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...