Lillie's house in Couze

problems with other blog

2010-01-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

Folks, should you have tried to read my backinkentucky blog, you may have had difficulty getting into it because the blog address I put in the Christmas letter was sort of seriously wrong. The address for that blog is NOT what I put in the letter; rather than that, it is:

www.backinkentucky.blogspot.com...

Cheers, Lillie

post for sarah--avocado soup

2009-08-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

For enough for two people with leftovers for the following day (for at least two):

2 avocados, ripe but not yukky

2 cloves of garlic

1 large or two medium shallots

2 big limes

2-3 cups chicken broth

large glob of either thick yogurt (like Greek) or sour cream or creme fraiche

salt, pepper, possibly more lime juice

Chop garlic and shallots coarsely, squeeze limes, put garlic and shallot in blender or food processor with salt, mince. Add avocados and lime juice, blend, add chicken broth, alternating with yogurt, add some pepper or tabasco, taste. add more salt or yogurt or lime, to taste. Chill.

If you want to be fancy, put chopped chives or Italian parsley on top to impress people. Or I suppose you could put garlic croutons, but I've never done it.

Love, Mom

back in Kentucky take 2

2009-08-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

I'm having some withdrawal symptoms here. While there are things that are in season and should be taken advantage of (is that a proper construction?) like heirloom tomatoes, enormous zucchini (is there actually anybody at my house who will consider eating this? I mean ENORMOUS, they are giving the stuff away sort of everywhere), and green tomatoes, Martin and I have had garlic soup three times in the last four days. Friday everybody agreed it was too thin. Part of the problem was that I browned the first bunch of garlic I put in (it seems to be better if you put garlic in twice). It was pretty good, though. And when I made it again on Saturday, I was more careful. I didn't brown it, just cooked it until it smelled, and then put in salt, some flour, some pepper, and a great deal more garlic. Didn't brown any of that, either. Cooked it awhile, put in water, more salt and pepper, cooked it awhile, put in egg whites mixed with a bit of wine vinegar, cooked it some more, finally put in some egg yolks mixed with a fair amount of vinegar. More salt, pepper. Used rather more flour that time. Also leftover bread. Very good.

This is one of those dishes created to deal with food shortages by poor people, isn't it? You've got garlic growing wild in the garden, some duck or goose fat sitting around, a bit of leftover dry bread and/or some flour. One egg, and a family to feed. What do you do? You stretch the egg (or a couple of them) as far as they will go. I suspect that it got started using leftover wine as well, too far gone to drink with food, but it tasted pretty good in the "potage".

The thing is that it is not only very good, but VERY good for you. Hard to beat. And not worth a **** the day after, as Martin and I learned yesterday (Sunday) when we ate some left over.

My next problem is that I want some of that mayonnaise I had in France that came in that squat jar that was sooooooo good. I was thinking about making some tuna salad today, from canned tuna, and got stuck on the mayonnaise issue. The ONLY mayo in my house here is Hellman's, which is about as good as you can get here in Kentucky. It's NOT the same as the stuff I was getting in France. So what's to be done? I didn't have tuna salad for lunch; I had a can of sardines (I need very badly to lose some more weight, too, but that's another issue). I may have to start actually making my own mayonnaise, not an ideal approach, but...

And then there was the aioli I bought in a jar at the Intermarche. I wasn't optimistic about it at first because I had read the ingredient list wrong, and didn't think it had all that much garlic in it, but OMG, that stuff is GOOD. It makes the aioli I make here taste anemic, and it's a LOT less trouble.

So tonight Martin and I had (a) fried green tomatoes (it's August and we're in Kentucky, so there!), Mexican chicken breasts (chicken breasts with chilis on it, sauteed in olive oil), and Reblochon. So how many food heritages did we hit there?!?

Lillie

Larry McMurtry

2009-08-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

I now know that I have more than I thought in common with Larry McMurtry. If the name doesn't ring a bell, he wrote "The Last Picture Show", "Lonesome Dove", "Terms of Endearment" (I hated that book, but the immediate world seemed to adore the movie), the screenplay for " Brokeback Mountain", which won him an Oscar, and a few other things. He's from West Texas, near Wichita Falls, went to Rice University, and was an English professor there when we were undergraduates. Cousin Bob Martin had him for Freshman English.

Turns out he didn't graduate from Rice; his undergraduate career got de-railed there by, are you ready for this?, Math 100. He left and got a B.A. from North Texas State University, came back and got an M.A. from Rice and was eventually a professor there for awhile.

My budding career as a mathematician got de-railed by, you guessed it, Math 100 at Rice University. I skulked off to get a VERY undistinguished B.A. in French Literature.

At least I have good company.

Lillie

Back in Kentucky

2009-07-30T15:12:00.001-07:00

We flew back to Kentucky yesterday (I say "we flew", that's an oversimplification). Had to get up early, drive to Bordeaux, return the car, take a plane to Paris (Roissy CDG), change terminals, walk several miles, take another plane to Atlanta (10 hours in a sardine can), go through immigration and customs and go back through security (third time for the day) but THIS time I unfortunately had a small bottle of water I'd purchased at CDG, and then we flew to Lexington, Martin met us and drove us home. It was a long day, but I read Sarah Waters's book The Little Stranger on the flight. The airlines seem to have thought of yet more ways to get money out of people. First, it turns out that Air France will promise you a seat with actual leg room on a flight if you pay them an extra 50 euros. Second, it appears that Delta has reduced the weight you are allowed, even as a Medallion flyer--I suspect effective July 1--as what we brought back actually weighed LESS THAN what we took, and we got hit with a 50 euro overweight charge.

And THEN, to add insult to injury, on the translatlantic flight, they are no longer allowing free booze in economy class (aka "Sardine" class). You can have either one can of beer or one glass of wine with your meal without paying extra, but spirits and extra beer or wine comes with a hefty price tag. They do still let you have water without paying extra.

I shouldn't complain; the flights themselves were uneventful and they didn't lose any of our luggage.

A followup to the wedding: Jim Krupa seems to have hung the big sign that says "Drop off location for wedding" (or whatever exactly it is) in the barn at the door to the biggest chicken coop.

Back in Kentucky it is typical July weather: hazy, hot and humid. People in southwest france complain when the humidity gets up over 50%--it does get very hot, but always seems to cool off so sleeping is comfortable--and I always tell them they should visit Kentucky in the summertime.

Lillie

Night market, Cadouin, July 27

2009-07-27T15:01:00.001-07:00

So we went to the night market at Cadouin again tonight. Lots of fun, good food, although the oyster guy has apparently lost his lease on his spot because of problems with his source or problems with its lack of germs or something (sob...I did want oysters...). so I had moules frites again, some wine, the local plonk (e.g., Bergerac rose chilled and Bergerac red, not chilled). It is, I must say, not a bad way to spend an evening. Ken and Val Day were there, as were Paul and Pam. None of the other usual suspects. Phil had this dish that is a piece of pain de campagne (country bread) with a disk of goat cheese, a couple of walnuts, and a drizzle of acacia honey on it, heated up in a microwave (micro-onde, sounds better in French, but what you'd do in another setting is put it in an oven or grill over a fire). I had to settle for a crepe with Grand Marnier, which I guess isn't too bad (the bread/goat cheese/walnut/honey concoction was gone by the time I wanted it, and I did NOT want a whole one, so....)

Tomorrow will be crazy. Gotta go to the bank and sort things out there. Phil has to stay here and sort things out with the technician who will deal with the sewer (I hope; Phil knows quite a lot of French but doesn't communicate all that well with the locals who speak Occitan; I don't either, but it's a bit easier for me, I must say, so maybe he won't get here until after I get back).

Have to get some more bread, to make smoked salmon sandwiches for Wednesday (Delta flight, NOT Air France, we leave from Bordeaux at 1:30 p.m., go to CDG, and leave there at 4 something, on Delta, need FOOD...). These will go along with our pate en croute from the boucherie on the square in Lalinde, e.g., the one with the wonderful meats in it (almost certainly pork and duck, along with pistachios and Lord only knows what else) and the foie gras down the middle. If you have to suffer on a trans-Atlantic trip, you might as well eat well, I always figure.

And then we are going to Ken and Val Day's for lunch (12:30 for 1:00, as the Brits always say...), a swim maybe, and whatever. I need to get a great deal done before we go there, because I probably won't get much done after we get back. So there.

The weather has been gorgeous. Hot in the daytime, but not too hot, and what they consider humid here is NOT what I consider humid (although 88 and 65% humidity is a bit uncomfortable, but it's been that hot only ONE day since I've been here, and FOUR days since we've been here, what with me and Martin going to England and all that). Nothing like the HHH days we get in Kentucky (hazy, hot and humid), and NOTHING AT ALL like the dreadful heat and humidity in Texas. It has NEVER been so hot and humid at night that it was hard to sleep.

According to my sources (all British), it is lovely here until usually late November, when it gets cold and damp. Like you can eat outside in the evening in September, October and some of November. So there. Does anybody out there want to come over here with me later (but not much later) this year?

Do I want to teach this year/next semester/next year? Don't know...life is short, and I fear I'm not bored yet...

Best, Lillie

sewers and other chores

2009-07-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

It seems they are going to put a sewer through our street here, sometime this fall. Jeannette told me I needed to go have a chat with the Mairie about it; I have been putting this off because I HATE having to talk business type things with people in French. Turned out, it wasn't so bad. I went in, finally got the lady there to understand what I wanted to discuss, and she said, oh, it'll happen, November or December, you don't have to do anything. They will put a tap-on line (but she called it something else) in for you; you don't have to do anything. And then I said we won't be here in November and December, and this put it in a bit of a different light. So she went and got a "technician (some big guy named Jean)" and told him, and he asked where I lived. I told him the name of the street and said I was between Mme. Dumas and M. Esteve, and he said ah, in the little house up at the top of the stairs, and I said yes. So he is coming to have a look tomorrow morning. I assume he will show up.

And then there are the keys. Which are expensive, and one of them didn't work, so I had to take it back to get it re-ground. Fortunately I dealt with a guy who shall we say seemed more competent than the one last week. We'll see if the bloody thing actually works.

miscellaneous monday 27 july

2009-07-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

We have to leave on Wednesday. I did (some) chores today. Turns out the bank is closed on Monday, so I have to go tomorrow. I need to take one of the keys back and get it re-done. I do hate that hardware store. Went to the post office to get them to forward our mail (about 1 bill/month, 2 max). It'll cost 100 euros, so I've got to go to plan b. The cartridges I bought for the HP 4280 printer we brought with us won't work, although it says on the box that they are for the HP 4280. And P can't find the set-up CD for the printer, I guess we're out of luck.

Had along chat with Jeannette yesterday. She's been keeping a low profile because she has sciatica. I understand completely; it's the pits. She was also telling me all about our neighbors across the street (in rapid Occitan/French, so I didn't catch a lot of it), and it is juicy. I am not going to disclose it here. I also commented that the lady does more laundry than anybody else I've ever seen, considering that it's just the two adults living there. To which Jeannette said, it's not all laundry; she always has a sheet or blanket positioned down there so Jeannette can't see into their kitchen. It's true; she showed me. He's been out a lot lately in his new "quad", which is basically a motorcycle for old men, with four wheels.

Our flight across the Atlantic on Wednesday is on Delta, not Air France, so food is in order. We're taking some of that wonderful pate en croute from the butcher in Lalinde, and also some smoked salmon sandwiches. For lunch today we had leftover new potatoes, lentilles de Puy (from the butcher) and stuffed tomatoes (also from the butcher). We're going to the night market at Cadouin tonight, and I do hope the oyster guy is there this time. Last time I had to make do with moules frites. Sad, isn't it.

I still have to visit the Mairie and tell them to include us in the sewer when they put the line through, and go get this key redone. And wash more clothes. And pack. And finish cleaning out the fridge. Ugh. And buy some Reblochon (for Martin) and Roquefort (for us) to take back to the US. I decided not to try to smuggle fresh foie gras into the US.

York

2009-07-26T05:23:00.000-07:00

So it looks like I totally forgot to say anything about our two days in York and Kenilworth. Martin wanted to go to York, and I wanted to see Peter and Sylvia Hogarth, our friends from the sabbatical year in York way back when Martin was only one year old. And we had to figure out how to get us to our respective airports (Heathrow and Stansted) on Wednesday morning. So, we drove Monday from Lincoln to York, a 1.5 hour drive, and went directly to the Yorvik Museum, the reconstructed street (Coppergate) from the Viking village they unearthed when they were building the shopping center above. It's been renovated and updated, and was much more interesting than I remember it. I'd gotten reserved tickets for 11:00 a.m., and we were of course late, partly because I missed the Park and Ride place and ended up parking actually in York (9 pounds 20 pence for four hours! or maybe it was 9 pounds 10 pence...it was a LOT). But they let us go to the head of the queue at the museum anyway, and it was good; I have a couple of decent photos from the visit.

