Our social life continues to be fairly hectic as we wring out the last drops of summer. Tuesday was an exception, although Sophie came over in the morning to finalise the menu. We gave her a list of entrees and figured out what to do for the vegetarians. We’re all feeling much better about the event now that we’ve decided what’s happening. We still need to meet with Francoise and Stephane again to hammer out the logistics, but that must wait until the end of the month when they’re less busy.
We started socialising again on Wednesday when we had Noel and Marg over for dinner. They are the Kiwi couple who have a holiday home near La Rouchebeaucourt. Will did some translation work for them when we were still offering that as a service and we’ve stayed in touch every since. We’ve been around their place a number of times, so it was time to reciprocate. The weather had been nice but turned cooler during the week, so we had aperos outside before coming in for the meal. This was caprese salad with tomatoes and basil from the garden, followed by pasta with chicken and artichokes in a cream sauce, served with salad. I took a break from my fruit-based desserts and made brownies. Will was a bit reluctant to have them over, but it turned out to be a very pleasant evening in the end.
We’re both busy with work and are trying hard to finish up everything by mid-September. I’ve got two or three projects on the go and Will has recently picked-up a number of smallish projects. On Friday morning, Lewis and Pary came over to discuss a couple of sites, being one for each of us. That afternoon we went to Perigueux for Will’s appointment with the oral surgeon. He is still having intermittent episodes of jaw pain, accompanied by a host of other symptoms. He hoped the doctor would recommend surgery to remove his wisdom teeth, but instead, suggested he try physical therapy first. This means finding one that specialises in jaw massage, and we just discovered the one I used in Brantome does this. We had a chilled out evening at home that night in preparation for the rest of the weekend.
I went for a swim on Saturday and had the pool to myself. I aim to go twice a week during the summer when the pool is open more but I’ve failed miserably. This is the last week of summer hours so I plan to go today and again later in the week. We went out that evening for a wedding celebration for Stephane and Laurence. He is Jackie’s younger son and is a good friend of Benoit’s, so we’ve hung out with them a few times. The party was at Jackie’s house, which is the large Perigourdine that you pass on the way from Milhac up to our place. They had a big marque with tables set up in the driveway, with enough places for 100 people. It was mainly their friends from Bordeaux, but also friends of Jackie’s and a few locals like us.
We started off with mixed drinks and then went to visit Benoit who was doing the mechoui. It was two small lambs this time, and they were well underway. There wasn’t much in the way of nibbles at this point, so we continued to drink and were feeling fine by the time we sat down to eat, sometime around 10:30. Benoit and Virginie did all the food. We started with potato salad, green beans and tomatoes, all from their garden. The main was lamb served with couscous and a ratatouille, also with produce from their garden. This was followed by cheese that Benoit imported from the Limousin where he’s currently working, and dessert by Fred the bounlanger. This was pate au chou (eg eclaires) filled with vanilla, chocolate or coffee. I spent a bit of time talking to him and he’s very shy, but good company.
There was red wine served with dinner which Will had, but I mainly stayed on the cocktails. Afterwards, there was champagne which I also avoided, but Will did not. At this point, I would guess around midnight, the dancing started and we all hit the dance floor. We started on the beer and continued dancing and drinking until 6am. B & V left around 4 but his brother, Benjamin and his wife, Alyssa both stayed with us until the bitter end. In fact, it wasn’t the end since there were still quite a few people there when we left. We both danced like madmen and I’m a bit sore in the legs today. It was a lot of fun, and I got a few ideas for songs to play at our wedding too.
We got up around midday on Sunday, both in a fair amount of pain. I didn’t do as much mixing as Will but was still feeling rough. We reluctantly agreed to go around Lewis and Pary’s that night since they’re only in the area for a short time. Pary is a home body so although we’ve invited them over a few times, we usually end up going there. We arrived around 7 and had some cocktails in the garden. Lewis made a Persian meal of rice with fava beans and dill, served with chicken that had been marinated in yogurt and saffron. I made the dessert which was an apple and pear crisp with fruit from our garden. It wasn’t quite as good as the peach cobbler, but not bad for a first attempt. We were tired so left around 10 and crashed shortly afterwards.
We’ve got some new neighbours coming around tonight. It’s a lovely day with temps around 31 so we’ll be having a bbq. And on that note, I’m off to the shops.