In fact, it is a heat wave, I just wanted to use the song lyric. It’s been 35C or thereabouts every day for the past week. It’s finally going to break tomorrow when we’re due a storm in the afternoon, followed by a few days of cooler temps. The grass has now started to yellow and the plants are constantly thirsty. Will is enjoying the heat; me, not so much.
It was another busy week socially. We were invited around to Francoise and Philippe’s on Tuesday for dinner. Their friend Patrice was there visiting from the Lot. We met him once last year just after the wedding and got along well. He used to be a chef on cruise ships, so has travelled extensively and speaks English along with a few other languages. Typical of meals around their place, the apero lasts around 3-4 hours, and once everyone is good and hammered, the food comes out. We made up a batch of margaritas that Francoise, Will and I enjoyed while Philippe and Patrice were having P’tit Ponch (rum with a bit of sugar and lemon).
Patrice made pheasant, slow cooked with potatoes and mushrooms with a curry cream sauce, along with grilled courgettes. Both were excellent, which is to be expected from a professional chef. The conversation flowed nicely, along with the wine, and we finished up with cheese and Dame Blanche for dessert. This is vanilla ice cream, served with pieces of fruit and covered in homemade hot chocolate sauce. We left fairly late and more or less went right to bed.
We started up again on Thursday at Benoit and Virginie’s. He had the week off and invited us to come over and use their pool any time. We went over in the late afternoon for a dip and were invited to stay for dinner. Eva is back from her course in Toulouse so she joined us along with her friend Priscilla from Bordeaux and Sam. We had aperos and another dip before the meal which was two kinds of courgette, one sliced and the other stuffed, served with rice. We had another few drinks before B & V went off to bed, and then we played cards with the youngins until 2:30 or so.
We were in a bit of pain on Friday, and this wasn’t helped by the heat. Nonetheless, we both did a bit of work in the morning before calling it quits after lunch. We had a quiet night on Friday and were in bed on the early side. We had mentioned doing a bbq at ours on Sat, and Benoit said he’d ring on the Friday. We hadn’t heard by Sat noon, and being without plans, decided to try Manu and Mathilde instead. Benoit rang shortly after asking if we were still on; we said yes, and that M&M would be coming too. We were surprised he agreed to come anyway since he’s previously said he doesn’t like Manu’s politics or something to that effect.
I went shopping and did mainly the same meal as our last bbq: guacamole with chips and carrots to start, burgers and spicy chicken breasts on the bbq served with potato salad and a broccoli salad and bread. I had planned to do a peach cobbler for dessert, but when I arrived home, the peaches hadn’t made it, nor had I been charged for them. I had three ripe bananas and vanilla ice cream, so ended up doing a Bananas Foster instead. You make a sauce from butter, brown sugar, vanilla and rum, coat the bananas in it and serve it over ice cream with toasted pecans. It was fairly good although a bit too sweet.
In the end B & V called to cancel around 5pm since Virginie wasn’t feeling well due to the heat. Honestly, it would have been more surprising had they ended up coming. We rang Francoise who was available, so with her and Maud, M & M’s daughter, there were six of us. We spent the entire evening outside in the shade of the bamboo where there was a decent breeze. The temperature in the house rose to a very unpleasant 32C (90F), so we spent as little time indoors as possible. We had a really nice night with them and I’m proud to say that all the food turned out really well. The guests left around 12:30 and stayed up to watch a film before trying to sleep in the heat.
Rehearsal was cancelled yesterday and next week too since Christian is away and then has the grandkids visiting. So we had a very lazy day, just trying to keep cool. It was back to work today, although neither of us has much on. I’m still in the process of transferring sites to the new server, but had to stop due to a technical issue. It seems to be resolved now, so I’ll pick up again tomorrow. And that’s the report from sweltering Mazeroux.