After we left the Yorvik Museum, we met Peter and Sylvia for lunch, and then we visited the Minster, after which we left for Kenilworth, partly because our time was up at the car park. The photo just up there to the right is the Shambles in York, and photo below is the Minster with Peter and Sylvia in front of it.

Last saturday in Couze, for the time at least

2009-07-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

I am trying to decide how to waste my day. I did clean the bathroom on the main floor. Took a stab at the cobwebs and the floor in the living room. I would love to clean the crystals on the light fixtures in the living room, but that requires something dependable to stand on; for some reason, they bother me more than the floors do. It's a lovely day, dry, sunny, not very hot. Tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher.

I think I may go shopping. We need some more of those "hairloom" (heirloom) tomatoes. Am going to cook that foie gras I bought the other day at great expense, and need to do something different with this one. (it's raw, shrink wrapped, rather than canned).

later, lillie

Friday, July 24

2009-07-24T12:55:00.001-07:00

So today we decided to go somewhere, and since we've been to all the chateaux around here, and I didn't really want to go to another prehistoric cave, and I NEVER want to visit a gorge, we ended up going to Figeac, which is, according to the guidebooks, interesting. The guy who discovered the Rosetta stone came from Figeac. The real one is in the British Museum, of course (they stole almost everything), but there is a reconstruction that is HUGE in Figeac. It's a trek from here, though, and by the time we got there, it was lunch time and I was demanding food. Our first impression, though, was that it looked like Bergerac. It isn't like Bergerac. Much more interesting.

So the Tourist Office is 13th century, and just

behind it is a shop selling regional products

, e.g., foie gras, etc.

I realize the positioning of these photos is pretty bad, but hey, I'm doing the best I can.

So then we went (as I mentioned earlier) in search of food (and drink, at this point, as I have lost my green water bottle with the good lid). We ended up at a place called the Sphinx, where the menu looked interesting, and we could eat in the old market place. After a bit of a wait, however, which we spent thus:

We both had the salmon tartare (with both raw fresh and smoked salmon), seasoned with basil and olive oil, and served on a salad, for a first course. For the second course I had the tuna (overcooked), and phil had the sausage, both served with saffron rice garnished with some veg. A pichet (small jug) of the local red wine, plus some H2O. For dessert he had the lemon tarte, and I had sorbet cassis, to which I am addicted. And then coffee. And time for a nap, except we had to tour the town. So we followed the indicted circuit, except we went up to the top to the Eglise St. Puy first, as then we were able to basically go down hill. All the buildings (at least many, many of the old ones) seemed to have three or four floors (ground floor, two or three upper floors for living) and then a top open but roofed terrace. I've seen those before but never sort of all over a town. And clearly original. Don't know whether they were used originally for eating out when the weather was warm, or what. It appears that people eat in them now, and also use them to dry laundry, etc.

The town started out as an abbey town, with the Abbaye de Sainte Saveur as the cornerstone. Huge church. Took 300 years to build. Building styles clearly changed while they were building it.

I got tired. Demanded that we leave.

After we got home, it became clear that we would have to eat something for dinner, so cheese (brie, au lait cru, of course), bread, heirloom tomatoes, sliced peaches with Armagnac and creme fraiche, the red wine left from last night (Ste. Estephe). Not bad for leftovers.

Lillie

Food on Thursday night

2009-07-24T12:47:00.001-07:00

The oysters and flounder were wednesday night. Last night we had skate (raie over here), which P said he doesn't like. Instead of just sauteeing it, I actually looked up a couple of recipes. Found one by Elizabeth David (English grande dame on the subject of food, of yesteryear), and another by Daniel Boulud (very much contemporary, chef at "Daniel", one of the many places we can't afford to go to in NYC). They said the same thing. So I put it in salt water, brought it to a boil, and simmered it for 5 minutes. Drained it, skinned it, put it back in the pan with more cold salt water, lots of vinegar, and herbs. Brought it to a boil and drained it. Then I made this blackened butter, put drained capers and red wine vinegar in it, poured it over the fish, put a bit of parsley on it, and served it with the ubiquitous petites pommes de terre nouvelles (small new potatoes, boiled, drained, dried, with butter and parsley...died and gone to heaven good). Some heirloom tomatoes sliced and dressed. The skate was great. P took back all the bad things he's said about the poor fish.

We've been eating so late that I have trouble eating a full meal. You'd think I'd lose weight, but I haven't.

back in Couze (again, I think)

2009-07-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

So the battle of the cobwebs is ongoing. And I was gone only a week, but the bugs/detritis/whatever in the shower is pretty amazing. As is the cobweb/grunge on the floor factor.

P wants to do something about the fan in the kitchen, which, I admit, does make too much noise. On the other hand, the mildew problem while still a problem, is not nearly as bad as it was. (folks, it was BAD!). M. Theo Vontobel is coming on Tuesday to discuss the other repairs needed to the plumbing (like a hot water line downstairs in the cave, proper caulking upstairs around the tub, venting upstairs...). I assume we can get Jeannette to let him in when he comes to fix these things, and whatever else needs fixing.

And this guy Mark, with his English girlfriend Robin, are coming on Sunday morning to discuss other things, like fixing the drywall downstairs, and a few dozen other things. Maybe he will actually do good work...

I got a slew of keys made today, to the tune of 69 euros. That's $100. I need to get Pam to get Rowena to find our set of keys; she says she doesn't have any, but hey, that's not true. And Pam has the assignment to sell Rowena's house/farm. So maybe she can get the keys back, when Rowena actually has to move out, and discovers that she has a set of keys to our house...

Today at the market I bought a whole fresh foie gras. I suspect that I will cook it soon. Will keep you posted; this probably means several more pounds.

We need a couple of screens; one for the cave, to block off the toilet, and one for upstairs, to block off the bathroom area.

We need another fan. Although we have two, this is southwest France, and it gets HOT. There's a fan upstairs in our bedroom, and a second down in the cave, which we have to move up to the main floor to cool that off. We need another fan.

Lillie

food today (Thursday, 23 July 2009)

2009-07-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

So what we had for lunch was some bread, some wine (Pecharmant), some rillettes de canard (purchased at the market), some sliced tomatoes ("heirloom"), olives (market), brie au lait cru, goat cheese from LeClerc (the cheese that looks like a stick of butter, but MUCH tastier), and some Roquefort (again, lait cru, Societe, WONDERFUL). I confes to having some iced tea along with all this, but that's a personal quirk.

For dinner at about 9:00 p.m. we had that skate/raie I bought at the market. This time I didn't just dip it in flour and sautee it. P had allowed as how he hadn't had any skate that he actually liked. So I looked up a couple of recipes and actually followed one, by Dan Boulud. It involved parboiling the skate, scraping the stuff off the outside, bringing it to a boil again with vinegar and spices, and then serving it with black butter, capers, and parsley. Oh, yes, deglazing the butter and capers with red wine vinegar. Very good. With a St. Estephe wine, new potatoes with butter and parsley, salad of "heirloom" tomatoes, onions, and radishes (okay, so that's a bit out of the ordinary, however, the radishes looked good, P loves them, and so I used them...also with wine vinegar and walnut oil), also some chopped parsley. Lord, how I hate these plastic cutting boards. Somebody please tell me why I don't toss the damned thing.

Lillie

food back here in Couze

2009-07-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, P had told me about buying some rillettes de canard at the Intermarche (the supermarket in Lalinde), and how great they were. Today I went to the Thursday market in Lalinde and bought some raie (skate), butter, brie (both au lait cru, raw milk), tomates a l'ancienne (what the old farmer in Bourbon county calls "heirloom tomatoes", emphasis on the 'h'), some very new potatoes, things like that. Also a jar of rillettes de canard. I can make this stuff. It's what is left over on the duck after you cut off the breasts and make confit de canard out of the legs; I think what you need to do at this point is to cook the carcass (salted and peppered) somehow in duck fat, and then scrape off all the meat. And you have rillettes. At least that's what I plan to try. It's all in keeping with the philosophy of not wasting ANY thing.

Lillie

food

2009-07-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

So somebody asked what I did with the oysters and flounder (although I'm still not totally certain that's what is was...). What I did with the oysters was to bully Phil into opening them (there were 10), and putting them on plates. We had slices of lemon and Tabasco sauce to put on them, and a baguette to sop up the brine left in the shell. It was lovely. Pecharmant red wine with it. (yes, yes, you're supposed to drink white wine with things like this, preferably very dry white...however, we mostly drink very dry red with EVERYTHING!)

I dredged the flounder in flour (after I'd salted and peppered it), and sauteed it in butter (the wonderful stuff I get over here), and EVOO (as Rachel Ray has labeled Extra Virgin Olive Oil). And that was all. We had a green salad. Aioli out of a jar on it (and the aioli you can get in the supermarket here is WONDERFUL, as is the tartar sauce and the mayonnaise, which makes Hellman's look like amateurs...it is almost the same as making it from scratch), and it was great.

Lillie

Belton House

2009-07-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

So after we visited Isaac Newton's birthplace, we went to Belton House, which was on the way back to Lincoln. Scenes from several Jane Austen productions have been filmed here, and it's lovely, and I'd never heard of it before. The odd thing is that the people running the place clearly don't push this fact; I suspect they could attract many additional visitors if they would. It's a lovely 18th century mansion. There were people playing cricket on the front lawn. The National Trust gift shop was very nice. There were facilities all over the place. A restaurant. The house is magnificent, and is being constantly restored; they are currently working on restorations of the kitchens, laundry, and staff quarters. It is a magnificent place, and I'd never heard of it before...

Woolsthorpe and Belton House

2009-07-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

So one day Martin and visited Woolsthorpe, the birthplace of Isaac Newton (need I explain how uninterested Martin was in Woolsthorpe? but I let him sleep in the car on the way to the place), and Belton House, a seventeenth (or is it eighteenth?) century great house that has been the setting for scenes from several of the Jane Austen films/TV series.

So the interesting thing about the photo above

left is that they are selling pieces of limbs from Newton's apple tree (above right), little 1.5" pieces of twigs made into key chains or something for about 6 pounds each. While it is indeed the original apple tree that Isaac Newton was observing when he "discovered" (e.g., figured out) gravity while he was back in Lincolnshire while they had shut down Cambridge University because of a plague outbreak, it does seem a bit ridiculous to purchase a bit of the tree. At least it does to me.

His house is a typical landed "lower" gentry house:

It was all interesting. And Martin was patient.

Lillie

back in Couze, 23 july 09

2009-07-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Couze and, unfortunately, have to go back to the US next Wednesday. England was good. My hotel was lovely and historic, the car I ended up with was a Peugeot 308 SW (six speed wagon, with AC and a sunroof). It turned out that this was NOT the car I was supposed to have. However, this was not exactly my fault. In typical English fashion, I was given a sealed packet with the location of my rental car on it, and told to go get it, that the car would have the key in it. It did. It was a nice car, especially after I managed to figure out (a) how to get it in reverse and (b) how do manage all six forward gears, especially using my left hand. I only caught myself driving on the right side of the road twice, and I only drove the wrong way on one way streets in Lincoln twice. In both cases, I figured I could talk my way out of it. It was for about half a block, and I didn't have a clue how to get to where I needed to be (up there at that next street...) without going the wrong way on this one.

And then, when it came time to turn the car in at Stansted, it turned out that I was supposed to be driving an Opel (smaller than the Peugeot) but, as I pointed out, and as the attendant agreed, I had done exactly what I had been told to do.

So there.

The other interesting incident with the British mentality was at the Cathedral at the coffee hour after the Sunday morning communion service (which included, I might add, a really nice sermon from the dean, perhaps a bit longer than absolutely necessary, but incredibly broad-minded IMHO). They were selling used books and a Lincoln Cathedral cookery book (on cursory inspection, seriously mediocre, but I tend to buy these things, as the proceeds usually go to good causes). Turned out I couldn't find my wallet/purse, the coin purse with the actual cash in it. I suspected that I'd left it in my room, and asked one of the choir mothers if I could borrow 10 pounds; she said yes, and gave me a ten pound note. I bought the book; the lady selling it was absolutely horrified when I said, well, I'm pretty sure it's in my hotel room, and it's only money, not the wallet with my credit cards in it. She was truly horrified.

So there. My coin purse was in my hotel room...

