We continue to have a very active social life, which is typical in the summer. On Wed, we went with Marie and Christian to a free concert in Perigueux. We had a quick bite at their place, then Christian drove us into town. The concert was part of a series called Musique de New Orleans en Perigord (MNOP) and has been going on for a number of years. There are different stages in various places (i.e. squares) around town. We were at the main stage which is in the market square right in front of the cathedral that makes for a great backdrop. There were loads of tables set-up, surrounded by stalls selling food and drinks, known as a Marche Producteur. We had a couple of artisanal beers but no food since we’d already eaten. There were a few showers early in the evening, but they had cleared by the time we arrived and we got good seats right near the front.
We saw two groups: the first was a trio (guitar, drums, singer/guitar/harmonica) who mainly played the blues, all originals as was their style of play; the second was more mainstream, rhythm / blues / jazz, including a keyboard player, saxophonist and percussionist. We preferred the first one but they were both excellent, especially considering the price. The show ended around 11:30, so we didn’t get home until just before 1am. There is another concert on Thurs that M&C are going too, so we may tag along for that as well.
We had a quiet one and Thurs and then started up again at the weekend. We had dinner at Lewis & Pary’s place on Friday night, along with her sister, Manijay, who we’d met a few times before. We had a few cocktails outside, although Lew didn’t join us since he’d been knocking them back while preparing dinner. They served a Persian meal of a sort of spanish omelet with veg, followed by a slow-cooked celery based stew, one veggie and one with meat, plus a rice dish that is cooked in a skillet and then left to brown. The only veg Will doesn’t care for is celery, although he managed to eat some along with the other dishes. We’d had the rice before, and it came out perfect this time, and I really enjoyed the meat dish. We had a bit of dessert and then the ladies left without saying goodbye. This is somewhat typical for them, but not for Lewis, who later nearly did the same. He managed to say goodbye before crashing, and we left around 10 and then came home and watched a film with a cleanser.
I went for a walk on Sat, my first real exercise since before my operation. I have some occasional pain, but it’s fairly dull and doesn’t last more than a day, so I’m nearly back to normal. I haven’t started swimming again, mostly out of laziness, so that’s next on my list. The weather has been mainly hot, although it dipped down to the low 20’s over the weekend. The garden is doing ok, although it could use some rain. We’ve had a few cherry toms that were lovely, but there are very few flowers on the plants, so not sure we’ll have many more. We’ve also had two courgettes, and at least a couple squash on the way. The other plants are in various stages of growing / flowering. The last batch we planted are a special variety that don’t need as long to flower, and the others will probably start to do so next month. None of the plants are very big, but we have quite a few, so hopefully will end up with a similar amount to last year.
That evening was the first Marche Producteur in Milhac, consisting of the butcher/bar, and the few vendors that make up the Tuesday market. This is a fruit/veg man, fish monger and our local baker was there too. The butcher sold entrecote/frites and the fishmonger sold shellfish plus fish and chips. We arrive before 8 and caught up with some locals including Philippe. Benoit, Virginie and his sister Isabelle showed up shortly after and we grabbed a table. We all had fish and chips except Benoit who had moules frites. The fish was really good, especially the batter that was made from corn flakes, so it stayed nice and crisp. Benoit got some cheese, a variety called Tomme de Savoie, which is made from unpasteurised milk, and then we had some fruit and dessert from Fred, so all bases were covered. We had some beer and wine with the meal before moving onto vodka tonics. There was a two-person group, one singing / playing keyboards and the other on percussion who sang mainly French classics with some more modern stuff thrown in. They switched to dj’ing after a bit and honoured our request to play some Bowie and Queen. We stayed until around 11:30 and were nearly the last to leave.
The next day, both Will and I felt ropey, with very gurgly stomaches. It was this point we remembered having the same symptoms the last time we ate unpasteurised cheese at the soiree savoyarde last year. Of course, it’s possible that our troubles were due to the large quantities of booze consumed the previous nights, but it felt different. In any case, Will was feeling better the next day, and it took me another day to recover. We took it easy that day, I did a bit of weeding, and then we had rehearsal with Christian that afternoon. It was our first in a few weeks and it went mostly well. We tried a few songs with mp3 backings, and some of them worked well. We’re hoping to do a show at the end of the summer in Milhac, perhaps something like set-up the other night. This would be with Jackie’s son Laurent who is in a band in Bordeaux. TBC.
The socialising continued on Monday when we had Bryan, Carol and Ute over for dinner. She is off to Germany on Wed and wasn’t free any other night. This was our first meal with B&C since their return, and the other reason was to give Ute her thank you gift from the wedding. In the end, we got an engraved frame, with a picture of her presiding at the ceremony, with the caption “Thank you for Joining Us” and the date. I thought it was rather droll, but I’m not sure she got it. It was at least 30C yesterday, so a bbq was in order, and I had a hankering for burgers and guacamole, so built a meal around that. We had espressotinis to start, served with chips/carrots/guac plus other nibbles, followed by the burgers and spice-rubbed chicken breasts, accompanied by potato salad and a green bean salad with beans from Marie’s garden and cherry toms from ours. We had a break before moving onto nectarine cobbler with ice cream for dessert, which Bryan claimed was one of the best desserts he’d ever had <blush>. This was all washed down with a few vodka tonics except Ute who had to drive. We sat out the entire time and brought out our fancy new lantern after it got dark. The guests left sometime after 11, and we turned in shortly afterwards.
That brings things up to date except for work. We put two sites live last week and should be getting paid for them imminently. The one for the local brewery has been in the works since December, so it’s great to finally have it done. The other is for a gite in Normandy that used to be owned by Mike and Jean who lived around here when we arrived. I have no work to speak of, so have been occupying myself with getting our new server set-up. It’s nearly ready to go live now, so I’ll be using our site as the guinea pig and making the switch soon. Will has submitted the first design to the luxury apartment people and in the meantime, we got a referral from our vineyards client, so another vineyard site may be in the offing. Finally, I’m proud to report that we’ve had another recent success: we’re the number one result on Google for the search “web design dordogne”*. We’ve been around number five or six for the last few years, with very little movement, so were both surprised to see the large jump to first place. We think it’s because our site is now being linked to by some larger sites, including the Garden Tomb site that has a large, international audience.
*Results may vary, depending on your location, and whether you’re signed in to Google. If you do this search, pls let us know where we rank.