Lots has happened since our last post, so I’ll aim not to ramble. Last Saturday, we had Nadine and Jean Claude over to dinner. We hadn’t seen them in socially in quite a while, so it was good to catch up. There have been floods in the south of France, where they were thinking of moving, so may look elsewhere. I made a new recipe of Turkey Scallopini with Lemon and Capers, like you’d normally do with veal. I had potatoes so did roasties, plus green beans. Nadine brought a baba o rhum, a spice cake with a rum sauce. It wasn’t a late one, so we stayed up and watched a film after they left.
We visited Lucien and Mauricette on Sunday, since we hadn’t seem them in a while. The main topic of convo was the new neighbours who closed off the dirt track. Needless to say, they are not happy, despite the fact that the new people are both very nice and friendly. The guy even asked Lucien to see if he could cut across someone else’s property to get to his wood! Mauricettes mother said that path has always been there, for at least 100 years. Last week, the surveyors came out, marking out where the new path will go and we heard from Jenny that they’ll do it in December. She is also upset about the closure since it affects her rides.
On Tuesday, we went on the annual outing of Milhac Loisirs, my convo group, this time to Pompadour. We had thought about going when my dad was here, but decided against it, so it was our first time there. The forecast was iffy, but it turned out to be a lovely day, around 22 and sunny. We took Barry and Carol with us, so had a chance to play them our set list, and discuss the planning of the Soiree Britanique, which we are organising. The town itself is in the Correze, about an hour’s drive from here. We arrived late morning, and explored a bit before all having lunch. Will and I brought provisions for a picnic, but no one else did, so we joined them in the local brasserie.
The two main sites in the town are a horse race track, and a huge chateau. There is racing from April – Sept, most days and you can gamble. We strolled by the side of the track and watched the morning practice. Later, we had a nice view from the chateau overlooking the track. The course is very difficult, and includes jumping, and the races there are national and international competitions. Also in the town is the “harras”, which is the stud farm for the national horses, all thoroughbreds, some of which were gifts from foreign royalty.
After lunch, we first toured the harras, and got to see some of the horses up close. There were a dozen in all, and two chevaliers take out each one for exercise every day. Some of the horses were huge; one weighed nearly a metric tonne. Others were smaller and lighter and were used for jumping – they can easily jump higher than their own height. We also saw a room with horse dental equipment, and the barn where they fit horseshoes.
The tour continued up at the chateau, an impressive building, constructed in the 18th C. It was built by Louis XIV for his mistress. We first toured the grounds, then saw a few rooms inside. Were were joined by a tour group for the visit, so there were 50 – 60 people, but they managed to get everyone through. Afterwards, we strolled around the grounds some more before returning to our cars. On the way back, we stopped at a village a few km from the town. It’s called Segur le Chateau, and is one of the Prettiest Villages in France. It was built in medieval times, with a ruined chateau at the top of the hill, and winds around L’Auvezere river.
The next day was my birthday, and we took it easy in the morning before heading down to our first rehearsal in Milhac. It’s in the big room this time, and we wanted to know whether our equipment was up to it. It wasn’t, so we’re hoping to borrow some from an association in St Pardoux. The first group, which is Barry and Carol, plus Barry’s sister Theresa and our neighbour Carol, doing Abba songs. Will and I then ran through a few of ours that Barry will join us on backing vocals drums, and a few that the ladies sing while we play.
We had dinner chez Rigit on Wed night. Richard made his cannelloni, a favourite of Will’s along with garlic bread and salad. As promised, he made a cake, which was a spice cake with raisins, served with figs soaked in booze. It is always good to see them, and spend a bit of time catching up. They would like to live out here full time, but have a number of years to go before retirement.
On Friday, we went into Nontron to run errands, including an insurance agent. We’re going to switch our car insurance to them, even though it’s a bit more expensive. We’re going back this week to see about health and home insurance too. We then stopped in Milhac to collect the curry for the evening. We went to Manu and Mathilde’s around 8, and Philippe was already there. Jenny and Mathias showed up around half 8, which is early for her. We had some champagne to celebrate Manu’s and my bday, then starters and finally, the curry. It had been a few months, so both Will and I were happy our fix was satisfied. We didn’t leave until close to 2, then watched tv before crashing.
We learned from Philippe that our commune has been approached by a wind farm developer, who wants to put six turbines up on the plateau, about 1 km from the back side of our place. To be effective, the have to be 150m high (including the propeller), meaning they would be seen from many miles around. We don’t want to be NIMBYs, and the town would be paid handsomely, but I’m still of two minds whether it’s a good idea. It’s only a prospect at this point, so we’ll see if anything comes of it.
In other news, we learned from Jill that the baker has cheated on his wife, and has moved out. He still shows up to bake in the mornings, but it looks like they’re through. She told Jill that she doesn’t want to stay here, so the pride of Milhac may not be here much longer.
We learned this last night, when we dined at Nat & Jill’s along with Rigit. Jill had a tumour removed from her neck a month ago, and is more or less recovered, except for a bit of numbness in her ear. She was in fine form, entertaining everyone as only she can. Since Rigit are veggie, they did a meze that included starters from the previous’ days indian delivery. They also made a roast chicken, ratatouille and bombay potatoes. Jill confused the onion bhajees with the spicy meatballs, and served them to Rigit who took it all in stride. We were a bit tired after the multi-day celebration, so left around midnight and I went right to bed.
I’ve had another earache for the past few days, after swimming last Saturday. I may have to see about getting earplugs that are moulded to the shape of my ear, since it appears that any water there now leads to an infection. It’s a shame since half term break just started, and the pool is open more frequently. I’ll have to settle for walks in the woods until I get some better earplugs.
Otherwise, we’ve been rehearsing most days. We’ve got our set list more or less nailed down, so it’s just learning the new songs and polishing the old ones. We’re still a month out, so hopefully, we’ll be in decent shape on the night. The format for food has been decided too. It’ll be an appero-dinatoire, where you pay a fixed price and we’ll serve lots of nibbles, including pies and pasties, plus dessert and one drink. We have to source the musical equipment, and make posters etc too.
On the work front, it’s been mostly quiet. I’ve got a few bits and pieces to finish this week before I start my next project. I should also hear whether we won the Media Trust project. Will heard back from a client, and has few other things to finish. I had a scare the other night. I noticed that there was a security upgrade for the software that runs a number of the sites I manage. Just then, I noticed that someone had registered on the site, which shouldn’t be possible. They were in the process of exploiting the security hole. Anyway, I deleted them and upgraded the software, so no harm done in the end.
The weather has been lovely the past few days, 25 and 26 this weekend. It’s going to cool down a bit this week, but stay mostly fine. I mowed the back yesterday, which was very overdue, and will do the front tomorrow. We also need to chop wood for the fire, and it seems strange to me to be doing both at the same time.
Lastly, we harvested our crop that had been hanging in the loft. It turns out that all three females had been pollinated, and are chock full of seeds. Because of that, it isn’t as strong as last year’s, but smells and tastes nice. We ended up with a quite a bit of it, but I think that’s because it’s not fully dry and the seeds. Nat suggested we get cuttings from a female plant, rather than start with seeds, so we may try that next year.