Lillie

wednesday 22 July

2009-07-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Couze after a long day of travel and a fun but, shall we say, not restfull, couple of days. I am also heartened to get a couple of messages fussing at me for not writing for awhile, and writing me via email to tell me they are enjoying my blog. RIght now it's late, I'm tired, tomorrow I have to (a) go to the market, (b) figure out some interesting new place to visit because we're leaving in a week, and (c) organize people to fix the plumbing (not done yet!), repair the wall in the bathroom downstairs (ditto), look after the house while we're back in the US (perhaps I shouldn't go back! anybody want to come over here and stay with me? and then go back with me sometime later? I can't do it by myself), (d) clean the place and get ready to leave in a week.

After Phil picked me up at the (!) Bergerac Airport (at least it's not as bad as Stansted, however, it's actually smaller and in a lot of ways even more irritating), we went to LeClerc, this sort of super-Walmart-wannabe, sort of. We bought Phil some more printer ink (a cartridge), returned his size 43 sneakers I bought him for 10 euros to use for yard work, but they were too small, bought him some bigger ones (also size 43, but they cost 3 euros more), and bought fish (oysters and flounder), salad and bread for dinner. Came back and made dinner. It's hot. Maybe it'll rain and cool off. It was cloudy, wet, windy and COLD in England.

More later. I will write about the other stuff we did in England.

Lillie

observations sunday 19th

2009-07-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Why is English food so uniformly lousy? They seem to admire French food enormously, and try to emulate it, which I don't think is all that hard, but it falls seriously flat here. I decided I was going to have something that wasn't fried yesterday evening, and went to a place that was a pub with "serious" food. Service was good, the place was very nice, the food was expensive (it always is), and I ordered some grilled fish served with pureed celeriac (celery root) and roasted radishes and beans. The beans were good, French longish green beans, cooked perfectly. Roasted radishes? Huh? The pureed celeriac was okay but uninspired. The fish was a piece of fish grilled and plopped on top of the rest, which were arranged nicely. It could have used some seasoning. It was cooked well, but needed salt, pepper, lemon, anything... and this was $20+. The glass of red was okay but it was 6 pounds, e.g., another $10.

And then there's the stuf that's really not good. Too much is fried. Fish and chips usually is breaded, fried fish, fried potatoes, and green peas. It's good, and I guess you need a lot of starch to get through an English winter, but...

Lillie

19 July 09 cromwell and lincoln cathedral

2009-07-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

Cromwell did a real job on the cathedral in Lincoln. They stripped all the brasses from the tombs in the cathedral, trashed most of the statuary on the outside, destroyed almost all of the stained glass. It was evidently a capital crime to try to rescue any of the glass, but townsfolk picked up lots of random pieces anyway and hid them away. The rose window in the south transept is made of reclaimed bits of this stained glass, or so I'm told.

Some of the brasses have been restored, maybe three; most have not. Katherine Swynford's Chantry Chapel was destroyed, and her tomb and that of her daughter are now end to end rather than side by side; Katherine's is still in its same place, but not inside a chantry chapel.

I asked about the window, as it reminds me of the west window in York Minster, the petal shape in the lead does, anyway, and one of the clergy suggested that Lincoln cathedral is FAR superior to York Minster. It is a lovely place, I admit, and everybody in town (a) seems to know we're here ("you sound like an American; are you here with that choir that's visiting?") and (b) seems to really enjoy living in Lincoln. This is the way York always struck me; people who lived there were very fond of the place.

dinner on friday 17 july

2009-07-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

So after evensong I went to dinner at a place across the street called Cafe Zoot or something like that. It seems to be a melange if I dare use that word of English, French and American cuisine. I guess. Throw in some Italian. They have bruschetta and garlic bread and a ravioli dish and gnocchi. And a duck confit for a starter, and another dish that sounds an awful lot like duck confit, at least it's duck leg, for a main. And there's a duck pate. And a salad of pear, walnuts and gorgonzola. And of course the ubiquitous steak and ham dishes. Fairly eclectic. I finally settled on the starter sampler, which is supposed to be an appetizer for two people. I needed to eat something but not a full meal.

It had on it:

some seriously mediocre duck pate, a blob sitting on a small sea of strawberry jam, with toasted baguette slices stuck in it;

two sauteed prawns that were okay;

some strips of beef that were battered and fried had served with a "sweet chilli sauce" on top (it was actually better than it sounds);

some green salad, mixed stuff, mostly mache and arugula, in the middle, hard to mess up;

breaded, and then baked or fried (sometime earlier) camembert, served with some kind of chutney on top; and

big chunks of rolls and big slices of french bread separating all these dishes.

It was actually better than it sounds, but it was still bizarre.

Who was it who said that to eat well in Britain, you have to eat breakfast three times a day?

And what is it with these wines? the red ones, at least...

I had dinner last night in the restaurant downstairs in the White Hart, and had two starters, in stead of a main course. My first was "gravlax" which I put in quotes, because I'm fairly certain how gravlax is supposed to be made, and this wasn't. As far as I could tell, it was 1/4" thick cylinders of raw salmon drowned in oil (probably not very good olive oil), placed on very thin rounds of cucumber, and sprinkled generously with fresh dill weed and capers, and sprinkled with lemon, with dollops of mayo scattered around. It was good, but it wasn't gravlax.

And my other starter was fettuccini with Whitby crabmeat, in a white wine sauce with some red peppers in it. Pretty good, but an odd combination.

In both places, the options for red wines were essentially the same: Italian, Australian, South African, no French. Why not?

Lillie

more lincoln friday july 17, including White Hart

2009-07-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

So I'm staying at this historic White Hart Inn/Hotel, that used to be cathedral property, hence the names of all the bishops of Lincoln Cathedral on the doors. I had to move today to a (smaller, cheaper) room because of my late booking. This part of the hotel is old, but not nearly as old as the part that had the last room. AND I have a small balcony looking out over Bailgate, so I can open a door if I get hot, which is right now unlikely as it is raining and cold. There's the hotel at the left there. And I'm no longer in one of the rooms that is "haunted", to the chagrin of the younger choristers.

Martin showed up while I was eating breakfast this morning, wanting

(allegedly) to check his email and look up some things online. He also wanted me to take him out to lunch, as his "boxed lunch" was a roll with a piece of cheese and slice of tomato in it, in a plastic bag with a bottle of water and a banana. He's not crazy about the lunches they've been getting. I was at this point tucking into an enormous English breakfast, with bacon, eggs, toast, mushrooms, lots of tea, the works (I passed on the black pudding, the sausage and the "baked beans", which are actually pork and beans). I suggested that perhaps we could wait awhile before we went to lunch. We went up to my room and he looked at his email for a couple of minutes and then announced that he was going to take a nap until it was time to go to lunch. The bottom line is that all these choristers, the men, and all the chaperones are dog tired, what with staying out until all hours, getting up at 7:00 and running all day and into the night.

Rather later we went to a pub down the street "Steep Hill" and had some reliable fish and chips and peas (these brits are really into starch, aren't they). He had a Sam Smith Coke Lite (no joke) and I had a half pint of Sam Smith Bitter.

Did some more Christmas shopping at Pitlochry Woolens (it was too late to go to Grantham to Woolsthorpe Manor, Isaac Newton's birthplace), visited the cloister and took some more photos, and went to Evensong. They were good. Sang this stuff by Byrd. Turns out he was among other things organist and choirmaster a Lincoln Cathedral as well as being a student of Thomas Tallis in the 16th century. This country gives you a totally different perspective on time.

Tomorrow I want to figure out where it is that Katherine Swynford actually lived in the cathedral precincts.

Lillie

The White Hart Hotel

2009-07-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

So while my room isn't very large, it is in the oldest part of the building. I'm in room #270. According to the Lincoln Town Crier who did the Ghost Walk yesterday (at left--she's also from Wakefield, Yorkshire--it sounded like a Yorkshire accent to me, and I was right), there are two haunted rooms in the White Hart Hotel, and one of them is #270. Somebody shot himself in the head in my room.

And I also found about the name on the door--John Williams, 1621--all the rooms have plaques on them with the names of bishops of Lincoln. That settles that. What is now the White Hart Hotel used to belong to the cathedral, and was actually accommodation for people visiting the cathedral. My room doesn't look haunted: it's actually quite nice.

Another thing: I was talking to the wait staff at breakfast this morning, and they told me all sorts of stories about people who've stayed at the hotel. Gwynneth Paltrow, the Queen's father (that was awhile ago, as he died in 1953 or 54), and of course Tom Hanks, Dan Brown, et al. when they were filming part of the DaVinci Code in Lincoln. Also of course that guy who was the assassin. According to the staff in the dining room, Tom Hanks, et al. were incredibly nice. He had the suite at the top of the hotel, and learned that it had been booked as a honeymoon suite before the hotel learned the DaVinci Code folks were coming. The hotel was going to move the bride somewhere else, and Tom Hanks wouldn't let them. HE moved. The place is certainly a lovely, gracious, user-friendly place considering its pedigree...

Lillie

Lincoln Thursday

2009-07-16T12:24:00.001-07:00

So I had dinner in the hotel this evening; hadn't had lunch at all except for a pork pie and some water. Evensong was okay but not great.

I think Tino may be up there in the bell tower in the cathedral; I certainly hope so. They are doing a peal, and the men were invited to come up and help out. He wasn't going to go because he's in a snit about the candlelight tour of the cathedral and is annoyed about a couple of other things. But it sounds GREAT from here (my hotel room) with the window open.

Today wasn't very interesting, but was fine. I went down the Steep Hill to the High Street and associated (boring) stores, which now include of course not only a McDonald's, but also a Starbucks. Oh, yes, I was getting tired, and stopped in to Starbucks; in typical American chain fashion, it is (a) air conditioned and (b) has rest rooms. Bought some boring things, too, like socks and another alarm clock. Steep Hill really is steep. Fortunately there is a small bus that does a circuit every 20 minutes for a minimal amount of money, and you can use it to get back up the hill.

There may be something interesting on the telly tonight.

I also passed a couple of very interesting buildings on the way down the hill. Jews House and Jews Houses, which are 12th century buildings generally intact, and are very good examples of prosperous residences in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Hey, two photos, and no disasters...

Night Market at Cadouin, Monday, July 13

2009-07-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

So Phil, Martin and I went to the night market at Cadouin. You may recall that this is the one we were trying to go to last Friday, except it wasn't happening. It happened on Monday. I'm going to upload a few photos of people, and then try to explain who they are. (I still find uploading photos into this to be a spectacular pain...maybe I could be using another engine or whatever this is for my blog, but being the computer end-user that I am, once I find something that actually works, I am exceedingly reluctant to change.)

Okay, the two photos above. Some of the British Ex-Pats that live in the Lalinde area. On the left, Richard Herrington and Paul Keenan in front, Pam Stananought and Yvette on the other side of the table. Richard and Yvette live together/are married/or something. Ditto Paul and Pam. Paul is the fellow who did the work on our house. I think he has retired from same.

More about Richard and Yvette later. The photo on the right is Yvette again, Ken Day and Phil. Ken is the Ken of "Ken and Val Day" who we think so highly of. Don't know where Val was when I took this. Martin thinks she is wonderful. More from the night market, including description and photos, a bit later. gotta go to Evensong.

Lillie

Back in France

2009-07-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

While Martin and I were still in France, we took him to the Chateau de Biron, an enormous one down on the border between Perigord and Agen, up on an impressive hill, of course. Simon de Montfort played some role in its defence or whatever during whichever war(s) it was in. I do know it was involved in the Hundred Years' War. The day before, when we were puttering around Monpazier, Martin had decided he had to have a poster of Biron, so we decided to go there. On the way we once again had to pass the Chateau de Bannes, down the road from Couze, and I think privately owned and occupied.

The Chateau de Bannes looks to me like it sort of grew out of the rock,

without being built.

Biron is pretty impressive, though, too. The chapel, even (frequently they aren't). I decided to pass. It was far too hot; the hill was far too steep; I'd been there before; once you get up to the top, you have to come down again (!); and there was a cafe down at the bottom that was calling to me. I also found a shop selling "produits regionnaux", e.g., walnuts, walnut oil, walnut tarts, various jams and things, honey, confit and foie gras. The usual suspects. I had a lot more fun than I would have had climbing that hill.

So after we went there, we went back to the house, collected some things, and went to the Cadouin Night Market. Stay tuned

two more things about Lincoln

2009-07-15T15:28:00.001-07:00

First, some of the scenes from the Da Vinci Code were filmed in Lincoln Cathedral, AND Tom Hanks stayed at the same hotel I'm staying at, the White Hart Hotel.

