This entry’s a bit late, sorry about that. I was trying to coerce Matt into doing it but I’ve been overruled so I’d better get on with it before another day goes by and it ends up even longer still. To start off: on Sat 29th March, our friend Morgan called around to see us in the day time. As a reminder, he is the young and handsome friend of ours who works at a nearby dechetterie (recycling centre). He is bi-polar and has occasional bad patches that tend to last several weeks so we hadn’t seen him for quite some time. He’s on new meds and seemed in much better spirits. We ended up having a bit of a smoke over a game of poker, during which he told us his news: he has recently sold his house and is having a new one built nearer to his mother’s place in Bourdeilles. That evening, we were invited over to Richard & Bridget AKA Rigit’s for dinner as they were over visiting their holiday home for 2 weeks. Nat & Jill joined us and the 6 of us had a lovely catch up and a very tasty meal courtesy of Rich.
The French municipal elections took place recently out here (something that seems to have been missed off the blog till now) and we’re officially registered to vote. The first round was on the 23rd, when I was away in the UK, so Matt voted on my behalf. The bizarre French voting system deserves a whole blog entry to itself so to spare our readers, I won’t go into it in detail here. Suffice to say that Philippe of Francoise and Philippe was in the running, so he and the others on his “liste” got our votes. Philippe is a hardcore communist, so this is officially the furthest to to the left either of us has ever voted. He and half of his list did not get in on the first go through, but the 2nd round took place on Sunday and that has led to his appointment as a councillor. After our Saturday, we were a little delicate, but we made it out of the house in the early afternoon and did our “devoir civique”, or civic duty.
As events out here are so sparse, something as mundane as a municipal election is treated as an excuse for a bit of a shindig. As we left the voting room we were accosted by Josianne, Cammi and various others who despite the time of day were having a booze fuelled picnic nearby. 2 pastis each later, we wended our way home to convalesce.
Barring that and work, I don’t think much else happened prior to Cyril’s arrival, so I’ll skip ahead. He got in to Limoges on Wednesday afternoon and I collected him, coming home via the shop for supplies. That evening, we served up an easy meal of confit and cheesy potatoes and then commenced a long game of poker which I won convincingly. Cyril is in good form. He and his wife and 3 kids are moving out of London in a few months. They’ve bought a new place down on the south-east coast and can’t wait to get out of the big city.
On Thursday, the weather took a bit of a turn for the worse so we named it an indoor day and started up on another huge game of poker. This ended up going on until the following day, although my luck had run out and I was quickly eliminated. That evening, we were joined for dinner by Francoise & Philippe and also Jenny. The French all speak good-to-excellent English and Cyril has a smattering of French so on the whole everyone understood each other and had a nice time. We served up a meal of roasted pork in a tangy orange adobo sauce and Jenny brought along dessert: a delicious chocolate hazelnut tarte. Afterwards, the three of us did a small acoustic set at Jenny’s insistence. After the guests left, we were amused but not surprised to hear that Cyril had been bedazzled by Jenny and thought she was super sexy.
Friday was a little better weatherwise, but we were all a bit jaded so scaled back plans to visit the market in Brantome in favour of a quick trip to the local supermarket. The boys concluded their poker game from the day before, Cyril eventually emerging the victor. That evening, Cyril cooked for us, making a delicious coq-au-vin: a typically French dish that is nonetheless a rarity out here in duck-obsessed Dordogne. A third and final game of poker ensued afterwards, for which my luck returned and I won.
Cyril left us on Saturday afternoon, with Matt doing the Limoges run this time. That evening, we were invited along with F&P over to Manu and Mathilde’s for a soirée sushi et guitares. Manu is a good cook (his pizzas are divine) and sushi is a speciality of his. We were both invited over early, Matt so he could watch and learn how to make the rolls and me to play some acoustic in the background while the chefs worked. Raw fish not being my favourite dish, my rolls were made up of curried chicken, and very nice they were too, although I was surprised at how fishy the seaweed wraps tasted. Next was a homemade ginger and vanilla ice-cream courtesy of Mathilde. Afterwards, we said our final goodbye to Francoise, who began her mammoth journey to New South Wales yesterday evening. We’re gutted to see her go but wish her all the very best of luck down in Oz.
Since then, things have been fairly quiet here at Port 80. Matt’s still busy with his US project which is coming along nicely. I’ve been able to help a little on that as it has reached the “front end” or design stage, but for the most-part I am still scratching around for work unfortunately. I just need a French person to proof my brochure and then I will start harassing local businesses with gusto. Right, that will do for now. A bientot.