with heavy things, of course (hear, hear...).

I think all this stuff has hit the radar screen and caught on and been embraced because it's basically much more crowded in Europe than in the US. Yes, there are large parts of the US where it is VERY crowded, but we still have vast expanses of wide, open space, so there's never been as much motivation to actually DEAL with trash over here, rather than opening another landfill. Also, governments over here are more centralized than is the US, so it's much easier to do something over an entire country. In the US, you couldn't get everybody in Congress to agree that today is Wednesday.

so there,

Lillie

I'm in love

This time, it's with a guy named (I think) Roberto Alagna. He's the Italian guy who's the tenor in Tosca that we're currently watching LIVE from some Roman coliseum thing down there in Orange, just north of Avignon. May not make it till the end, though, as it didn't start until about 10:00 p.m., it's 11:30 and the second act just started...but I'm in LOVE...so there.

The soprano is, I think, American, a red head with a VERY thick waist (possibly even thicker than mine), and she's a very good singer but not in the same league with this guy.

Never heard of him before, actually. but he's great. Can you imagine being at one of these things outdoors in one of these Roman coliseums?!?

Cheers, Lillie

Sunday 18th July

Watching what MAY be a live production of Tosca from the coliseum in Orange in the Vaucluse down south. On the telly. I have a couple of windows and doors open, and have been told that our neighbors may not be interested in listening along with us...but we had to listen to some of them during the World Cup, so I'm not really interested.

Went in to the loo a bit ago, and lo and behold, there were several hundred (I guess!) ants running around the wall, evidently had come in through the open window. Fortunately a new can of bug spray was handy. It was bizarre...

Gorgeous sunset. Somebody please explain exactly why (WHY) I have to come back to the US in just over a week...It's hot and muggy over there. There are some people I'd like to have around; do you think I could arrange to install them over here? If the jailbirds ever actually get their crap out of the old boulangerie, it will be vacant and either for rent or sale...I'll bet I can find plenty of other places for people around here. The English are staying away in droves these days, as the pound is down relative to the euro so it's no longer such a great deal and a cheap place for them to live. It's (trust me on this) relatively inexpensive to buy property, etc., around here compared to Lexington, not to mention the east and west coasts of the US. Even with the high price of electricity.

And I can help...I would no longer be terrified of purchasing an unfurnished house, which would need pretty much everything. Fridge, cooker, etc... hey, I've even managed to get a tv going here, right?

Told P this evening that if I/we were to be here permanently, I'd need to live somewhere else, because I couldn't manage here on my own. The stairs up to the house are too steep, and there's nothing we can do about them, since the bad ones down there were originally up to the old, currently non-existent, chateau. I can't carry heavy stuff up them; it's just too precarious. The place is pretty small, but that's much less of a problem than I would have expected. Fix up the kitchen, which I am about to do, and put in some serious bookcases, and a lot of the annoyances would/will vanish. But there's still that trek up the hill.

More later about our afternoon at P's French teacher's house....

Lillie

various comments

had pseudo pan bagnat for lunch today. No onions, no anchovies, no olives, just basil, tomato slices, cucumber, jambon sec (pseudo-prosciutto). Only had half a baguette that was near terminal because I was too lazy to go get some more bread this morning. So I split it, soaked it with olive oil and a bit of wine vinegar, and put this salad stuff on it. Called it lunch. Phil also inhaled some more of that camembert I bought the other day. It is RIPE, made from lait cru (non-pasteurized milk), just starting to run, but no maggots in it yet. He sorta lowers his face in it.

At least other people who come over here will be able to watch whatever sports are on tv. I can watch the news, CNN, CNBC, and BBC. Do I want to? I'll think about it. I ordered some movies from Amazon in the UK last night. We don't have any over here. US ones won't work, anyway.

If there's a cool day this week I think we'll go to Oradour up near Limoges. It's the village that was destroyed on, I think, June 10, 1944. Whether it was in retaliation for a Resistance group there killing a Nazi soldier a day or two earlier, or whether the Germans did indeed think Resistance in the village was hiding weapons in a barn depends on who you asked. It was also just after the D-Day invasion had begun. So they marched all the women and children into the church and locked them in, lined up all the men and shot them, and then set the church on fire. Only a couple of the 600+ inhabitants escaped. They rebuilt the town a bit away and just left the village as it was after the massacre. I've retired from doing things like visiting outdoor historic sites and castles when it is hot.