Second, there's a new movie called Young Victoria, about Queen Victoria, with a number of the usual suspects as stars in it, and her coronation was filmed in Lincoln Cathedral. The dreadful guy who was the assassin in the Da Vinci Code is also in Young Victoria.

Lillie

14 July 2009 Bastille Day

2009-07-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

Well, we started off today by going to the Bastille Day pomp and ceremony at the war memorial in Lalinde. Our friend Ken Day was one of the standard bearers, along with several old (and new) timers...one appeared about 16). I think there were 8 flags, they raised the french flag on the pole, played the Marseillaise, laid a wreath on the war memorial, the mayor and somebody else said a few words. I have it on videotape, but have thus far been unable to upload it here.

The one member of the Resistance still alive in the area was there, but left before Val Day could point him out to me. I didn't quite catch the details, but the Mayor, one of the people who gave a short speech, escaped the Germans during the war (probably in 1944 when it was so bad in the Dordogne) by crawling through the sewer tunnel with (I think) his father and his sister, and came out in the bassin (sort of like a rectangular lake, connected with the canal that is parallel to the river, which has rapids) in another part of town. His mother was too fat to get through the tunnel, and the Gestapo killed her. They were "drafting" every male, German, French or whatever, who was 14 or more, or maybe it was 12 near the end of the war.

After the ceremony, which I will try again to upload, Martin and I went back to the house, fixed lunch and a couple of other things--he had to have "escargots", e.g., snails in garlic butter, one more time while he was in France. Then we went to Bergerac to fly to Stansted. I won't elaborate, but as trips by air go, it was the usual ordeal, and they didn't have any of those big zillion page 3 miles to the inch book maps of Britain at the Stansted W.H. Smith; all they had were 1 foot or so to the inch maps of London (actually I didn't check out the scale). We own about 4 of those big book maps, but they are all in Kentucky.

I was trying to ask someone who looked like she worked there where the Europcar rental cars actually were, and I first asked in French, before I realized I was in England.

We arrived in Lincoln. Annoyances but no disasters. Martin is settled in (I think) a choir school boarding house. Directions from Kathleen were, shall we say, not entirely accurate, and we decided the place didn't exist, after I had driven down a curving lane with a stone wall on either side, and not actually wide enough to accommodate anything bigger than a horse. We were looking for #18 James Street. We found 12, 14 and 16, and there was no 18, and the description didn't exactly fit the area, shall we say. Fortunately #16 is occupied by a retired priest who came out and helped us out. I am sort of settled in the White Hart Hotel, a VERY old hotel at the gates of the cathedral precincts, AND with internet included in the room price, AND a car park with no extra charges, AND it seems the room will cost me 20 pounds/night less than they told me yesterday, which is good. They seem to have the heating on, at least it's far too warm in here. I did manage to open one of the three windows. And the door says that John Williams stayed here in 1621; I asked the desk clerk if he stayed in that actual room or if he just stayed in the hotel. He's not sure, and I suspect nobody has ever asked that before. Actually in truth I'm not sure who John Williams is. There was a John Williams who was a composer who died fairly recently, so I guess it's not him.

At any rate, I won't have to climb the hill to get to the cathedral. They serve breakfast (also included) until 11:00 so I may actually get some.

We have issues with adapters; we need them both for American and French plugs (my phone), and we have ONE. This is a problem. That may be my project tomorrow. That and my fly bites (yes, FLIES, NOT mosquitoes, FLIES) and associated blisters. The guy at the pharmacy in Lalinde told me to put hydrocortisone cream on them and take antihistamines. These are far beyond that level of treatment.

Enough already. I need to write about Biron and the night market yesterday (we finally made it to one), and some things like that.

Lillie

Saturday, 11 July 09, Martin's here

2009-07-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

We’ve had an eventful couple of days. Saturday morning we didn’t plan anything because the appliance repairman was coming at 11:00 except that (MIRACLE!) he showed up early. This was truly a surprise; the only problem was, I sort of wasn’t exactly dressed to meet strangers, if you know what I mean. It turns out that the problems with both the washing machine and the oven were that we didn’t quite know how they worked. The washing machine is “semi-automatic”, which means that it doesn’t necessarily go all the way through a complete cycle, which is why we’d been having to turn it off after the wash cycle, move the dial, and turn it on again to get it to do the final rinse and spin.

He told us the dryer was a piece of junk that should be tossed into the “poubelle”, which we basically already knew, as it takes about 2.5 hours to actually get it to dry anything. Electricity is rather expensive over here, to boo

t. And then there is the oven, or “four”. The problem there (we couldn’t get it to light under any circumstances) is that you have to turn it on, wait between 5 and 10 seconds, and THEN put a lighted match in the hole. Welcome to “safety” measures in France (for the washer, when it’s done, you have to (a) turn it “off” by pressing the button again, and wait two minutes until it “clicks” before you can open the tub, yet another safety measure).

After he left (this all cost me 20 euros, and it was a real challenge understanding that 20 euros was what we owed him—I never did; he had to show me), we ate some lunch and then

decided to go to Monbazillac, very near Bergerac, where they make sweet white dessert wine, not unlike Sauterne. Not nearly as expensive. You have to pay to visit the chateau (16^th century, about 1560), but then there is free tasting of a lot of wines. Martin didn’t like the Pecharmant (an AOC in the Bergerac region) red, at all, but the Bergerac red a little, and he liked the Monbazillac we tasted, the sweet white wines, perfect for dessert or to eat with that other local product, foie gras.

We ended up buying a “case”, in this case a six-pack, of the chateau Monbazillac 2002, which was in a box (one of the issues here was that we wanted the box). It’s supposed to be great to lay down for 25-30 years, by which time I will almost certainly be dead. We also bought two bottles of Pecharmant (can lay this down up to 10 years) and Bergerac Rouge (up to four years). These are all years that are generally beyond our ability to appreciate the quality, but hey, the Pecharmant was 6 euros 50 a bottle, and the Bergerac 4 euros 50 a bottle. The latter would cost at least (AT LEAST) $20 in Kentucky.

For dinner we had garlic soup which I made (trying to emulate the stuff we’d had the night before at that restaurant), escargots (snails) in garlic butter (one of Martin’s favorites), bread and wine. The garlic soup was good, except it wasn’t garlicky enough, even though I used 9 or 10 cloves for 1.5 litres of water worth of soup, and it wasn’t thick enough. It disappeared, though. Next time I will use MUCH more garlic, and MUCH more flour; what you do is sauté the chopped up garlic in duck or goose fat, slowly and not until it is brown, and then put flour on it and cook that for a bit, and then add water, and let it cook for rather a long time. So if you mess up and don’t have either enough garlic or enough flour at the start (OR BOTH), you have a problem. It was good, though. I will try again. The snails I bought at the supermarket frozen. So there.

a comment

2009-07-10T15:24:00.001-07:00

I don't know about the photos I'm posting here. Look at the Marburg post, with the photo of Johannes, Evelyn and Olaf; all three of them are squashed. They are not as short and wide as they look in the photo; in truth all three are very tall, or at least tall for their age (in Johannes's case)

Mushroom house

2009-07-10T15:15:00.001-07:00

So this house is up by Beynac castle. The roof is one of those they call "lauze" or something like that, and you usually see them only on dovecotes, or bories. They are flattish rocks, laid out around the roof. I don't think there's any mortar anywhere involved in them. P said this is not a house; it's a mushroom. It's the only house I've ever seen with one of these roofs.

Friday night, July 10

2009-07-10T15:05:00.001-07:00

Above left is a photo of the Abbaye de Cadouin (Cadouin Abbey) taken from the restaurant we ate at, described below. The photo on the right is of the restaurant; P and Martin are at the table in front, with P pouring wine. As I mentioned, I'm having difficulties inserting photos...

I had mentioned the Cadouin night market, and Martin said he didn’t want to go to a market. Until I told him what a night market is: it’s NOT a usual market with all sorts of food and clothes, etc. to buy; you EAT at a night market. As far as I know, it’s unique to this part of France. And then he decided it sounded like a good idea; he could get crepes. I could get oysters and/or Moules Frites. Local wines. Phil could get foie gras. There was a hitch, though. I thought the Cadouin night markets happen every Friday night in the summertime once they begin them, usually late in June. And I’d seen a sign a week and a half ago about one last Friday night. So, we went to the night market. Except it wasn’t happening. It was by this time after 8:00 p.m., and we decided to eat in one of the three places in Cadouin. I chose the nicest one, where we’d been before a couple of years ago. It’s called Restaurant de l’Abbaye or something like that, and is right across from the old abbey. The other two restaurants were selling things like a slice of pizza with a fried egg on top. That’s the terrace of the restaurant up there, with P at the front table pouring wine, across from Martin. From P’s side of the table (mine, too) you had a good if not complete view of the abbey.

This turned out to be a good idea. We had a bottle of house Bergerac red (8 euros/bottle); they brought a lovely COLD large pitcher of water without being asked. Martin and I chose the cheapest menu (14 euros, four courses), and P chose the one with foie gras for one course and sole for the main (28 euros or thereabouts, also four courses). Every meal began with “potage”, which was the local garlic soup—water, garlic, lots of it, sautéed in duck or goose fat gently, some bread, salt and pepper of course, a bit of flour, cooked awhile and then with egg white (and sometimes yolk) added. Martin looked at it, and turned his nose up; I allowed as how he WAS going to TRY IT. He ate the whole bowl, and sopped up what was left with bread.

For the first course, Martin and I both had the duck terrine served with green salad with walnuts. The duck terrine was great, had pieces of foie gras in it. We both finished it all. I suggested that it would make great sandwiches (it would, on French bread sliced horizontally and smeared with Dijon mustard). Martin disagreed, but what does he know… Phil had the foie gras, which was served warm sprinkled with sea salt and served with toast. As it always does, it was great.

For the next course, Martin and I both had veal breast stuffed with Serrano ham (rather like Prosciutto, is that how you spell it?). It was rolled, though, and the ham was ground up with some other stuff. I think it was leeks along with who knows what else. Martin didn’t think it was leeks. But the veal breast was clearly spread very thickly with this ham stuff, rolled up, tied, and braised. In what, I don’t know. I’d guess white Bergerac (Bergerac Sec) and veal or chicken broth. Then sliced. Served with some gravy, some great peeled, sliced and fried potatoes, and a custard thing with zucchini in it.

The potatoes over here are WONDERFUL.

Phil had the sole, which was rolled up, cooked (I suspect steamed), and covered with a wonderful sauce that was full of mushrooms. Served with white rice (typical) and the zucchini custard stuff.

The menu had clearly said “Fromage ou dessert”, e.g., cheese or dessert. I’d said I wanted cheese, so they brought me this tray of cheeses to choose from. I picked three, but by then I was stuffed so I had to get some help, even though it wasn’t much cheese. But then when they came around asking about dessert, they offered me some, too. I couldn’t resist when they said they had sorbet cassis (black currant sorbet, it’s mostly just frozen blended black currants and sugar). Martin had crème brule, and P had tarte aux poires, which is a tart with pears. It was served on a cherry sauce, and was more like a clafouti than my idea of a tart. It didn’t really have a crust; the bottom was a thick thing that was a cross between crust, cake and custard, and was it good. Had a pear half on top baked with it.

While the meal wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, it was way up there for the price.

We still haven’t decided what to do tomorrow, besides wait for the appliance repairman come (supposedly at 11:00) to fix the washing machine (turns off at strange times) and maybe the oven (which won’t start at all…).

One of the things Martin brought me, among the bills, is a very nasty invoice/note from the Tresorie de Lalinde. Evidently I haven’t paid a water bill or something like that. I’m not sure I ever RECEIVED a water bill. I will try to deal with it on Monday…

Have I mentioned that I am losing the battle with the cobwebs? Martin is going to help me clean the fridge, which badly needs it. He’s going to take everything out; I’ll clean it; and then WE will put things back in. The problem is that I have to sort of stand on my head to do it.

I’m glad I’m back in France; too bad I have to go to England next week.

Lillie

July 10, Friday, martin's here

2009-07-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

So we planned to visit Beynac Castle today, Phil’s favorite, and one of the huge English castles built during the Hundred Years’ War (which I’ve been told effectively lasted about 300 years). It’s further east on a big bluff overlooking the Dordogne, across from Castlenau, I think. The problem is that, while they told Martin it would be at least 48 hours before he’d be able to get his suitcase back, they phoned this morning about 8:00 and said it would be delivered to our house between noon and 4:00 p.m. This would be nice since it would mean I don’t have to drive again to Bordeaux to pick it up, HOWEVER, it is now 3:22 p.m. local time and they aren’t here yet, and we can’t leave to go sightseeing until they get here. Bienvenue en France; Welcome to France.

