Off we go! Goodbye Paradise…hello Dulles?!

Ohhhh we really DID IT this time. Ann and Raj took us first to Bourges to stay the night at the Berry Hotel across from the train station. At first I doubted this choice of nights rest as in my little mind a hotel next to a train station is a formula for disaster…winess the Termeni train station in Rome or, not so far away, the train station in San Fransisco. I’m thinking of course of the BUS station in SF but still…alas I was wrong. The Berry Hotel was a FINE choice, across the street from the gare itself and with a nice bar underneigth, clean rooms, crisp sheets a good shower..what’s to not like? Nice dinner with Ann and Raj at a very nice Chinese restaurant in Bourges, everything was wonderful but the Thai Rice stood out. Then back to have a couple of beers at the hotel then off to beddy bye with the Kats.
In the morning we collected the cats in their carriers, packed up and off we went to the gare for the train to Paris Austerlitz. Nice ride, found many commuters to Orleans. Once in Paris, to the all too familiar Austerlitz to a taxi and off to the airport CDG. Terminal 1 porte 25…United Air Lines in all it’s glory. Long confusing lines behind pillars of the awful CDG, another line for the fast ticketting person who then directed us to the REAL ticket counter because we had the two KATS yet to be paid for as excess baggage. “Excess Baggage” Furr-Rr_Ee purred, “well I’ll be”. MeeeeeOW! So after that hour was done we went up the long ramp walkway to the upper level and #5 concourse. I stopped and had a coffee at a kiosk while Kelly took in the Duty Free shopping opportunity. Atleast we were free of the two humongous bags and ONLY had the two Kats, two carry ons apiece to deal with…6 bags! Off to D1…it must have been a MILE at least. One very LONG walk with the bags unevenly divided between us…me with 4 and Kelly with two. (It was only fair). The plane, a newish Boeing 777 with the overhead luggage racks that don’t close easily or on any stewardesses tiptoes. Bad design still exists. A young man helped every stewardess (as best he could) manage the damned bin doors.
Up, up and away! To Dulles International in Washington DC on the first leg of our flight…even though all literature we had indicated this was a DIRECT flight…only the NUMBER was “direct”…it stopped at Dulles anyway and continued as another and different airplane altogether at Dulles. United lies about your reservations AND the flights themselves. They had informed me two days before that we didn’t have reservations on this flight and couldn’t guarentee that we would even sit togther…THIS after reserving the flight for ALL 4 of us (MeeeeOW!) in November of 2006! Jezzz, did they forget? I dunno but it’s not a nice way to treat a long time customer that’s for sure. Yes we DID sit together, albeit in the center aisle and couldn’t easily get up to walk about and stretch our ancient legs as we were blocked on both sides by sleeping fellow fliers, grrrrrr. Air France is sounding like a better way to go, believe me. At least when they say it’s a DIRECT flight they really mean it! Dulles was a DISASTER, a train wreck disguised as an airport. Off to be tortured by foriegners disguised as Americans! Thru customs after a mile walk thru various buildings not clearly marked. Then Passport control, then pick up your baggage, add it to the 6 others you are handling, now in the mile long queue to drop the bags off at another location to be X-rayed AGAIN, pull out the Kats to carry them thru the metal detector outside of their all cloth carriers no less. Then re-dress and fasten shoews and belts, put cats back into carriers and find the damned airplane. It is an old girl, a 767 that has seen better days and better passengers too. The cabin crew was excellent however, serving water and soft drinks and pushing the sandwiches as best they could. We arrived a few minutes early in SFO after a bumpy ride all the way across this great nation of ours. Ted took us home to crash and we arrived almost exactly 24 hrs after we left Bourges. The Kats released started to nose around trying to figure out where they were and where the food was almost immediately. We stared at the piles of mail awaiting openning. Such fun we have.

Tick-Tock, Friends and Fine Chilli

The days seem to be winding off now like film off a reel, much left to do, little left to accomplish, friends to say goodbye to in this most social of Paradises. Got a call to come to dinner Monday night at 6:30 at Phillip’s redone pile-of-rocks, we hadn’t seen him in a while and he invited Raj and Ann and two other friends Mimie and Dan whom we had not yet met. The tour of the house was wonderful, Phillip has done beautiful work throughout and all of it his own handiwork. Refinished walls and exposed beams everywhere, the house NEVER looked better! Bravo! He showed me the PROPER color of a sweat soldered copper fitting, not black like my own! Rounds of tequila all around as we chatted away like budgies in a cage. The weather tried to cooperate but couldn’t hold back quite long enough and before sun down it rained only a while. Dinner was terrific! We had salsa pigau (sic), a coarsely chopped salsa, very fresh and wonderful, good ol’ french chips, his own flour tortillas, avocado dip, a catsup, a large bowl of basmati rice as fluffy as it could be and the piece du resistance, the chili, a hearty, thick and thoroughly flavorful one as well! It was great! I ate three helpings in all! Phillip did a wonderful job all around, I told him “I’d pay for that!” the finest compliment you can get in local and friendly gastronomy. Chatter went on and on for hours like it always does, so many subjects so little time. We had poached pears and vanilla ice cream for desert, gads…sooo good, so good. What a cook! This little corner of France has so many good cooks it’s quite amazing, it is cooking for the love of it as well which is the best reason. We got home at 1:30 this morning, burp! Thank you Phillip for a wonderful night with good friends and great food!