It is a perfect day today. Warm, low humidity, clear as a bell. It's tempting to sit outside under the umbrella and admire the house on the hill across the way, watch the big rolls of hay dry on the field below, admire the roses in the yard, fret about the dead geraniums, look in awe at the rosemary, ambitious things like that.

Am meeting with Robyn tomorrow to finalize plans for the kitchen re-do. AND, HEY, IMPORTANT DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE. Decided to paint it yellow. White woodwork. So how many kitchens have I been involved in painting and/or re-doing in my life? Four I think. Every time it gets painted yellow. This one will have some blue in it, too, this being France and all, on the tile around the counters. Kinda like the tile that's there now. Would keep it, but evidently that's not one of the options.

near disaster. P decided to turn on the tv to watch something, Tour de France, probably, couldn't get it turned on (it's still not), I went over, sat on the edge of the coffee table, and somehow broke the glass and fell through. Was seriously stupid; he was terrified as I could have been sliced up royally. Two cuts is all. Now the coffee table is even more dangerous, what with half its glass gone. And the tv isn't coming on. Wonderful. Brilliant.

a miracle occurred

We now have television. have we gotten it up and watched any? of course not. We are supposed to get the France stations, BBC stations, CNN and things like that. Sports. Only took two technicians and 130 euros to get it going. Not to mention the legwork by yours truly. Should have gotten the folks we bought the tv from to do the satellite installation in the first place.

Bought a sewing machine at the vide grenier, to Phil's chagrin.

Discovered that express scrips has quality control problems. one of my BP meds that got a 3 month refill about a week before we left is NOT going to last until I get home.

We found my rings yesterday ("we" being not totally accurate). I had them Tuesday and Wednesday I couldn't find them. All three of them. Nowhere to be found. Even tracked down the restaurant we'd eaten lunch at on Tuesday to make sure I hadn't taken them off and left them there. (these are NOT $15 rings we're talking about, comprende?). Last resort was to go through the trash, so we didn't take it out THursday evening to be collected, and Phil, bless his heart, went through it yesterday morning before it got hot.. Guess what!

Hard to believe we're going back to hot, muggy Lexington in a week. Back to the real world, after a fashion, I guess. Is it too early to put out my Jack Conway signs? I wonder if I can convince Martin to put a Conway sign on his truck. I'm not particularly fond of the guy, and he is far, far too pretty for my taste, not to mention rich, but at least he's not a nut case like the other guy. Who, incidentally, is an "ophthalmologist" who had some difficulty getting himself certified by the board, so created his own board. He works in Bowling Green. I'd avoid the guy if I were in BG and needed to find an eye doctor.

So there have been problems with the ICE trains in Germany (their high-speed intercity trains, the German version of the TGV). It seems their climate system is designed to work for outside temperatures up to 35 degrees Centigrade (that's 95 degrees for you gringos), as it NEVER gets that hot in Germany. Until it does. It got up to 38.8 degrees (about 100), and the systems shut down. Temperatures inside went up to 50 degrees (you figure it out; multiply by 9/5 and then add 32) and people started developing heat exhaustion, of course. The windows don't open, also of course.

Back hurts. Leg hurts. So what else is new. At least it's cooler today, actually had to put a shirt on over my dress, but it's headed back up above 90 in a day or so.

One other thing...it's more foie gras tonight, this time maybe with some of the apricot compote Jeannette brought over this morning.

Cheers, Lillie

food

So I realized I have a fresh "foie gras de canard" in the fridge. Shrink wrapped, but unless you can them or somehow or other preserve them, they sorta don't last forever. Its "use-by" date has passed, but not by much, so I got it out, dressed it after a fashion by removing the veins that were easy, and put it in a bowl with Armagnac.

For dinner we had salad greens with pear, Roquefort, lemon juice and walnut oil, along with green lentils (see Patricia Wells, Paris Cookbook...) with vinaigrette, this topped with seared foie gras. It was good, but rich. Red wine...so there...