The good news is that the people across the street, M. et Mme. Fernand Roy, have left, at least for the weekend. They live in the old Boulangerie (bakery), a trapezoid shaped building built, like everything else around here, into the hill. The garden directly in front of ours, down some steps, is theirs. She’s an absolute card-carrying pill or harridan or whatever; he’s clearly henpecked. Well, they have two cars, AND they have a garage, but they never put one of the cars in the garage when they are here, as that’s where he does all his “projects”. There are two parking places on the road between us, one of which should be ours, but they use both of them, so we have to park down the road on the bluff. It’s a pain.

If there’s a place open when we return from something, and we park in it, as soon as we leave again they will move their car out of the garage and occupy the space. Jeannette Dumas has watched them do this several times, and says it looks like a slap-stick comedy on TV. But when I went down this morning, the gate to the garden (which is fenced in with bamboo sticks and wire, and about 2’ high) was padlocked (an old twisted coat hanger, an ancient heavy, rusted metal chain, and a padlock—hey, even with my bad hips and bad knees, I could step over and into the garden if I wanted); the house was shuttered; the dog wasn’t yapping; the garage door was closed, and there were no cars around. Which means they are out of town, at least for the weekend. I hope it’s a three week holiday, so they won’t get back before we leave.

Later…So they were supposed to deliver Martin’s suitcase between noon and 4:00 p.m. This being France, it arrived about 4:45, and I guess we should be grateful it made it at all. Then P and Martin decided we had to go to Beynac Castle NOW; it’s almost an hour drive, and the castle closes at 6:30. So we took off rapidly with zero prep, and did visit Beynac. It is great, and I made P park up on the top of the mountain so we could go straight in, rather than climbing up all those cobblestones. I took my cane; it helps going up stairs and there are lots of them in that castle, and people tend to give you a wide berth. Richard the LionHeart was the baron of this castle for 10 years, 1189-1199, I think. It was on the English side most of the time during the Hundred Years’ War. Across the Dordogne is Castlenaud and a couple of other ones. It’s a great view from Beynac. If you can minimize the steps…

Am having a lot of trouble with these photos. I may just post a couple of pages with nothing but photos...

Lillie

Thursday, July 9

2009-07-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Reflections on the trip to Switzerland and Germany

It was too hot. Basel, which everyone says is great, was not as great as it would have been. The Van Gogh exhibit was good. The cathedral was interesting. Being able to sit on the banks of the Rhine in Switzerland and see both Germany and France under the bridge was neat. It was too hot, and I lost Lukas’s key to their flat. Admittedly, these hot spells are generally brief, BUT…

Marburg was great. And it rained awhile and cooled off.

Tubingen, however you spell it (there’s an umlaut over the ‘u’) was pretty good, and we ate fairly well.

We spent too much time on trains. And too many of them were too hot (notwithstanding the fact that we were in first class all the way…)

I’m glad to be back in France. The plumbing emergency is fixed, although the soaked wall needs repair as do some other plumbing issues. And the washing machine needs fixing, as does the oven, I guess. It doesn’t work, but the cooktop works and we have a microwave, so it’s not a disaster.

It cooled off here, too.

Martin is not here yet. His plane from Cincinnati to Boston was late (weather), and then there was a “mechanical problem” on the plane they re-scheduled him on, so it left about 1:30 a.m. instead of 10:30 p.m. It is now at CDG and they had to evacuate the place and quit unloading the plane because of a “security issue”, e.g., a bomb threat. He still has to (a) collect his bag, (b) organize a new train to Bordeaux and (c) get on it and get there. I will feel much better when I can actually look at him.

I went to the market this morning (always Thursdays in Lalinde), bought some food, including old fashioned pain de champagne, made by these people in Molieres (have probably already mentioned them) who grow their own wheat, etc. Do it all from scratch. Also some butter and crème fraiche out of tubs. Some kitchen towels not unlike the ones we pay dearly for at Mulberry & Lime in Lexington, but 7 euros each. Then I went to the supermarket and bought yet more cheese and a few other things, AND they had ICE CUBES. I now have a semi-unlimited supply of good iced tea, so I should be much nicer.

I am seriously losing the battle of the spider webs. We were gone only a week, and yet it’s like a plague. We also need more bookcase space. This seems to be a perpetual problem, wherever I am. There are always more books than there is space for them. Can’t figure out why.

Have I mentioned that I will feel much better when I can look at Martin?

Later…it’s 3:30 in the afternoon, he’s still at CDG where they have lost his luggage. He is evidently managing nicely to deal with that ordeal. Now he has to deal with the trains. AAAAARGGGHH…

Rather much later…we got back from the Bordeaux main train station (Gare St. Jean) with Martin in tow about 12:45 a.m., or 0:45 here. The train station, which we were actually in yesterday, but didn’t really see any of it, is (a) enormous, (b) gorgeous, (c) in a dreadful part of the city with “adult” shows and cops all over the place, and (d) without parking as they are doing all these road works all over the place. It was interesting. We parked up on a sort of sidewalk. Illegally, of course, but the car was there when we came back for it. But hey, we’re back home in Couze.

Martin was distressed about taking a shower, because he has no luggage, and I allowed as how we’ll go buy him some new underwear tomorrow. They told him it’ll take AT LEAST 48 hours to recover his suitcase and get it to the Bordeaux airport (gad, yet another drive to Bordeaux…maybe we’ll hit IKEA on the way back…). They are not interested in delivering it here to the cottage in Couze. Welcome to air travel in the 21^st century.

MAYBE I’ll manage to upload some photos tomorrow. I’m waiting for things to calm down.

Lillie

back in Couze from Switzerland and Germany

2009-07-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

Very late Wednesday, July 8

So we got back today from the trip to Switzerland and Germany. And it was fun, and I think Phil actually enjoyed doing all four talks, but OMG the train trips were a what? Too long, too many changes of train (accompanied by dragging luggage up and down stairs), too much on the go food, too much sitting down for hours at a time. I’m tired.

I do love being back in Couze. And the plumber Jeannette found repaired the leak downstairs. However, he hasn’t fixed anything else, and because of the leak, we need to repair/replace the dry wall and insulation down there, because it is soaked. I will look into it tomorrow. And I will also try to manage to talk to the appliance guy in Port de Couze (it’s across the river from Couze) to get him to fix both the oven (maybe) and the washing machine (for sure). I’m planning to investigate prices of new fridges, as the one here, which was supposed to be new when they renovated the cottage, isn’t. I also need to see if I can find somebody to fix the wall downstairs, not to mention repair the rest of the plumbing.

And, we need to find somebody to handle rentals of the place; it’s silly not to try to rent it out when we’re not here, and we’re never here at the peak vacation times. Rowena something or other was a serious prospect here, except Brian, her roommate and long-time companion, died last year. Not only is she not working; she is trying to sell her house and (I think) move back to England.

Martin is supposed to arrive tomorrow, however, he managed to miss his flight from Boston to CDG, because the flight from Cincinnati was late, which means he will also miss his train from CDG to Bordeaux. This all means a LARGE number of phone calls, in addition to the ones we’ve already had. Welcome to air travel in the 21^st century. And Martin doesn’t deal well with surprises, does he.

We were gone for only a week, and the spider webs have taken over. I will have to spend half a day getting rid of them, and then there’s the floors, the laundry, the fridge, etc. I need Evelyn Korn’s nanny; she is part housekeeper, part nanny for their son Johannes. And clearly she is wonderful. I wonder if I could get her to come live here?!?

On other fronts, I have decided (for about the fifth time in my life) to learn German. And since I promised Johannes that I would, I suspect I'd better do it this time. Phil has recommended a series of CD's he's used to study French. I bought a couple of (I think) basic cookbooks. Hey, what do I spend the most time doing? reading cookbooks. And the German cookbooks use the metric system, just like the French ones, so maybe I'll be in business once I learn a few things about grammar, verbs, etc., and acquire a decent dictionary, as well as those tapes or whatever they are...

Gottingen, Friday, July 3

2009-07-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

So in Gottingen we visited the old church, which is now a lecture hall, library and museum. There are replicas of approximately a zillion (more like 40 or 50) very old manuscripts, from a page from the Gutenburg Bible (Gottingen of course has one of four complete copies in existence), Psalters, etc., as well as portraits and busts of various people. We then went to Gauss's observatory, a building he occupied along with students for the latter part of his life (his first wife died, he married again, and evidently they didn't get along very well...). There is also the outline of the stone foundation of a small house built for him on the grounds of the observatory; it had no metal in it, so he could conduct experiments involving telegraphs and things without the metal in the building messing things up. I guess they didn't have insulation on wires, did they.

And then we went to the Gottingen Mathematics Institute; the building itself was built by the Rockefeller Foundation early in the 20th century. The library there contains a lot of books I am familiar with, in English, German, and other languages. Five by Andrew Ranicki, the usual by Walter Rudin of course. Olaf also asked if we could look at the Gottingen Suitcase, and we did, and I took a couple of photos. will tell that story another time.

We also visited the "Hilbert Space", the lecture room used by Hilbert, Felix Klein, and a few dozen others. There's a portrait of Hilbert at one end, and a portrait of Klein at the other. Aside from an extraordinary number of blackboards, it's otherwise a pretty ordinary lecture room. The German word for space is something like "roum", pronounced "room", and Hilbert lectured there, so it got to be called the Hilbert Space. Without belaboring the issue, a Hilbert Space is an important set of mathematical functions with certain properties. 'Nuf said.

Photos will follow; I even have them labeled, just am not having any luck inserting them here.

The rest of the weekend in Marburg was equally fun. We went to a market, climbed the hill to the chapel above the St. Elizabeth church, where they buried pilgrims who died in Marburg. They were having some sort of festival with variable music. Evelyn invited some people over for a fourth of July celebration dinner, complete with flag napkins (!), and fruit in red, white and blue (red and white currants, blueberries), as well as a strawberry salad. No fireworks; they are illegal.

On Sunday we drove up to the castle (the conventional wisdom was that Lillie wouldn't make it on foot...), had a picnic, and then visited the few rooms in the castle that are open to the public; a lot of it is used by the university, which was originally four monasteries. More photos. Someday.

On Monday Phil and Evelyn went to the university in the morning, and Olaf took Johannes to the doctor. He'd been crabby and a real pill and had a sore throat; turns out he has scarlet fever. Great.

So we took the train from Marburg to Tuebingen. Three trains, actually, but there were steps only at the beginning and the end. I'm writing this in a university guest house (read: small hotel room) that has rudimentary internet connectivity. Tomorrow we return to Couze, via four (!) trains. The middle two are TGV, though.

Cheers, Lillie

Marburg, Germany

2009-07-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

Today is the 7th of July, Tuesday, and we're in Tuebingen after spending four days in Marburg at Evelyn and Olaf Korn's place there. Evelyn spent a week in Kentucky last March (and went back with a pair of Justin boots, no less), and we retaliated. It was a lot of fun. They have a precocious eight year old named Johannes, who is prone to logical argument. He was of course annoyed that neither of us could speak German, and his English stops about at "My name is John". By the time we left, though, I had decided to learn German, and I would say something in German, and he would answer in English (you must understand, these were VERY primitive conversations, if you can call them that...)

The photo above is the three of them in front of St. Elisabeth's Church, Marburg's local saint, and a former pilgrimage destination. As you can see, I am as usual having trouble with formatting the text around the photo.

So on Friday, while Phil and Evelyn did science at Marburg University, and Johannes went to school, Olaf, who had no lectures at his job (he's a finance professor at Gottingen) took me to Gottingen and showed me around. It was really cool. Anybody who's studied any mathematics knows that Gottingen is sort of like Mecca for mathematicians. Soooooo,

the guy below was the first ever experimental physicist. Can't remember his name, of course. I wanted to post Gauss's house and the "Hilbert Space" from the mathematics institute, but perhaps I'd better post this, and then add another entry to the blog.

2 July 2009, Germany

2009-07-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

was an oven; it was an ordeal getting to Basel, etc. The people we stayed with, Lukas and Dita, are vWe’re on our way to Marburg, Germany from Basel, Switzerland to visit Evelyn Korn. I trust this will be less of an ordeal than the trip to Basel, which was (I think) productive for Phil, and fun, but an ordeal nonetheless. Getting there was an ordeal (“fast train” from Paris to Mulhouseery interesting, and Dita is a great cook. They are not permanently in Basel, though, and are in a rented third floor walk-up, and we slept on a mattress on the floor. And it has gotten hot over here.

