The few days after our return from Greece were largely uneventful. I am working on a site for Vortex, our local transport client, to allow them to manage their work. Since it is a new system, it has taken me a couple of attempts to get it working as it should and I think I finally got there today. I made my first few attempts following our trip and Will didn’t have much on so he chased up a few clients with outstanding projects. I also took the car to get her tyres changed.
On Wednesday, I left for Paris. Originally, both Will and I planned to go to spend a night there but I got the dates of Dad’s trip wrong. We would have had to get up very early, and we didn’t really have the inclination or resources for a night in Paris, so it worked out fine in the end. Instead, I went on my own and stayed in cheap hotel out near the airport and Will stayed at home to look after the cats, who were still suffering from abandonment issues. I met Dad at the airport the following morning and we drove from there to Normandy. We stayed in Mike and Jean’s gite, friends of ours that used to live near Brantome but moved up north to be closer to England. Unfortunately, they had planned a holiday at the same time so we missed them, but got to see Pete and Sally instead. They live down here but go up often to pet sit when the owners are away.
Dad and I had lunch in the nearby town, steak frites which was very good, much better than the beef in these parts. We spent the afternoon in St Mere Eglise, a town about 20km away. The town is famous for being the first town captured in the D-Day invasion, where the paratroopers landed the night before. One of them got stuck on the church steeple and played dead for hours before escaping. The town hosts a paratrooper museum and we went there for our first lesson on the war and the landings. We had dinner at a hotel / restaurant in the same town later that night, which was adequate but nothing special.
The next day we headed to Caen, a city about 100km away. There, we visited the Memorial, a museum that covers WWII in great depth, starting from the aftermath of WWI and ended at the fall of the Berlin wall. We spent 3 hours there including lunch in the cafe and both learned a great deal with help from the excellent exhibit. We returned via the American military cemetery that overlooks Omaha Beach. The visitors centre was closed which was just as well since the museums tend to repeat the same information at length. We headed home in the afternoon and were invited to have a glass of wine with Pete and Sally and a couple who live around the corner. We hadn’t seen much of them this year so it was nice to catch up. We had dinner in the nearby town at a superb new restaurant.
While we were away, Louis was bitten by a wild cat. Will didn’t know exactly what happened except that Louis couldn’t walk and spent all day Friday on the bed. He got a lift to the vets from Bryan on Saturday morning where they knocked out Louis so they could observe him. Will thought he might had broken his leg, but the vet said it was a bite that had become infected. Dad and I got back from Normandy in the afternoon, and then Will went to collect Louis. The aggressor cat lives around here and before this, he had already attacked Smoo and Lucien and Mauricette’s cat too. We haven’t yet confirmed to Lucien that the cat has struck again but when we do, I believe Lucien will declare war and disappear it.
On Saturday, we had confit de canard, served with bleu cheese scalloped potatoes and green beans. We introduced Dad to Anna Perna and played a number of rounds. It was Will and my’s 11th anniversary that day, so we decided to celebrate on Sunday by going out to lunch. The Hotel de France in St Pardoux does a “menu degustation”, or tasting menu on Sundays, consisting of six courses.
It started with a champagne cocktail with pineapple, lime and ginger, served with a breaded shrimp in a sweet corn veloutte, served with rillette of sardines. The starter was fried fois gras de canard, served with mango. The fish course comprised a scallop, filet de turbot and crayfish tail. Next was the “pause du chef”, a lime and mango sorbet, doused in eau de vie. Next was the meat course, lamb chops served with potatoes and mixed asian greens. Dessert was three small portions: a chocolate royale, a mango and passion fruit puree with creme and strawberries in a meringue shell. Every dish was excellent and best of all, they did a special menu for Will. Apart from the fois gras, they substituted something for him including parma ham for the first course, and magret de canard for numbers 4 and 5.
The weather for the first week of our return was terrible, with rain most days and temps no higher than 16. I was tempted to light the fire but wanted to hold off until October so we just wore many layers. Since then, we are having Indian Summer and it’s been in the mid to high 20’s for the last few days. As such, lunch on Sunday was served on the terrace. We didn’t do much else on Sunday, apart from a brief walk in the evening. We played Scrabble and cards and had bread and cheese around 9:30.
Yesterday, both Will and I worked in the morning and Dad relaxed outside with a book. I mowed the lawn in the late afternoon, which was well overdue because of the recent rain and the long time since I last did it. It was hot, but due to get hotter and wetter so I had to seize the opportunity. That night, we had a bbq of chicken thighs and filet of trout, served with Mom’s potato salad plus a green salad with tomatoes and red peppers from our garden. Another few rounds of Anna Perna followed, with Dad winning his first game.
Will and I both worked in the morning and then we had Port 80 sandwiches for lunch. This afternoon, we went to the Chateau de Puyguilhem, down the road in Villars. We all visited there a few years ago, but didn’t get much out of it. This time, we had our friend Fracoise as a tour guide so it was much more informative. She started working there in July as maternity cover so she knows the history very well. Afterwards, we stopped at the gift shop at the Grotte de Villars to see if Dad could find any gifts for the grandkids but to no avail. We’re heading out soon to have dinner in Brantome at Les Saveurs, one of our favourites. I will leave you there in order to prepare for dinner.