Friday

Evelyn and Olaf left this morning to go back to Germany. Was great having them here, but I guess I need to catch up on some things like chores. Right?

After Wednesday's visit to the Bastille Day celebrations in Lalinde, followed by a visit to the Vide Grenier (also in Couze), lunch at home, followed by visit to Beynac to the chateau, and then on to Sarlat to do some serious sight-seeing, followed by dinner there at a restaurant that evidently was either a family affair, run by a guy (chef) and his wife or just by his wife (!) as there appeared to be only one seating, about 15 people, and it took more than three hours...we had some difficulty getting out of Sarlat because of the re-routed/diverted/whatever traffic. It was after midnight when we got back to Couze, and yours truly had a REALLY bad night. Sort of rather a lot of pain, pills didn't seem to help, and didn't sleep. and then about 7:00 a.m. I finally went to sleep, and didn't get up until about noon.

By this time, had missed the Thursday market in Lalinde, but Phil, Evelyn and Olaf had gone carousing, and in the afternoon they visited the paper mill and took the tour. I guess I should do that, too, sometime. Later went to Ken and Val's for a swim and aperitifs, various other carousing.

This morning Evelyn and Olaf left, and I actually slept last night for a LONG time, so did chores today. Looked for a farmhouse table for Pat and Melissa; internet addresses for realtors for Chris and Judy; retrieved the chair that the guy we bought the new kitchen table and chairs from had fixed (he's only had it for a month...but he charged me only 20 euros to replace the rung on it, and it looks like it's always been there...), found somebody to come out tomorrow to try again to get us online with the television. I am feeling obnoxiously efficient. So there.

Still want to visit l'Oradour before we go back to the US, and would also like to visit the Garonne valley/Tarn area. Sometime want to visit the Canal du Midi, the canal they dug to connect the mediterranean to the Atlantic, via locks, etc. Phil wants to visit another prehistoric cave. Time is running out.

I WILL post photos, quite possibly tomorrow...

Cheers, Lillie

15 July 2010

Would have been my mother's birthday. David Fischer's birthday. E-mailed him, and called him...

Yesterday went to the Bastille Day celebrations in Lalinde, with Ken Day doing his flat-waving thing. Nice ceremony, actually. and Evelyn and Olaf seemed to enjoy it a LOT. Turned out that Pam and Paul had gotten married on Tuesday, with rather a lot of his relatives here, and Ken and Val being their witnesses. That was evidently very nice.

There was a 'vide grenier' on Wednesday morning, as well, and I bought some stuff for the kitchen. We then ate lunch at the cottage, closed it up, and headed for Beynac. I let them out at the bottom of the road up to the chateau, and drove up to the top and parked there, met Phil, Olaf and Evelyn at the Tavern des Ramparts, at the top. Had things to drink, and then they visited the chateau. I've been there, several times, it's rather desolate, dreary and unfriendly, shall we say, notwithstanding the furnished "formal" rooms we saw. Looks like a very foreboding place....Stay tuned...

visitors, take 2 (or so)

Went to Monpazier today with Evelyn and Olaf, and it was great. They seem rather amazed at all the things you can do around here that don't take much effort. And I wasn't ever consciously aware of this, actually, but it's true. I think they expected lovely countryside with not much going on. But Issigeac is maybe 30 minutes away, and is all of a sudden a medieval town that reminds me a LOT of York in England (that was where we went to the market on Sunday morning).

Yesterday evening we went to the Marche Nocturne (night market) in Cadouin, which is a very old village, with an abbey, and an old covered market in front, and in the summer, night markets where you go to eat, drink and be merry on Monday evenings. They put out these trestle tables and benches, cover the tables with paper, and merchants come and sell food around the edges--all this on the town "square" in front of the abbey. There is usually some group making music, dancing maybe. Lots of people, and LOTS of fun. Olaf and Evelyn appeared to be seriously delighted.