People over here are just discovering ice. Basel was interesting, though. It’s not very big, and is on the point of Switzerland where

Switzerland, Germany and France meet. I took a picture from the edge of the Rhine (which, by the way, is HUGE), looking under a bridge. I was in Switzerland, and the gray building on the left bank under the bridge is in France, and the oil tanks on the right bank are in Germany.

I’ve had sort of zero down-time, and I need some. P wants me to phone Jeannette Dumas to find out what’s happened with the plumbing repair, but I need to phone Martin, too, and haven’t found any way to put more money on the cell phone I bought. And the charger for the camera is in my luggage, and the battery is virtually dead, so I can’t do much with that.

P also wants me to spread the word that he went for a morning swim in the Rhine River while I was still asleep. Lukas and Dita live the equivalent of half a block from the river.

I went to the Van Gogh exhibit at the art museum and visited the Munster yesterday, did some “sort of” shopping but didn’t buy any clothes. Everything is dreadfully expensive, even when it’s on sale. I did buy yet another pepper grinder as I REALLY don’t like either of the ones I have in Couze. One is really hopeless and the new one is marginally better. Maybe this one will actually work.

Restaurant food seems astonishingly expensive.

Went out to an Italian restaurant last night with a couple of Lukas’s students. Very good, very authentic Italian food made by a family who is actually from the Parma area and claim they get their pasta sent to them by relatives in Italy. It

was certainly good, and certainly expensive. VERY good, though.

P and I went back to the Munster this morning before we got on the train to go to Marburg. It’s very interesting. Red sandstone. Most of it is 14^th century, some is 15^th, and the oldest part is 9^th or 10^th century; it appears they aren’t certain. Has some very interesting tombs in it, and a lovely garden behind it overlooking the Rhine, plus a lovely park full of chestnut trees on one side. It was good; I’m glad we went back there, as when I visited briefly yesterday, I was whacked.

On Tuesday night Dita made dinner. After black olives and a bottle of white wine down on the river’s edge, while dangling our feet in the water, we ate on their tiny balcony. Had gazpacho from the classic recipe somewhere in Andalusia. Fresh tomatoes, sred bell pepper, lots of garlic, bread soaked in olive oil, put through a food mill or food processor, chilled. Very good. Then an “empanada” and salad. The empanada had in it onion, zucchini, red bell pepper, basil, feta cheese,…baked between two sheets of puff pasty. Salad and vinaigreet. Bread. Red wine. Followed by some kind of yummy orange cake with frosting that she also made. It turns out she wanted to be a chef, but chef schools in Venezuela (she’s Spanish but grew up in Venezuela) wouldn’t accept women when she was ready to go. So she became a biologist.

I hope Marburg is more relaxing than the last three days have been. I’ve been hot, tired and on the run all the time…

Later. And I’ll put some photos in when I can download them.

Lillie

More from Basel

2009-07-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

While everybody else spent the day doing and talking about science, I spent the day in town poking around. It's of course a very old town and not very large at all. There's a Van Gogh exhibit at a local museum, with a collection of Van Gogh's that are very rarely seen. Evidently it is surprising that I didn't have to wait, but I just bought a ticket (for 28 Swiss Francs, which is a good $30) and walked in.

Wednesday, 1 July, 2009, Basel, Switzerland

2009-07-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

I'm behind. We're in Basel, or "Bale" (with accent circonflex on the 'a'). Arrived here yesterday, on the first leg of our ridiculously break-neck trip to Switzerland and Germany. Phil wanted to visit a guy named Lukas here in Basel, and we're going tomorrow to Marburg in Germany to visit our friend Evelyn Korn, a mathematician/economist who visited us last February, and who has some project or other going with Phil. We'll be there for four days and then go to Tubingen (Nico Michiels) for two more nights, and back to Couze before Martin arrives. I've probably already mentioned this, but Phil is doing three DIFFERENT talks, one at each place. And we're doing this by train, which means lots of train time. The train from Bergerac to Liborne was too early but okay for a commuter. The TGV to Paris was great. Had to change train stations (from Montparnasse to Gare de l'Est, which means station of the East), and then were on something called "Corail" where we were in a first class room like you see in Harry Potter. Theoretically it was air conditioned, but it was about 95-100 degrees in there, and you couldn't open the windows. It was a four hour trip, too. It's gotten hot here, up in the 90's sort of all over Europe.

I do hope we manage to get on the ICE (German equivalent of the TGV) to Frankfort tomorrow; the computer wouldn't let me make reservations.

more later, gotta go for now

Saturday, Lalinde and St. Emilion, June 27

2009-06-27T15:00:00.001-07:00

So Sharon, Art and I went in to Lalinde this morning to the (very small) Saturday market. Didn't do much damage, bought some potatoes and parsley and walnut oil (from the farmer who made in, in a juice jar) and some walnuts (same lady). Some of that wonderful pate de canard en croute from my favorite charcuterie (butcher, etc.), also rillettes d'oie (goose rillettes, which is what you get when you cook the rest of the bits of meat from the goose (or duck or pork, in which case it would be rillettes de canard or just rillettes in the case of porc, unless it is only porc and then they call it rillettes de porc) in some kind of fat for a LONG time until it sort of melts and makes wonderful stuff to put on a big chunk of a baguette along with some mustard or something and call it a sandwich. Smooth pate is almost as good as really good rillettes. The pate en croute (in a crust, or basically wrapped and baked in pastry) has duck, pistachios, chips of truffles and Lord only knows what else with a cylinder of foie gras down the middle. Consomme or meat jelly of some sort filling up the cracks. It is SO good. A slice of this stuff maybe with some Dijon mustard if you like it, a couple of cornichons (tiny tiny pickles), a glass of wine, a piece of fruit, and a torn off chunk of French bread makes a wonderful lunch. I doubt that many Frenchmen eat it this way, but it's one of those meals that makes you feel sorry for anybody who's never tried it.

Sharon and Art Jistel are here. They live in Austin, Texas. Sharon is two days younger than I am, grew up in Goliad County, and we went to high school together. She's the only person in my h.s. class that I still keep track of. She looks a lot better than I do forty-odd years later. How in the world did I get to be this old?!? We had a lot of fun today, though. Took the key to their rental car back to Bergerac, visited the (minimal) Saturday market in Lalinde and bought some "provisions", some discussed above. Also some bread and some of those wonderful almond craquants (almost burnt almond cookies, basically, mostly sugar and butter, I'm certain) sold at this bakery on the square in Lalinde. They are basically to die for, and will stick in your teeth.

After we dealt with their car (Art has this phobia about driving over here--I told him it is mostly just like driving a car...), and a lunch "al fresco" on our terrace--bread, cheese, olives, a bit of wine--the three of us took off to St. Emilion, which is a trek, but a nice one. I'm not sure they had ever heard of it. When I told them, however, that (a) it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and (b) that you can do serious wine tasting FOR FREE, they perked up.

St. Emilion was a lot of fun, although we didn't stay all that long. I managed to find a parking place up on top of the hill/mountain, which meant I didn't have to do a lot of climbing to get to the main streets up at the top. I did, however, have to go down that steep road of VERY SMOOTH, SLICK rocks to get to the big amphitheatre like area that is partly old church (I think), partly open area with restaurants and shops, and is surrounded by astonishing views of the center of St. Emilion. I managed to slip and (almost) fall going down, despite my cane, but did no harm. We had a ball at Ets. Martin I think it was tasting wines and buying a few that are serious St. Emilion vintages (the ones I bought were "cheap" by their standards...). Sharon and Art bought a case and are having it shipped home to Texas. It was fun.

Came back to Couze and got in late...it may have been almost 8:00 p.m. Had a bottle of Bergerac Rose, the local summer drink over here, while we made dinner. Confit de canard (duck legs and gizzards--hey, Art likes them, gizzards, that is, and so do I, and I had two cans, so I did the only honorable thing and opened one of them), which is duck legs seasoned and cooked very slowly for a very long time in duck fat. These were canned but OMG they were good. Pommes de terre sarladaises, e.g., very good new potatoes sliced thin but not too thin, sauteed in duck fat, salted, sprinkled with finely chopped garlic (from NEW garlic) and flat leaf parsley, chopped. With it we had a salad, one of my concoctions--arugula, walnuts, Roquefort, dressed with wine vinegar and walnut oil. Would have been better with Balsamic instead of wine vinegar, but the walnuts and walnut oil were from the old Gascon lady at the market who raises the walnuts and makes the oil. And a bottle of red wine. Nobody wanted cheese or dessert after.

Tomorrow I THINK we're off to Issigeac to the market in the morning and Beynac the English castle from the Hundred Years' War up the Dordogne, in the afternoon...

Bon appetit!

last post, yesterday (Friday, June 26, maybe)

2009-06-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

So my last post, with a photo of the market, neither got saved, with its photo, or posted. Rats. It also had a description of a lunch we had of fish from the Lalinde market, something called "limande", which looked rather like sole, although I knew it wasn't (sole is called "sole" even in France), but also looked REALLY fresh, so I bought some of it. Cooked it in butter, and put (as well as salt and pepper) green peppercorns on it. We ate it with buttered new potatoes and a salad and bread, along with some more of that red Bergerac wine in the water bottle, and then had cheese (OMG is the cheese over here not just GOOD but also cheap, compared with the prices you pay in the US). Not a bad way to go.

On the other hand, we haven't had any luck getting a plumber who knows what he's doing over here to repair the damage done when we had the cave (cellar) finished and a half bath put in down there, not to mention the other plumbing problems upstairs in the house from the same person putting in Phil's tub, moving the sink, etc. The cave is sort of full of water. Well, not FULL of water, but there's a leak in the plumbing in the half bath down there. I've been trying to get a plumber over here (and yes, yes, if I had been able to decipher Jeannette Dumas's letter from some months ago, I would have realized there was a BIG problem, and perhaps done something to resolve it--she and the guy reading the water meter turned the water off to address the problem--but I didn't, AND what with Sarah's wedding and all that I didn't manage to get around to phoning her until I think it was the day before we were leaving to come over here...)...anyway we've been trying to get a plumber over here since we arrived almost two weeks ago, with no success. And we DON'T want to call the guy to put in the stuff improperly and caused the problem. I/we just want it FIXED and FIXED PROPERLY. So I finally asked Jeannette if she knew anybody as the guy who is supposed to be great and who had originally put in the heating system wasn't returning our calls. She managed to get this kid named Sebastien over here late this afternoon, except it was too late to go to Bergerac and get the parts he needs.

The only problem with this is that my friends Art and Sharon Jistel (I went to high school with Sharon) were coming tonight to stay for several days, until the day we leave for Germany). So they are down there in the cave, with a toilet and COLD WATER only in the sink, and a constant drip from the tank there, bit drip. I hope nobody slips and falls, because the floor is tile.

I tried to calm Phil down by pointing out that it's extraordinary for a house in France to have two toilets, let alone three. It didn't work.

Sebastien is supposed to come back on Monday and fix several of the problems, including the leak downstairs, and then return later to put in a line for hot water for the sink downstairs, as well as a couple of other non-urgent repairs. ALSO, Jeannette has known this kid since he was about 3, and his parents live in the house just above ours, so I suspect he will actually do what he said he'll do. A whole new concept. On top of which, he told me who to contact to repair the washing machine and fix the cooker so the oven will work. Another new concept.

wednesday 24 june

2009-06-24T10:02:00.001-07:00

Sarah wants me to post photos, so I'll try...P's comment when I brought out that "water" bottle was "not your typical bottle of water..."it's actually Bergerac Rouge and I filled it up from a barrel, I guess, at least from a hose that looks a lot like a gasoline hose and nozzle, except it's plastic. A place down the road that (I think) is associated with a vineyard around here, except they also sell stuff like Montbazillac (a sweet, white dessert wine from an area south of Bergerac about 10 miles from Couze, not unlike Sauterne, but a lot cheaper) and the usual "produits regionnaux", e.g., confit, foie gras, etc.

The problem is that this comment above is for the photo down on the bottom, and the photo here is Jeannette Dumas house, at least the back of it, with her garden, or the part that isn't up on top of the wall to the left.

Part of my problem is that this business of having actual more or less competent internet access at my house is a totally new concept, especially since I seem to be stuck with WinTel (bloody Bill Gates, to you, David Tall) equipment...so there. At home in Kentucky, our internet, when it works at all, is SLOW, what with being out in the boonies and depending on satellite service. So there. Again.

