It is G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S out here at the moment. Having had a surprisingly dry and mild February, we were hoping that Spring had come early, but the last week of Feb and the first of March shot us back into the minuses at night and not much above 5 during the day, making us think we were being too optimistic after all. Fortunately, all this changed last weekend – and it just keeps getting better and better!
Yesterday, it was 12 degrees and sunny all day, so we spent as much of it as possible outside. Today, it was due to be 15 and sunny, but this was wrong – as it turned out, it was 18! We took Oscar to Brantôme for one of our longish walks and, in his case, a cooling swim in the river Drônne at the end of it. Afterwards, it was out to the garden to soak up the heat. I have only just come inside now as the sun is beginning to dip behind the trees. The best news is that it is forecast to continue for the foreseeable: 19 degrees tomorrow, 17 on Thursday and 20(!) on Friday. Sharon is talking about getting the pool opened up soon. All signs point to Spring! Loving it.
In other news, we made contact with the Frenchies the other day to arrange another social evening… well, that and also to speak to one of them in particular who knows a guy who knows a guy who is a purveyor of rare and exotic herbs… We hope to hear from him over the next couple days – and not a moment too soon. Anyway, we were thinking it would be nice to get them all round for a few casual drinks as opposed to the excessive 4-course meal for 11 that was our first gathering – especially seeing as we hadn’t heard a thing from them since. As soon as we mentioned this to them, they told us that it was definitely their turn to play host and cook us a meal – and that they were already planning it. Marvellous!
Our provisional plan to go skiing at the end of this month has metamorphosed somewhat. Having looked at costs, distances, timeframes etc, skiing was knocked on the head and replaced by a sojourn up north to the Netherlands and Belgium, setting off as soon David, our first visitor since January, heads back to La Grande Fumée (the Big Smoke). We haven’t seen much of him at all for a very long time, so we are looking forward to the weekend. We plan to book a table for the 4 of us at the “bad boy” restaurant up the road (the one staffed by ex-con juvenile offenders) for Saturday night, which will be great fun. Speaking of restaurants, while in Brantôme today, we saw that cute-waiter restaurant is getting ready to open again for the season, which is most pleasing. They will no doubt be back in business by Easter – so that should give us just enough time to work on our letching!
Back to the planned excursion: for once, we aren’t making an Amsterdam pilgrimage: we are going to hit a couple new cities on the southern border of the Netherlands that neither of us have been to – Tilburg and Eindhoven. Unfortunately, it looks like Sharon can’t join us for this trip so it will just be the two of us. We will probably have a couple days there before crossing into Belgium to see Antwerp and then spend the night in the gorgeous little town of Bruges. That is the plan, anyway. Bon, c’est tout. Je vous souhaite une très bonne soirée.