Today I finally got up; they had hiked down to Port-de-Couze, which is the "village" at the bottom of the hill, across the river, and bought croissants at the bakery down there next to the appliance store. Had a croissant, a couple of discussions about plans, and drove to Monpazier... bastide town built as a defensive/defendable village during the hundred years' war. Lots of them around here, but Monpazier is, I think, the best-preserved. Also a World Heritage Site (UNESCO). Lovely place. Had a nice walk around, although I stayed in the shade as much as possible. And then we had lunch on the town square/place/whatever in some place that wasn't one of the ones I'd found in guidebooks, but had a lovely view. We had a lovely lunch, and then I bought a bottle of Aperitif de Truffe (truffle aperitif, have to figure out later how they make the stuff)...

Came back to the house, picked up the LiveBox to take to Bergerac to try to figure out why exactly the ****** TV won't work with the decoder, etc. This means dealing (again, for the umpteenth time) with some FranceTelecom/Orange office, which I did for far too long in Bergerac. Phil purchased a new pair of his Mephisto sandals, and Evelyn bought a swimsuit, all while I was waiting to talk to someone who tried to convince me that the problem isn't that the LiveBox isn't talking to the Decoder, but that I've (are you listening, folks?!?) "changed the password"...or some ****** thing.

Stay tuned if you dare. We have internet and phone via LiveBox that work, albeit at serious expense, a television, decoder so it will talk to the ADSL LiveBox, and satellite so we will theoretically be able to get French TV, BBC, and a host of other wonderful things. Except it doesn't work. I finally told P I DO NOT want to discuss it further; I promise to try to deal with it Saturday or next week, AFTER Evelyn and Olaf have left. So there.

Tomorrow? Bastille Day. 14 July. Quatorze juillet...Happy Birthday, Chauncey...going to the flag ceremony thing in Lalinde, at 11:30 or something, also a "Vide Grenier" in Lalinde in the a.m. I hope to find some useful things like serving bowls and platters for very little money. "Vide grenier" means literally "empty attic", and is a cross between a big community garage sale in the US and a Car Boot Sale in England. It'll be held in front of the Mairie (sorta like City Hall in the US) in Lalinde.

Stay tuned; I promise to upload photos...

Monday report

Actually, it is evidently Tuesday now, over here. I am still up, however, but everyone else is down for the count, and quite possibly will actually be up shortly after I finally go down.

Seriously stressful...so what exactly have we done? Well, went to Issigeac yesterday morning (Sunday) to that fantastic market. Bought important things like cheese, sausage, fruit, tomatoes, stuff like that. Lovely, lovely village, apparently un-touched by the Hundred Years' Wars, etc.

Came back, too hot, fortunately I got that umbrella thing. Ate for rather a long time on the terrace. Was seriously hot. Last night not so bad, nor today. Evelyn and I went in to Bergerac to buy me some shoes (she and Olaf walked down to Couze and across the river to Port de Couze and bought some bread and croissants for breakfast...), and some really important stuff like pillows and milk. And THEN we all went to the night market at Cadouin (aka "Marche Nocturne"), for dinner. I think Evelyn and Olaf really enjoyed it. They seem to have settled seriously in to the laid-back French lifestyle thing. It's sort of a stretch, or requires an effort, or something, to get P. Crowley to settle in to the local lifestyle. But I'm coming around to the point of view that it is seriously worth it.

And yes, yes, I know...I was the one who wanted to buy this place, but was it a calculated thing? HUH? Not just NO, but HELL, NO.

More later. Am having a bit of difficulty (or a "spot of bother"!) burning photos to CD's, and it's not interesting, shall we say...

Cheers, Lillie

more random

It's far too hot, but at least it's not humid like Thailand. Too hot to go outside, though. and yes, yes, I know, we're not the only people with a problem, and it IS July...

Jailbirds have their car covered up with blankets today.

Difficulties with photos. Downloaded stuff, and am having trouble making a CD, which I want to do before I erase the little cards (not your problem, but it's basically why I haven't posted any photos)

Going to Issigeac to the market tomorrow morning, which means I need to get my backside out of bed early so we can get there before it gets too hot.

So far, haven't been able to get reservations for Font de Gaume, but maybe in a day or two (painted cave, aka Lascaux, and still open to the public on a LIMITED basis).

I love having Olaf and Evelyn here; this means that Evelyn is helping with the cooking, and all three (those two plus Phil) are basically doing the cleaning up.