I hate Bergerac. It's ugly, dirty, I suspect most of it except for Vielle Bergerac is post-WWII. Spent all afternoon over there making reservations for our trip next week to Switzerland (Basel) for P to do something or other with a guy there (can't remember his name), and then to Marburg to visit Evelyn Korn, a mathematician/economist/biologist who visited us last winter, and who is just great to be around, and on to Tubingen to visit for a couple of days at Nico Michael's (not sure how you spell it, it's Flemish), and then back. Had a dreadful time at the SNCF station in Bergerac. The lady who was helping me couldn't speak ANY English, and she didn't slow down in French even when I asked her to, AND she couldn't access the Swiss and German timetables and reservation system on her computer. So we only managed two of the reservations we need. I bought Eurail passes, but you still have to have reservations on all these fast trains. Then I went to the FranceTelecom place and bought one of these mobile phones you can use without contracting for two years' service. The woman who helped me there couldn't speak any English, either, but she at least had a good attitude. I'm exhausted.

This is the photo that was upposed to be up on top.

Lillie

Occitan

2009-06-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

I still don't know how to pronounce "Occitan". I THINK the guy on the airplane from Cincinnati to San Francisco (a Ph.D. in Linguistics, teaches linguistics at the Sorbonne part-time, and actually makes a living teaching French to English speakers in Paris (probably mostly Americans, but hey, I'M an American) , who grew up near Toulouse, told me it's pronounced "oksitan" (this is not the proper way to explain it, nor the phonetic way to write it, but I took a course in that, and hated it), but when I used this pronunciation the other day here, while talking to a couple of Brits, was told it was pronounced "okkitan" (again NOT the proper way to write this). so I basically don't have a clue.

HOWEVER, what he did tell me, that I am certain is correct, is that the names of all these places, like Bergerac, Issigeac, Beynac, Soirac, etc., that end in "ac", are ALL Occitan names, not French.

So there...

lillie...

correction

2009-06-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

what I meant was that the sink in the cave doesn't work, as the water has been turned off, but the toilet in the cave works. Everything else (except the cooker's oven) seems to more or less work. Personally, I can live a long time without an oven, unless I get a yen to cook bread or an upside down cake or something--and why in the world would someone want to do this in France?!? So I am not stressed a lot about not having an oven (and hey, there's a microwave, or "micro-onde" as they call them here), and now I have actually figured out how to turn the burners on without using a match. What you have to do is to turn the knob, and then press the top button on the front over to the right, and it will make the electronic ignition work. It's kinda like a sophisticated version of my mother's aunt's stove, the aunt I spent so much time with when I was a kid. She had to use a match, as hers didn't have a pilot OR electronic ignition.

I managed to plant a bunch of begonias (bought them at the Issigeac market on Sunday) in the planters today, so the place looks better outside. Also, P has cleared all the "Tree of Heaven" nasty invasive trees up on the ledge above the house, both above ours and above Mme. Dumas's house. Also all the other weeds and rubbish that have grown up there since last year. There's this ledge or berm or dirt thing between the stone wall at the back of our terrace and the other stone wall (the one in really bad shape). I'm not sure which one of them was the exterior stone wall to the castle; maybe both of them were. It looks a lot better, though, and Jeannette loves it when he does this. The tacky little balcony now has a hanging planter off it. I say it's tacky because it's just big enough to go out onto and look at the sunset, and not big enough to take a chair or anything else out onto. I have no idea why anyone would bother to make a balcony, and not make it at least big enough to sit on. There is a great view.

Can't remember whether the castle that used to be above us was destroyed in the revolution (1789-ish) or during the Hundred Years' War. Seems like it's the Hundred Years' War. People think that our house was probably the gate-house for the castle. The Hundred Years' War was certainly fought up this river valley, and responsible for a lot of the change around here. One of the Englishmen we know who lives here thinks that the remains of what appeared to be a boarded up stone door down in the cave (hey, we covered it up with drywall and things...) was many hundreds of years ago the door to a tunnel to the old castle.

And a big problem, for me, at least, is that there's evidently nothing we can do to alter the bottom steps to the alley leading up to the cottage. THey are VERY OLD and VERY STEEP, and are evidently original to the old castle. We put in some steps up the alley that make it rather easier to climb, but the bottom 3 or 4 are a big problem for some of us...so far, I haven't fallen or slipped, but I don't carry stuff up the alley. So there...

Everything is so very different over here, and land is generally at such a premium, although this isn't a particularly crowded part of France. There is evidently a war going on between Mme. Dumas (next door), and the couple who live across the road in an old Boulangerie (bakery). They have bought that building, and own the garden halfway up our alley (she calls it her "pelouse"...don't ask...), and evidently seem to think that, as a consequence, the entire piece of road separating the two pieces of property belongs to them. They have a garage in their house, but they never park a car in it, and they have two cars. They park both of them on the road, which means that we can't park our car at the bottom of the walk/alley, as there is only space for two cars on the road. The last time I checked, the road was a public conveyance, AND the alley up the mountain/hill is the responsibility of not only us, but also of all the property owners whose property borders the land, e.g., the people in the old boulangerie and the guy who owns the house on the other side. Neither of these parties offered to pay their 1/3 of the cost of improving the alley/walk up the mountain (hey, we did it...a couple of us were afraid that yours truly might fall going up there...). The other guy is okay. But the couple that owns the old boulangerie (Fernand and Mme. Roy) are not okay; they remind us of the couple who lived directly behind us on Nicholasville Road many, many years ago. We lived on Nicholasville Road, and they lived on Lackawanna...I won't elaborate, but she was a ***** and he sort of sat or stood there wringing his hands. This couple is the same sort. Mme. Dumas hates them, and would, I think, very much like for us to take them on. We aren't going to. Life is far too short to fight with people like them...

Lillie

Tuesday, 23rd June

2009-06-23T13:08:00.001-07:00

So my friend from high school and her husband (there is a VERY short list of people I keep up with from high school, and she's about the only occupant) are arriving on Friday for three or four days. I need to get the cave cleaned up and figure out what to do about water for the sink down there (there's a half bath, you see, but the water to the sink is turned off, since, as I've mentioned before, the plumbing wasn't properly installed and it LEAKS big time). The toilet works, though, and it's not all that bad, except for the cobwebs and the floor needs cleaning, and the bed needs making. The "cave" is what an American would call a "cellar", but we had it finished last year, and it's now a bedroom and half bath, tiled floor, heater, lights, the whole works. Problem is that the house is sort of built into the side of the mountain, so you can't get upstairs from the cave without going outside, around and up some stone steps, and into the main floor of the house, which is actually basically two rooms and a bathroom with a shower. The other bedroom used to be the attic, and has another (sort of) bathroom in it, with a tub (that's Phil's...I use the shower, as I can't get into and out of tubs, plus I don't much like them). Except that right now the sink has no water. The toilet works, though, which is, I guess, a compensation.

My aunt has suggested that I get a housekeeper to help me with the cleaning (here they call it a "femme de menage") and it's actually a really good idea as it's really hard on my nonexistent joints (back knees, hands, shoulders...) to do housework. I plan to have a chat with Mme. Dumas about it; she's the lady next door who I've mentioned is very territorial about our cottage. She doesn't actually clean it when we're gone, but she airs it out, and she re-organized my kitchen, cupboards and a bunch of other stuff, after we left last year. She would be seriously insulted if I did anything without discussing it with her first. What she speaks is Occitan, too; she understands everything I say, and I understand about 30-40% of what she says.

Yesterday I bought a bunch of canned confit de canard, and we had a couple of the duck legs, with 'pommes de terre Sarladaise' and a green salad last night. What you do is cook sliced potatoes (hey, new ones...) in duck fat from the confit de canard, and put chopped fresh garlic and parsley on them, along with the salt and pepper (and this time of year, the fresh garlic is just that, not at all like the stuff you get in a supermarket in the US), and then brown the duck legs in the fat. Drink with a local red, and it's hard to get food that is much better. So there.

Today I cooked a couple of veal scallops I bought yesterday, dipped them in flour, cooked a couple of kinds of mushrooms with shallots in butter, cooked the veal in butter and olive oil, made a sauce from the flour, veal broth and white wine, and cooked it all for awhle. It was not in the same league as the veal scallopini I buy when I can find it in the US. The veal was tough, which I didn't expect, although it was thick. Flavor was good. We ate it with bread, the local Pecharmant from the keg, and had cooked fruit (hey it was going bad, so I cooked it in butter with cognac and chestnut liqueur), and CHEESE. Lord, the cheese is good...

So when I told P today that I was having a bad day, he said and I quote: "How can you tell? you've slept through at least half of it..." I will try to go to bed earlier tonight so perhaps I can get up earlier. It's hard to convince myself to go to bed when I finally am feeling pretty good, and getting out of bed in the morning is really dreadful. It feels like I'm bolted to the bed, and everything will hurt if I move it. And then it seems to take FOREVER to get going. But I will try. It's sort of necessary if I ever want to get to a market.

A couple of people have suggested that I post photos. I will do so after (a) I take some and (b) I figure out how to post them...

I have to do something tomorrow about reservations for our train trip to Switzerland and Germany--Basel, Marburg and Tubingen. Phil will be doing science. I will not. I think I may be done with being a serious person, e.g., a professional. Am having a bit of a problem getting my head around this idea, but I suspect I will eventually manage.

A plus tard, lillie

housekeeping

2009-06-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

Having responded to Therese's comment, hey, Phil is doing a great job washing up after meals (but not, however, putting away...). and I'm happy to feed anybody who wants to help out!. People who know me reasonably well know that you won't go hungry, either...and over here, it's (a) difficult to eat badly and (b) REALLY difficult to eat badly if you actually go to the effort to COOK. PLUS now my cooker works...

this and that

2009-06-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

I love feedback.

Ended up spending a great deal of the day doing errands in Bergerac. There's a lot to be said for not letting anybody like a husband tell you where to go to get x, y or z. I FINALLY found the plastic stuff for his string trimmer (went to the place where we bought the bloody thing...), had a ball in LeClerc in Bergerac. They are expanding and re-organizing the joint, which means you can't find anything where it used to be. It's not unlike the Kroger Marketplace they have just opened in Lexington, except there's an evidently unlimited supply of wonderful cheese, at less than half what we would pay for it in the US, wonderful very fresh fish (a bit dear...), great meat, including horse and veal (try finding that on a regular basis in Lexington, I mean the veal; the horse, never), great fresh veg and fruit, things like really good aioli in jars, and "produits regionnaux", e.g., foie gras, fresh and canned, cassoulet, confits de canard, which is duck legs seasoned and cooked for a long time in duck or goose fat, and then canned. It's not cheap, either, but it's a lot better than the stuff I make back in Kentucky, and omg is it good.

Christiane Caillet, one of our friends in Versailles (actually the mother of our friend Isabelle) once said she felt sorry for anyone who didn't live in France; she was looking at a tray of desserts at the time. IMHO she could have been looking at a tray of any food over here.

I also went to this place on the road to Couze (the one that runs by the Dordogne) associated with a Pecharmant vineyard around here (an AOC Bergerac) on my way home. They have wine that you can buy directly from a keg, at basically a pittance (1 euro 95/litre for the good stuff, 1 euro 20/litre for the plonk) and pour it into a container you bring yourself from a gizmo that looks a great deal like a nozzle for gasoline, except it's plastic (and a LOT cheaper than gasoline). Managed to get away with only 1.5 litres of red Bergerac, but also a couple of cans of confit de canard (duck legs cooked in fat again), Montbazillac from 2005 (sweet dessert wine, wonderful with foie gras, called the "poor man's Sauterne", but IMHO the "poor" isn't exactly appropriate). Phil had a ton of stuff to haul up the hill/mountain when I got back.

Aside from that shopping trip, I've finished two novels, started on a third book that is not a novel, but I'm irritated at it already. I'm feeling a bit hopeless because I really do hate housework, and I also really hate living in a dirty house; I seem to have a high tolerance for clutter, but not for a dirty house. This means I need to get my act together and do some more serious cleaning. I am losing the battle of the cobwebs, but I guess I'm not surprised, even though I've actually been working fairly hard at it. Am having trouble with the washing machine; I know these European machines that are front loaded and slow are supposed to be easier on your clothes, but I think they are a PIA. And this one seems to be a bit ill. And I think it's the timer. or whatever they call it. It runs more or less just fine (provided you don't overload it...) until you hit the rinse cycle. And then you seem to have to turn it off (!), make the button pop out, the whole works, and then turn it back on to the rinse cycle, and then repeat, and turn it on to the spin cycle. CRAP. I do NOT want to have a problem with this machine. Problems with the timer or whatever you call it tend to be terminal, e.g., it's smarter to replace the whole machine than to fix them...

On the other hand, I have NO IDEA whether the dryer works or not. The weather is almost perfect. Dry, warm in the daytime, cool in the evening. It worked last year.

