Today marks seven years since our arrival in France. Like the past few anniversary entries, it also marks the death of someone we know. This time, it’s Joanna, Mauricette’s mother who died last week of pancreatitis. She was 94, so not a huge surprise, although she had been in good health so it was a bit unexpected. We went to the funeral this morning at the church in Milhac, with a short ceremony that followed at the local cemetery.
The anniversary entry is a chance to reflect on our life here. In general, things are still going well and we’re on slightly better footing financially than ever before. That’s not to say that things couldn’t be better, but it feels like less of a struggle as time goes on. We’re both happy to be living here, although Will slightly more so than me. There isn’t anything in particular, but I have a nagging feeling that I’ll need to have one more real job before I can retire. We don’t have any plans to move, especially since Anne and Andrew are strongly considering coming out here. We’ve got some very good friends and we’re even meeting new ones now and again.
On that subject, we had some new friends over to dinner on Saturday. This was Mark and Troy, an American couple that we met a few weeks ago. Mark does some gardening work at Les Jardins Tranquilles, and the owners introduced us a few weeks ago. The two of them recently moved out here and live in Badaillac, the hamlet where we lived when we first arrived here. They had been living in Paris for a year, but decided to give the countryside a try and are house-sitting until they figure out where they want to move. Troy is around my age and Mark is a few years older. They moved here from San Francisco, but had both lived in Paris at earlier points in their lives.
For the meal, I cheated a bit and redid my orange and black Halloween-themed menu from last year. We started with espresso-tinis plus chorizo, olives, Ritz crackers and cheese / tomato balls for an apero. The meal was the same orange-teriyaki pork tenderloin, this timed served with yellow rice and sprouts. Dessert was the same: chocolate mousse with orange slices. We had a good time getting to know them, and in addition to being gay, we have lots in common. Mark used to play piano in a band during his younger days and he enjoys writing music. He’s also a big Bowie fan. They are both smokers, and tried to grow some this year, although they weren’t too successful being their first time. They stayed till around midnight and we’ll go around their place soon which will be our first time back in Badaillac in many years.
The weather has been excellent this past week with bright sunny days and temps around 20C. I’m waiting for the trees to finish dropping their leaves before mowing for the final time. The chestnut trees have been prolific this year, so I spent a bit of time raking up the fallen pods. Mauricette gave me a crash-course in preparing chestnuts the other day, so I may give that a try. She recommends boiling them since they are much easier to deal with and don’t need to be scored before / peeled after. I’m not sure what I’d do with them but there are so many, it’s a shame to let them go to waste.
Will went to our new doctor’s on Friday and despite a long wait, had a very pleasant experience. The doc asked him lots of questions and did some standard tests, something our previous doctor never did. He’s had a cyst on his shoulder blade for quite some time and will go back to have it removed next week.
We chainsawed our first batch of wood last week. It needs sharpening, so it was slow going. I’ll nicely ask Lucien to sharpen it for us like he does every year. Earlier, I had mentioned to him that I plan to get someone in to trim the trees in the front garden and take out the large pine tree. He said he’d be happy to do it for us and rejected the idea that I would pay him. It wouldn’t be for a few months, so I’m sure we’ll work something out.
There’s not much to report in terms of our weekly activities. We had a decent band practice on Wed, and choir on Tues wasn’t too bad either. It’s a holiday tomorrow so no choir, which means we’ve only got four rehearsals before our xmas concert in early December. Luckily, xmas songs don’t appear to be too difficult to learn, so I hope we’ll be close to ready when that arrives. Speaking of concerts, we found out that Alain won’t be around to help us for our soirée in November. We can still borrow the equipment, but we have to set it up ourselves and find someone to work the mixing desk. He also couldn’t find anyone to do the lights, so we’ll have to go without those. We’re not too happy but there isn’t much we can do about it. I may take Jackie along and pay him a visit to see if he’ll agree to be more helpful.
Work has gotten a bit busier for Will and he even put a couple sites live last week. One is a redo of a gite website and it looked really good until the client started making changes. He also did one at a very reduced rate for VIAPL, our local anti-windfarm group. I’ve got the same few projects that I’ve been working on, and progress has been slow.
Will just left for Thiviers to collect Lewis and his girlfriend from the train station. He is Rigit’s son, and they are out here for a week for some R&R. They don’t have a car, so not sure how they’re going to manage during the week. We’ve only met him once many years ago and he’s even more of a free spirit than his parents. And that’s the news from Mazeroux. Happy Anniversary!