Bought some more of those potatoes that aren't as big as my thumb today, from the Gascon lady with the walnut oil. Dinner. Along with goose breast (was going to do this when Chris and Judy were here, but it was already 8:30 p.m., and I hadn't yet started dinner, so it was confit instead), enormous artichokes, and Evelyn has made tabbouleh or however you spell it. Between French and German and American, I'm confused.

Too hot. Leg hurts. Back hurts. Stay inside.

A votre sante.

Brits

I always seem to be hard on people, especially men whom I've decided are dumber than me, when they start explaining something to me that (a) I already know, especially when (b) they've got it wrong. And I've always revered England for its wonderful history, architecture, universities, writers, mathematicians, the lot. So when this English guy started explaining to me that Bloody Mary was Mary Queen of Scots, who was the first of the Stuart line of royalty, I wouldn't back down.

And in case you not only haven't quit reading, but also don't already know, Bloody Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, the one who restored the country to Catholicism after his son Edward died. We have her reign to thank for all those assassinations, Elizabeth I's imprisonment in the Tower, where Mary very nearly had HER beheaded. Then she mercifully died, Elizabeth became Queen, and they rest, as they say, is history. Mary Queen of Scots, on the other hand, kept getting herself involved in plots to put herself on the throne as the "rightful" queen since Elizabeth was a bastard. And Elizabeth finally had her beheaded.

I am not sure why it gets under my skin when people do this, but it sure does...

more random thoughts

I was asked to post photo or photos of the jailbirds' garden. Have taken some now, just need to spend some computer time uploading a bunch of stuff.

Evidently you have to have a gmail account to comment online. Does anybody want a gmail account? I love mine, and can invite you to get one if you want.

Chris and Judy arrived (Chris being Phil's cousin) this afternoon, seriously jet-lagged, etc. We plan to take them to the Marche Nocturne for supper if they ever get out of the shower. It should keep them awake for a couple more hours...

driving to the train station in Bordeaux is a real b****. Almost like driving through Bergerac cubed.

Lovely weather, warm, not humid, windy.

Are the jailbirds ever going to actually leave? I want P to clean up their garden...

a plus tard, lillie

random thoughts on monday

The jailbirds flew away, and then they came back, and now they have (maybe) left again, we all hope for good.

The good news is that the hurricane didn't hit the oil spill. The bad news is that the thing is still gushing. The other bad news is that it's no longer front page news. And the REALLY bad news is that the bandits responsible for the mess keep pointing their fingers at each other.

Hot but not so bad.

Chris and Judy should be in Paris, but haven't heard from them yet. This is slightly worrisome.

Weather better. Can get clothes dry.

I think I should take a photo of the jailbirds' garden, the one we always complain about; it's just below ours, and is a serious eyesore.

need to do housework. more later...

more drivel

Okay, okay, so I had already mentioned the orange umbrella for the terrace. But last night, while we had friends over for dinner, P finally figured out how to set the umbrella at an angle to actually (!) block the sun. WHEE.

And yes, I know, I know, it's summer, and it's supposed to be hot, and you're supposed to love it while it is, go to the beach or something like that (and down here, we COULD actually to to Arachon or somewhere near Bordeaux and eat OYSTERS!!!! good ones!). The problem is, whenever it gets hot like this, I feel like I'm back in Texas, and it won't cool off for months and months. And it's not true; we've had only three, I think, really hot days, and it's already cooled off a lot. But the fear of being hot all the time for months and months is something that I think sorta never quite lets go of you. I'm not sure it's all that different from the fear my parents had of not having enough money, or of losing everything they had at the bank, etc. So there...enough philosophizing.

Federer is out of Wimbledon. Martin was thrilled. And Federer was NOT gracious about it, so I've gone over to Martin's side about Federer. Nadal won today. The World Cup is chaos, and everybody over here is paying rapt attention. I don't care, I confess. I think it's nice that the USA team didn't do nearly as badly as expected, but basically, I don't give a s***. Sorry, folks.

I miss Gourmet.

And I promise to post more photos soon. I have to download them first...

Lillie

chores, chores, chores

Still unbearably hot.