Today will be more cleaning up at the little house and the same here, I’ve yet to drain down the chaffage (heating plumbing system) but will, clean out the car and sort out our reservations for ourselves and The Kats. Since it’s UAL operated thru Lufthansa it will be an interesting adventure I’m sure.

Off to the coffee machine.

Great Friends and Coming Goodbyes

Ah, we’ve almost finished this 6 month stint in the field of our dreams. It has been a fortuitous one for sure, meeting new friends, Ann and Raj and Phillip and Maggie though the latter two are neigh invisible they still remain our friends.
This last Sunday we ventured on an invite to Ann and Raj’s pavilion to enjoy a lunch cum dinner that filled us up so that we didn’t eat on Monday! She said some while back that “I’m not a cook”, well…for being such she sure puts on a show! Maybe it’s Raj but I don’t think so, I just think she was being modest. I am NOT so inclined these days, I do the grocery shopping, and the cooking and Kelly helps prep and does her saladerie and d’orderves and a course of her own. The entrie is up to me. Raj does SOMETHING, but it’s hidden and secretive. She made a wonderful de-constructed salad platter with leaf lettuce, bell peppers, carrots and other crunchy veges and a nice vinaigrette as an opener…it was almost a dinner of it’s own! The a cheese course (of course, it’s France!) of 5 cheeses, a goat, a cheddar,
two blues and a creamy French “smeller” that was delicious. Then we babbled on like we do for several hours while taking in the Sunday sunshine. They are more like brother and sister to us than good friends, we talk of our dreams, our tribulations, our piles of rocks, our kids, France and the future like we’ve known each other since birth. It is a most wonderful relationship. The closest we have in France, that’s for sure! About 7 we sat down once again to dinner this time, a lovely roti of porc with twice cooked potatoes, delicious it was, every bit. She is earning her Moons that’s for sure! I would have gladly paid for this meal! Dessert was of two varieties, her Creme Brulle, lovely, light and soooo delicious and my rather ordinary (but large with many apples of an unknown variety, 7 to be exact) apple tart. Then booze to finish, a nice scotch and an ancient 35yr PLUS Arminiac…so fine but with a high proof to match. A lovely Sunday afternoon and evening in a wonderful setting with the best of friends, Life does not get better t

HORNETS! Call the Fire Company!

And that’s exactly what we did. Some two weeks ago (maybe 3) the next door neighbor lady came to our door about 1730 in an excited state and pointed to the edge of the house. I followed her in my bare feet as she gazed upwards to a large black/brown mass on the side of our abode near the chimney. I understood her one word of anglaise “Hornets!”, I stared with her for a few minutes while she excitedly explained what I was to do about it…none of which I understood. (Ah the convienent language barrier) So back into the house I went and explained it all to Kelly who paid as much attention to the matter as I did…live and let live is a basic motto about this place. Interest peaked the day before yesterday when about 8pm a single LARGE (key word here) yellow and black HORNET made itself known buzzing about the chandelier in the upstairs landing. Then there were two, then 3. Audrey went into a STATE, locking herself into the guest room and climbing in her bed nest shrouded with the mosquito net…no help from her! Kelly continued to peck away at her laptop and I just stared at the monsters as they seemed to be working up a plan by being at the same spot at the same time about the base of the lamp. A plan was laid to call the fire company the next morning (yesterday) via Mary at the tourist office. They said they’d come for a payment of 50 Euros and that they would call before showing up. When they would come was not mentioned. This morning a nice fireman showed up at our door setting the time for the removal of the offending hornet’s nest at 1730. All according to plan. The day proceeded with us making preparations for our guest for dinner tonight. Beef and cabbage soup, sweet and sour Rabbit with black pepper polenta, zuchinni quiche, lemon icecream. Just after our guest for the evening arrived a loud roar of a large diesel truck was heard and there appeared across the street a hook and ladder truck of the modern-type with the in-line hydralic lift ladder and basket. Our hornet’s nest’s demise was at hand. And a 8 person squad of fire-persons set up a road blockade, intoduced each other to us at the door and with great efficiency set up the truck and suited up in a blue anti-hornet outfit, climbed into the basket atop the truck and set off to reach and attack the nesting hornets where they lived, inside the walls of 35 Rue Marechal Joffre. Spray flew in great clouds and hornets buzzed about in a frenzied attack on the fire persons, including one next to me a hundred feet away from the house! They were insulted to say the least and weren’t going down without a fight. Soon the outside action was complete, the long arm of the ladder retracted, the man out of the blue suit and soon a cadre of anti-hornet experts were tromping through our house headed for the attic (granier) to find and extract the rest of the nest. After a few minutes another fireman came down holding a plastic bag and showed us the contents, a HUGE nest filled with grubs and demised hornets. Amazing! Hundreds would have been born very shortly, much to our possible pain. They packed up all thier gear and after a signing ceremony including handshakes in all directions, much “mercies” in evidence they took thier leave. Whewww, that chapter was over, now onto dinner…