You may recall from a previous entry that we have four French people living in our hamlet and we had them over to dinner a couple of months back. We hadn’t socialised with them much since then so we were pleased to be invited to their place for dinner last Friday night. In addition to Sharon, Will and myself, they also invited an English couple, Keith and Julia, who are working on converting a barn they purchased a few years ago and a friend of theirs, Joel, who is here for a few months to help them out.
We arrived around 8 and had champagne and canapés to start. After a while, we moved into the kitchen for the main meal, which was something along the lines of fondue. In the middle of the table was a two-tiered electric grill; the top tier was a flat surface and the bottom contained square slots that contained small, removable pans, almost like a griddle without the ridges. The top surface was used for frying sliced duck breast and sliced veggies (mushrooms, peppers, onions). For the bottom tier, you took a slice or two of cheese, some veggies and fresh herbs and placed them into one of the small square handled-dishes and placed it under the heating element and grilled it for a minute or two until the cheese melted. They also served pieces of oven-baked chicken and of course, bread. All of the food was delicious and it was a nice, communal way to eat. Dessert was ice cream and throughout the meal, plenty of red wine was served.
I had been looking forward to the meal, not just for the food but as an opportunity to practice my French. Of the four french, Chrisline, the only woman, speaks very good English. Her partner, Christophe, is proficient in English but not quite as good. The other two, Jean-Michel (J.M.) and Patrick, speak even less English, although J.M. wasn’t too bad after a few drinks. So I was slightly disappointed when we showed up and the other guests were native English-speakers since that ruled out much chance to practice. I needn’t have feared though, since I ended up speaking plenty of French before the night ended.
After dinner, we brought out some of Holland’s finest that we’d recently imported and shared it around. This tended to make everyone very high and it looked like the evening would be winding up shortly thereafter. Indeed, the other guests didn’t stay around long leaving just us Badaillac residents. Somewhere along the way though, we caught a second (and third) wind and didn’t end up getting home until after daybreak, around 7:30am. Patrick had to work the next day so he went to bed around 1am. Sharon took Oscar home sometime around then and Chrisline hung in there till at least 3 or 4. That left Will, J.M., Christophe and me sitting around the table drinking etc. for the duration. Needless to say, I had plenty of opportunity to listen and attempt to speak French and I was surprised at how much I actually understood. Overall, it was a great evening and we will be hosting them at our place again in the near future.
Saturday was a total write-off, with the exception of making a batch of Inside-Out Carrot Cake Cookies. I think I’ve already raved about these in a previous post so I won’t dwell on them again but suffice it to say, they turned out even better than the first time. Apart from that, we didn’t really move from the sofa. The weather over the last week has been rainy and cold so we didn’t feel too bad about our slothful ways. I’m happy to report, however, that the weather yesterday and today has made up for the poor effort of the previous week. Temps were around 21C (70F) today and Will and I spent a number of hours lounging in the garden. It’s going to turn rainy again for a day or two but the forecast is for more sun and pleasant temps, starting on Friday. This is fortunate since we have lots of gardening to do.
One of the things that Will and I planned to do out here is grow vegetables (yes, and other plants too). Sharon is also very interested in the idea so between us, we’ve gotten as far as identifying and turning over the plot, buying some implements and ordering a number of varieties of seeds. The soil here is quite rocky so it’s difficult to dig down more than a few inches which means we’ve decided to plant the veggies in raised beds. As such, Sharon has purchased a number of big bags of soil and some fencing for the plot. We’re probably a little behind where we should be in terms of planting but we plan to make some good progress over the coming few days.
Lastly, we have some visitors arriving on Thursday. My dad, Chuck, and his partner Marilyn, are currently in Paris and will get the train to Angoulême on Thursday. They’ll be with us for a week during which time we’ll spend two days in Sarlat checking out the ubiquitous chateaux and prehistoric caves. We’ve got a few dinner reservations at some local eateries and will otherwise spend our time showing them the sights, going on walks etc.
Bon Printemps!