Late Sept.

Here we are in late Sept.  where has it all gone? It was a beautiful sunny day today. I washed sheets and hung them in the Garden....oops where they still hang  Oh well...too late now..anyway it is almost 9 pm here so it has been dark for a while.. as I was saying, after hanging the sheets on the line in the garden, Michael said" I am going up to the cross to take some pictures, do you want to go along?", I thought about it, my legs were aching from a walk up to the cross and down to Antiaque yesterday, and I thought it might be good to push them a little and I had been cleaning in the AM so walk or clean...guess which I choose!  but as it turned out the cross that Michael was talking about and the cross that I was thinking of were not the same... the cross above is up a small dirt road from Montazels, no more than a mile, all up, a good walk, especially on a cool autumn day... the picture below is where Michael had in mind to climb and we did for the most part..until I asked what time it was since I had French class today at 3..OOPs  down we start, he did not get to take the movie of the top of the mountain...but we did see a lot of the burned area. but walked from noonish to 2:00.

 

I was late to French class, but they had just been talking about personal stuff so I did not miss too much.., then Pat and I walked back up the hill to the house.  Later we walked back down to Couisa and had dinner at the Tatanka...Pizza and Kabob..kabob is a strange contraption that they put turkey or chicken, or beef on and cook it from the inside and in front of a fire as it turns around and around...smells wonderful, and tastes even better..after it cooks they shave it with an electric knife so that it is very thin and serve it on a bread similar to pita.  Yummmmm

We walked back up the mountain...now does that tell you how much my legs have done today? about 6-8 miles...probably uppppp and down!!

this was sunrise yesterday...we were as glad to see the sun as we were to see the rain last week.. the garden is so happy..I got enough grapes to make jam and have been able to make the herb garden a bit neater since we have had some rain...the sage is huge and has had several "haircuts" this year, the basil is growing as well.. before I close I want to show you my washing machine

A strange looking contraption, but after a day or two I made peace with it and we are best friends now..it will hold about 6-8 kilos of clothes and sounds like a B52 on take off when it spins but does it do the job!! I wouldn't mind having one Stateside!!! And since a trip to the laundramat here costs about 25 dollars, I am loving this machine!!!

I guess that is all for now, tomorrow I think that Michael and I are off for another adventure...who knows where, who cares..

Love to all , Unity study that French...I am studying possessif L'adjectif....ugh  Mon, ma mes...got that?

The kitchen table...I am sitting in the chair with my back to the cabinet waiting for the fig jam to finish. We went out before dinner and picked a basket full of figs some in our garden and some along side the road. The big brown figs are along the road everywhere. If the bush/tree/vine overhangs the road they are public property so you can pick what you can from the road.  There were some blackberries too but we would need snips to get them. They grow like grapes here but the crop has been not so good this year as we had little rain. I may go back tomorrow with my snippers and get those blackberries LOL

We went to marche today and picked up a few things.. I bought a beautiful reversable coat for 7 euro. It may come in handy when we go to Italy in a couple of weeks.

Michael made the corner on the bridge a little close yesterday and scraped the side of the car, that will be 700 euro to fix..and that seems a lot less than I expected as they may need to replace part of the door.. but maybe not.. It is a long scrape but not too deep..

They have been harvesting the grapes in the valley below us today. The picking machines have just stopped as it is too dark to see anymore. We harvested the last of our grapes..We had a lot but the heat and lack of water ruined most of them. We have both green and purple grapes in the garden. Before next year we will have some sort of hose set up. there is water to the garden, but no hose that works.

We are finding shopping very different here. You have to go to the specific location for the item that you need. NO Walmart!  You must go to the jardinier for your garden stuff, the eyeglass place for eye stuff, the pharmacy for most ointments and such and we just found a store that sells household stuff.

Now you can get some household stuff at the Carrefour,L'Clerk, Intermarche...grocery stores some somewhat like small walmarts...but the selection is small.  Now the Colorama(Lowes) wow I could spend the day there  LOL

We had sort of decided not to do too much to the house for now.. Tax bills came out and our friends Paulo and Didier got flogged for making improvements..the house was a complete gut..so anything is an improvement..and Paulo just finished a room that we had helped with. It went from a room full of rubble to a stunning bedroom...He has such vision, but do they ever have to pay for it...a 73% raise in taxes..ouch..

This house is quite comfortable, not fancy, just one WC, but 3 big bedrooms and a sleep sofa in the salon..a room downstairs that is now the storage room/cave..but could be emptied out, painted up and made into a nice sittling room for the time that it is too hot outside..it is always cool back there..It could even accomodate a futon and such to make a comfortable extra sleeping area...no window as it is built into the mountain, but when I am asleep I can's see out the window anyway..  but that is another time, and hopefully with no one noticing..HA HA

Well the figs are done, for now..I did not really have enough sugar so will finish tomorrow. While Kim and Billie were here I made
 two batches..Kim really loved it...and it just costs the sugar...

French lessons are progressing...ugh...  More later...

Castle adventure info

http://www.philipcoppens.com/perillos02.html   website about the castle that we found.

Monday

Wow, what a great day!  We went for an afternoon ride and ended up in castle...well it once was a castle..In the distance I saw a big round rock and said  hey look at that it looks like a giant round of brie...Michael said that it looked like a castle on one corner,  I could not see anything but we drove toward it and as we got closer you could see the shape better..then we were at a very narrow road going up the mountain and going up toward the castle. Up up up we went and finally there was a parking lot.. You could see for miles and miles and as we crested the hill you could see the Mediterranean  WOW it was beautiful..
Michael said  do you want to go up? and I said, we are here now so why not... It was well worth the climb..a huge space and the views magnificent.. there were a couple of rooms left and the well...what a find
We did not get home until almost eight...
It has gotten cool here and it is supposed to be dreary tomorrow.. right now I have to finish my homework, ha ha...got class tomorrow.. had to write something about myself..in French...She said it did not have to be true..ha ha... more later

Paris

It was a whirl wind trip, but I think Kim and Billie Kaye had a good time.. It started off a bit rough, our train was late making us miss the TGV so they had to put us on another train to meet with another TGV in Burgandy..but we had assigned seats on the origianal not so on the new one, so we did some seat hopping!
We got there and there was a LOT of walking, even to get to the Metro train..and Kim had to use a moving sidewalk, no easy trick for someone with one leg...but he did it fine...we got to the hotel that had advertised handicap accessable, but you had to go up one flight of stairs to the elevator(big enough for one person) and it only took him sort of to the third floor...after the first trip up he decided to use the stairs..it was easier LOL

this is the ridiculas to the sublime.....the KFC around the corner from us...and the pastry shop down the street!

anyway where was I?  It rained on the first day and I was so tired that I did not feel like eating...but Michael found an Indian restruant down the street and that was incentive for me to get out of the hotel....YUMMM

We went on a Battau Moouche...not spelled right but it is a boat on the Seine river, that serves dinner at night and you can see the lights of Paris...beautiful...I did not get any good pics from that but you can probably see them on facebook..

I am getting tired so will close now and complete tomorrow..
Unity I am glad that you like French class...keep in mind that it is good to take the class, but get your Mom or Dad to help you with the conversational part...that is important in everyday life...having someone to talk to is great! More later!!!