Had to go to Bergerac today to do chores. There's AC in the car, after a fashion, but it's so hot. Bought some fabric to make some curtains for the sorta-skylight windows up in the bedroom. They are up on the roof, and it is REALLY hot up there in the afternoon. I've borrowed a sewing machine from Val, have some pressure rods so I can make sort of pocket curtains (otherwise they would be useless, as would just hang down, the the roof is at about a 45 degree angle). Bought thread and scissors...now I just have to make them.

Also bought two more fans, one for the kitchen and one for the bedroom in the cave, which seems to be taking on some water, although it may be condensation. aargh...Robyn, bless her heart, cleaned down there this afternoon.

Yes, I know it's summer, but this is unusually miserable. And yes, it probably won't last long. It's humid, though, and I HATE being hot and sweaty. Too much like the Gulf Coast.

In the meantime, I am refusing to cook, although we had some of the English ex-pats over for dinner last night. Do you have ANY idea how much G&T and wine four Englishmen (this includes women...I'm old-fashioned) can down? I'm off to re-stock tomorrow morning before it gets hot again.

I also picked up (bought rather) a thing called a Live Plug, which is two plugs you use when so you can put your "decoder" and TV more than 2 meters from the LiveBox, the ADSL thing plugged into the telephone line and the wall, and so you can get all the TV channels that evidently have been accessible to us for three years now. Only thing missing, well there are three things missing, but one of them was the presence of a television, and I also bought one of those this afternoon. It's a Sony Bravia, not all that big, but it has a built-in DVD player. And we have a Sony Bravia at home, so I figured it was a good bet. The lady at the shop (down in Couze...I'm shopping locally, figure I'm likely to be treated better, PLUS they deliver, install, etc., without extra charges...bought the fridge from them, too) was astounded when she said "this isn't your main TV, is it?" and I said yes. She said it's awfully small, but I said it's fine. They will deliver it on Tuesday unless I change it; this way SOMEBODY else has to carry it up that hill. Now I have to wait for the "decoder" to arrive (theoretically tomorrow or Monday, but we'll see, this is, after all, France) and for the guy I've asked to install the satellite, etc. to get here. His name is "Bob". After I did all this crap in this heat (nearly 100, even places with AC don't have what Americans consider good AC), I felt so virtuous that I went next door to the Orange/FranceTelecom place where I'd bought the Live Plug and bought some more COOL clothes, as the ones I bought the other day seem to need washing all the time. It's the summer sales over here, too...

On other fronts (I've been on a real tear...), I've bought a new umbrella for the terrace, which actually is very nice, and makes it tolerable to eat out there when it's hot. AND it was on sale...

Sunsets are gorgeous.

All of a sudden I realized that I need to pay bills in the US. So I've been online trying to deal with them today. The Internet we have here, when it's doing okay, is WONDERFUL, especially compared with what we have in Kentucky. I haven't been disconnecting it while we're back in the US, and we end up spending buckets less than we do there. I think it'd about 100 euros/month for land line phone, VoIP phone, broadband (and I mean FAST broadband, not like the Starband over satellite in Kentucky), AND cable TV with a zillion stations, including the BBC stations, and, I'm told, CNN in English. This TV stuff comes with the package, although we don't exactly yet have it, but there are no extra charges. What we've been missing is the equipment. So, well, 100 euros/month here vs. $100 for phone, $50 for Starband, and $100 for TV? And it requires TWO satellites in the US?!!?!?! and the internet is not as fast? and the only reason we have wireless internet in KY is because of the router set up that is internal? Here our internet is ALL wireless!

More later, and it's cooled off a bit, and the sun is down, and I've opened the windows and doors...cheers, Lillie

tanning salons and French mistressesK

So tanning salons are all up in arms about a 10% tax on a visit. How about a 50% tax? The places are dangerous.

Also, what will John Boehner do now? I suspect he will somehow hit his expense account with the surcharge, though.

Back to France, apparently one of Napoleon's "things" was that if people (e.g., men...this was the early 19th century) produced babies out of wedlock (presumably from mistresses), they should have to support them. French law thus is written (I'm told) so that a man's estate has to provide for illegitimate children as well as legitimate ones. This will, I am certain, be news to the butcher in Nantes with his four wives, the one who says that hey, French men have always had mistresses and nobody complained, 15 children and two on the way, and three at least of whom have fed at the public trough to the tune of 175K euros in the last three years.

Cheers...