The microwave works; the electricity is on; the cooker top works, as does the electric kettle. I may actually manage to clean the china cabinet with its year of mildew and mold buildup, as well as the floor (tile, not smooth, bit of a pain). The plumber still hasn't been around again to deal with the plumbing problems we have, but I am trying not to get excited about it. The cave needs cleaning (where the second bedroom is, "cave" = "cellar", except it's basically finished wiuth a floor, ceiling, walls, doors, potty, sink, beds, etc...) cobwebs, a year's worth of dust, things like that. M. Vontabel (I think that's his name, he's a plumber from French speaking Switzerland) who put in the heating system, came over and assessed the plumbing system. Evidently it needs work, but what has been done to date is to cut off the H2O to the sink in the cave, which means that there is no longer a lot of water on the floor. I have to clean these two rooms out this week. THe toilet still works down there.

M. Vontobel will come back when he can and fix all the plumbing, as I understand it. This is the French system; it happens "sometime"....

In the meantime, I do love it over here. Attitudes towards life are just different. And it's good.

Bon appetit! A bientot!

Lillie

another post today (Sunday)

2009-06-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not absolutely certain about this, but what I think I DIDN'T post earlier today was a discussion of my hopeless attempt to purchase (a) potting soil so I can plant the begonias I bought in the planters, (b) a file to sharpen Phil's clipper thing for branches, and (c) some wine at the place down the road where you use a gasoline-line pump thing to fill up your water bottle with the local plonk for next to nothing... The next time he tries to bully me into going searching for such stuff in France on a Sunday afternoon, I WILL REBEL. NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, is open on a Sunday afternoon in rural France, or in the cities, for that matter. I think it has NOTHING to do with religion; it's just the way they have always done things. Sunday dinner is a 7 hour affair that begins about 1:00 p.m., and involves all the family and extended family, and NOTHING is going to interfere.

Plus I got lost in Bergerac. I did finally find where I was trying to go to, but it did no good; everything was closed. I wasted an hour and a half of my life trying to buy potting soil in Bergerac...and I have no idea where I was when I got lost; I was just suddenly not in Bergerac, was out in the country, turned around and went back to the center of town, and eventually found the road I wanted to be on. It was a seriously wasted afternoon...but we had a "salad" of beets (you buy them cooked over here, not sure why, but hey...), celery, thinly sliced red onions (not many), thinly sliced fresh fennel, served with this WONDERFUL aioli you can get in a jar. Along with a (black) wine from Cahors, tuna steaks from the market with herbes de Provence on them, cooked rather quickly in EVOO and butter, (no salt or pepper, put that on when you eat it...), bread. Not bad for about 10 minutes' work. I can't believe how good the aioli is. I have made the stuff from scratch, and I'm not sure it's as good as this stuff I bought in the supermarket...

Tomorrow Phil has his French lesson from Nathalie somebody. I don't go; for awhile we both went, but he kept deferring to me, and while I could certainly benefit from French lessons, I must suggest that he needs them more, and gets little benefit when he gets me to answer all her questions. Plus, at this stage in my life, I don't much care; I seem to be able to function over here okay with the French I already know.

Oh, I also bought 10 of the things called "canelles", which are funny looking pastries that are sort of unique to this area (esp. Bordeaux). They are sort of a cross between a muffin and a sweet yeasty pastry, cooked in a special pan that has been used for decades and is so coated with butter and sugar that there's this crusty exterior...I have a recipe in a book from Bordeaux, but have never tried to make them...

And THEN there were the roulades, the "wheels" of duck breast (these were shrink wrapped and in a market stall) complete with the fat and skin of the duck, tied around a cylindrical piece of foie gras. I didn't buy them, but I suspect I will the next time I see them. Sort of the ultimate decadence, n'est-ce pas? I was salivating over them and some English woman asked me what they were. I told her, suggested that one might as well slit open the veins and just plaster the plaque or whatever they call it to the insides...They were expensive, too, but jeez.....that's gotta be wonderful, cooked in duck fat (not much, but what else?), served with sauteed potatoes, green salad, red wine....

Maybe I'll go back to Issigeac next Sunday; I haven't yet seen these things anywhere else...

Happy Father's Day, not that I have a father to tell it to...

Lillie

other villages

2009-06-21T04:42:00.000-07:00

Since I basically missed the market in Lalinde last Thursday and I need some flowers to put in these planters I've got to tart the place up, I went to the Sunday market in Issigeac. It's clearly a lazy little town up on a hill (that seems to be the case: either a town is on a river or at the top of a hill, sometimes both) and it is seriously medieval. Half-timbered buildings. The streets are a maze. The Germans clearly dodged it in 1944. Actually it warrants a return trip to look around, not just to shop. I bought food and things, a couple of gifts, a new coin purse (the one I've been using for several years, also purchased at a market in France, no longer stays closed, which is a real problem over here where you have to carry around so many coins). Came back when I ran out of cash; I couldn't find an ATM anywhere in the place. The vendors there aren't the same ones that come to Lalinde. A lot of people--farmers, craftsmen, people hawking soaps, fishmongers, vintners--seem to just make the rounds of markets. I haven't inquired, but I doubt they have actual shops, although some of them do, like the couple at the market in Lalinde who sell artisanal country breads they make in Montpazier. She has business cards, and I started talking to her about it once.

I am losing the battle of the cobwebs.

We didn't go to the fete de musique last night. Phil was working on his online journal, and I was tired and so didn't put up a fuss.

Saturday, 20 June

2009-06-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

So there's a Fete de Musique going on in Lalinde tonight, it's sort of a French night market with a bunch of bands, I think. AND there's one going on in Couze. We're not going to either one, as Phil has finally tackled the mountain of back work on (I think) the online ecology journal. Martin phoned to tell me that some French lady had answered when he phoned on the free line; I suggested that just maybe he got a number wrong...his mower isn't working right, and it's probably yet another belt problem, and how exactly am I supposed to deal with it on a Saturday afternoon from over here?

A French night market is a phenomenon totally different from an Asian night market, the only two I've ever experienced. I am not certain, but I suspect it may be unique to this part of France, too. It's not a "market" in the sense that you go to shop. It's a market in the sense that you go to eat and drink and in some cases, dance. There are all these stalls set up around the edge of the old market place in a village, and they have tables and chairs set up in rows. You bring cutlery, plates, etc., or you don't, and you stake out a spot, and buy food and wine, and eat, drink and be merry. Moules frites (steamed mussels with French fries), oysters (and the lovely guy you buy them from opens them for you!), bottles of wine, Phil gets some foie gras, you buy a loaf of bread, stuff like that. It's a summer phenomenon, and I don't have a clue where all they have these night markets, but I'm certain they didn't have them in Avignon or Villeneuve-les-Avignon. Or that place we stayed that time in the Ardeche.

I forgot about tomorrow being Sunday, and don't exactly have meals in the works. But then I figured out that Sunday morning is market day at Issigeac (yet another village not too far from here...) so we won't starve. AND I may be able to get some plants to put in those planters.

Phil did a string trimming job on the "garden", "jardin", which is about the size of the terrace. Jeannette next door had not only tidied up the beds and cut stuff back, but also had re-organized the storage system in my kitchen. She chewed me out because I had left last year with the glasses stored top side up, and a few things like that. She's a piece of work in some ways, but she's very territorial about the cottage, not to mention opinionated. I think she's a hoot. Evidently they are going to put a sewer system through up here. Good news. What we (and everyone else up here) have is a crazy self-contained septic system that I do not understand AT ALL.

Something has gone crazy with this Blogger gizmo. I do not understand it.

I am trying to figure out how to post pictures.

Another thing though, that I am occasionally reminded of; you do not realize how tired you are until you slow down. Sarah's wedding really, really wiped me out. My shoulder hurts, my hip hurts (the rheumatologist thinks it's bursitis), and it's hell getting up and down the steps to this place, but boy is it nice not having a ton of stuff to do...

On a happier note, we had black wine of Cahors with lunch, along with chicken salad (rotisserie chicken from the other day, celery, mayonnaise out of a jar that makes Hellman's taste like Miracle Whip...) and leftover potatoes cooked with butter, an onion and lardons (a relative of bacon). Life is good. It beats the alternative...

State of house, continued

2009-06-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, I think.

June 19. Tomorrow or the next day is the longest day of the year. It's 10:10 p.m., and it's not yet dark, at least not completely. The sunset across the river (which mean, across the Dordogne River valley) is lovely and red.

A miracle occurred today. Last year we got the "cave" aka cellar, mostly finished, putting in a bedroom and a half bath. This involved a certain amount of disruption, and the guy doing the work is, shall we say, not in the same league as George DeJarnette, the contractor we use in Kentucky. The cooker/range upstairs in the kitchen runs on electricity and propane tanks (very common everywhere in the world except the USA), and the propane tanks were in the cave/cellar. We moved them up to the kitchen, and after hooking them up, never could get the cooker to work last year. This wasn't a huge disadvantage since (a) it's very difficult to eat badly in France, whether you are eating out all the time, cooking all the time, or buying food already prepared all the time, and (b) it was very few days after we did this that we returned to the USA, and it was no longer an issue. The biggest problem here is that I get ancy if I have to go many days without cooking, which is a personal problem, not a serious one for anyone but me.

So we returned to France four days ago, and the cooker still didn't work, notwithstanding the fact that the two propane tanks are both full. There's been a problem with the water (leaks in the newly renovated parts of the 'cave'), and a plumber came to turn the water back on the day we were to return. Rumor is that he's going to return to fix the problem. I don't care what the problem is; I don't care what caused it; I just WANT IT FIXED. SO THERE.

Another issue (hey, these are minor, compared with the issues we faced last year!) was the large, heavy, lovely mirror on the wall in the living room/lounge that had sort of fallen down. Fortunately it didn't break, nor did it do much damage to the table beneath it, where it fell. Today, Friday, Ken, our English friend who lives here and knows everyone, if very nice, has a wonderful wife--we adore them both--came over and not only brought the right kind of wire to re-hang the mirroe (I had at great expense bought a serious amount of the wrong stuff), but hung it with Phil's help AND fixed my cooker (by himself--let's hear it for engineers!).

So I went out and bought coquilles St. Jacques (scallops with egg sacs attached...), pommes de terre (new potatoes), and of course more cheese and wine, and cooked dinner for a change.

More later, maybe even tonight...

Lillie

Status of house in Couze, Perigord, Dordogne, France

2009-06-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

So we've been here almost a week. Got here Monday afternoon (15th, I think) after three flights, Lexington, KY to Atlanta, ATL to Paris CDG, and CDG to Bordeaux. Brutal. Phil says I slept a couple of hours on the flight from ATL to CDG, but I'm not sure I actually did, although I tried. He didn't, even though I gave him a Benadryl pill; next time I'll give him two. He has RLS (if you don't watch the telly, it's restless leg syndrome, and while it's a bit of a bother when he's at home, it's a real problem when he's trying to sleep on an airplane), and I've tried to get him to get some meds for it to take when he travels, but without success.

The good news is that we arrived in Bordeaux essentially on time, unlike last year, when there were several disasters (don't ask, but they involved losing a wallet in Paris CDG, discovering that we had to go through security at CDG YET AGAIN after having bought a bottle of Duty Free Scotch in ATL (NEVER AGAIN), and having to figure out how to check it, on top of which the flight from ATL was late so we of course missed the flight to Bordeaux, couldn't phone the guy in Bordeaux who was bringing us the leased car, and really pissed him off...it was NOT a good experience!)...

Soooo, although I got overheated (getting old is the pits), and not much is AC over here, we did get to Bordeaux essentially on time, our luggage was indeed on the plane, the car lease guy was there, and there were no problems getting to Couze, which is not quite a two hour drive from the Bordeaux airport. It's near Lalinde, past Bergerac, overlooking the Dordogne River.

Despite a few problems (the water had been turned off because of a leak, but it's been turned back on, pending another serious visit from a plumber), annoyances because it has been vacant for a year, the range/cooker didn't work AT ALL, it was all in pretty good shape...

We arrived, I checked a few things out, went to the supermarket and bought some things like bread, cheese, ice, (don't ask--it's for me and my iced tea) , jam, butter, to tide us over until the next day. Also a coffee grinder (we brought beans over for Phil, and the house already had an electric kettle and press pot, but Phil can't find any already-ground coffee over here he likes for breakfast--I gave up and am bringing it over, so there!).

Went to bed (fortunately I had left with the bed changed, etc., and covered with an old linen sheet and plastic cover, so we could just fall in!). The next day (I guess that was last Tuesday), I basically refused to get out of bed until about 1:00 p.m., which these French people over here have the nerve to call 13:00 hours....jeez...

Later, Lillie