I just reread last year’s anniversary entry, and the title is equally appropriate this year. Will’s grandma passed away on Saturday. Her husband died a few months ago, and she went slowly downhill since then. She lived in southern Spain so Andrew has been going back and forth these past few months. Will would like to attend the funeral, but it’s very expensive to get there from here, so he probably won’t.
Saturday also marked six years since we arrived in France. We didn’t do anything in particular to celebrate, although we did have some dinner guests that night. There’s not much else to say on the subject, except that things are still going well here, and we have no plans to leave anytime soon. We had another excellent year weather-wise, with a very mild winter and lovely summer. It turned a bit cool in September, but recently, we’ve had lovely sunny days with temps around 20C.
The guests on Saturday were Jenny and Virginie, who is married to Benoit. He is working in Martinique for an extended period, so she’s been home alone for a number of months. She did go out to see him a few weeks ago, and she showed us some photos from her trip. It looks like a typical Caribbean island, with exotic tropical flora. Virginie was meant to bring her daughter Eva and her new beau, but they cancelled at the last minute, meaning there was even more extra food than usual.
The meal was Halloween themed in that every course contained something orange and/or black. For the apero, we made margaritas with a bit of orange juice to get the right colour, served with black olives, cheese balls and chorizo. The starter was Curried Butternut Squash soup, which neither had had before and both enjoyed. The main was a roast filet mignon of pork, marinated and cooked in a teriyaki, orange and ginger sauce, topped with baked orange slices. The sides were roasted potatoes, and roasted brussels sprouts in a basalmic glaze, with chocolate mousse served with orange segments for dessert. Jenny was a bit tired and dozed off for a bit after the meal, but it was obvious that Virginie was missing other people since she talked nearly non-stop throughout the night. It was good to see them both.
It was a quiet week otherwise, with no choir or conversation group since it was school holidays. I made it to the pool once during the two weeks on Tuesday. It was very slow going, being my first time back since my car accident. The only other activity of note was our first English lesson with Mathias on Wednesday. He is Jenny’s son, and she is keen for him to learn English, so she asked us if we’d oblige. We’re not sure if Will or I will be the teacher, so we shared the job for the first lesson. There are lots of site on ESL for kids, so I found a bunch of resource there. We did parts of the body, including the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”.
We had band practice on Friday night, but not on Saturday since a few people couldn’t make it. In fact, we won’t have a practice with everyone in the group for a few weeks since people have to miss various sessions. This will leave one Saturday before the gig to run through all the songs. We were sounding ok on Friday, but many of the songs need work, so we’ll have to concentrate on those. Will and I are practicing at home, him more so than me, and that helps, but it’s not the same as being with the whole group.
As Will mentioned last week, I took Dolores to Perigueux on Monday, and collected her again on Friday. The gave her a polish so the little white specks are now gone. I also did the food shopping at the big Super U there, and posted Will’s citizenship application. I also mowed the lawn, which really needed it. I was hoping it would be for the last time this year, but it will probably need at least one more go.
We had one other social event and that was lunch at chez Beaufils yesterday. We were still full from dinner on Saturday, but managed to do a decent job on the six course meal. We arrived around midday, and went straight to the apero of rum punch with garlic bread. Next was a lovely mushroom soup made with fresh cepes, the last of this year’s. The first course was asparagus and beetroot from their garden (frozen) with hard boiled egg and homemade mayonnaise. We were quite full when the main arrived, which was a Perigourdine salad. It’s not as light as it sounds since it has ham, smoked duck breast with fois gras, walnuts and cheese, but it was very tasty. Dessert was an apple tarte with a peach compote as the base. The meal lasted over four hours, giving us lots of time to get caught up. We’ve learned to steer the conversation away from anything political, so it was all very pleasant.
There’s not much to say on the work front, so I won’t bother. In fact, there’s not much else to report, so I’ll sign off.