#94 Sundai School in Chezal Benoit

#94
Not just ANY Sunday either! Chezal – Benoit (Che-sahl – Ben-Wha) was having it’s annual Brocante (junk sale) and mental health summit. You see Chezal – Benoiy is the home of a Mental Hospital and the sellers occupy the town right up to it’s gate. Too, many of the patients are present adding their own color and grunts to the event. L came to the Ruin at 9 am and while she made the huge green salad for the party we were attending afterwards at A&R’s, Kelly and I scrambled to both wake up from the party the afternoon and early evening of Saturday (yes we do these things serially it seems) (where 5 of us drank 7 bottles of the finest below 2 Euros sparkling wine and wine). I made Spinach Canneloni and it was very, very good if I do say so myself. Followed some hours later by a Pasta Povera with garlic, capers. It always works, a very simple dish that I’ve described in my blog before. That was Saturday’s food scene, Sunday afternoons at our friends A&R’s was an Asian-styled food fest. A and R had preped vegies galore, carrots, radishes, green and red bell peppers, onions, lemons and had various bottled sauces and condiments. I was put in charge by the Master Chef herself who provided me with the valued kitchen support I needed to create an asian feast. It was great creative fun and there was more than enough food at the end for A&R to have leftovers for two meals at least! I came up with Oyster Sauce Beef, Musselman Curry, Vietnamese Lemon Pork, Red Pepper Chicken, Chop Suey (YES!), and a couple of other ad hoc dishes thrown in for good measure. All over rice, thai rice noodles. Much wine was drank, as usual. The French couple from up the road (Chicken Farm) chatted amiably with all of us, in French of course…but we seemed to rise to the occassion. I had a bit of trouble understanding which isn’t unusual as the speed at which the French speak is, at times, intimidating. They also brought along their own product…goat cheeses from their heard of Goats, it was, without doubt, the FINEST goat cheese I have EVER enjoyed! The Ash coverred round loaf was spectacularly good. Wonderful light texture and a lemony aftertaste that just faded to the next bite. Anyway, we all enjoyed ourselves emmensly in A&R’s sunroom under ever darkening skies and eventually the late afternoon pouring rains. Here’s the link to the YouTube movie of the Brocante we enjoyed in the morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT6Ztt_Iz1o
What a lovely day, rain or not. Great fun with great people, tons of chat and laughs galore, Life hardly could be better than this.

Une Petite Francaise SVP

That’s all it really takes, a LITTLE French. Be polite, address all persons as vous, si vous plait is good all the time. CA VA! (How are you – to those with whom you have a standing friendship andhave been properly told that now we can be familiar) To which one replies Ca Va! back (I’m ok). Well today is Tuesday and our friend Don who is a retired language teacher is taking on our little groups need for French tutorage par groupe, oh lord, help him! After 6 years of visiting this lovely, genteel land our grasp of it’s language is abouton the level of a 2 year old (or less!). It’s NOT for lack of trying, we have many CD’s, this course and that course, have taken courses at the local tourist board til we drove them mad, and commuted one a week to Berkeley to bang French into our heads. Little sticks but what does is in the present tense almost always, NOTHING comes naturally. So today we will begin yet again to learn a bit of French for the sakes of the oh so friendly French folk in and about our village and environs. Sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsfV-ZL4rUo&NR=1
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The black paint job is through for now, now we must scrape off the over-painting on the glass of a million panels, oh boy. So I do a panel or two, scrape, scrape, brush, scrape and I soon tire of this and wander off and Kelly grabs the scraper and razor blade and goes to work on it. This will take a while. I want to get on with the cloth hanging but it takes laying out and pattern matching before it can be hung. It will be one very dramatic entrance to the old girl, the pattern is Japanesey black on a subtle gold in big swirly things that dance along edge to edge almost. The curtains are going to be a lighter gold with a little texture in them, the whole effect should be stunning…perhaps too stunning. No matter, as soon as this scraping activity is done we will have at it.
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I brought over my oil painting “bits” (a UK word meaning…things), brushes, media, linseed oil, tubes of paints, the whole bloody mess. When will I paint? I dunno, I never know…If I get inspiration I’m often unmotivated and if I’m unmotivated my inspiration fades and I’m back at square one again. It’s the opposite of procrastination where you should do something but you put it off. This takes less effort. Nonetheless the stuff is here, I have canvasses and we’ll see what time does.
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Back to the scrapings,
H

Another Day in a Lazy Paradise

Yawn…up at 6am, I looked out the window of the comp room where I slept last night to see a grey and cloudy sky. Oh well, off to the computer to read the emails, if any, and see what the weather sensors have detected overnight. It is a passion of mine, the weather is, I study the situation day by day trying to sort out the forecast for the next WHILE. Kelly’s knees are far more accurate than any local forecast we get from the TV.
Mine , however, are more personal and I have INSIDE information, don’t I? Today was not sunny, overcast and grey as could be all afternoon. We worked around the house this morning then in need of paint, nails and a few other hardware items we left at about 1:30pm bound for St. Amand’s Brico Marche. I needed potting soil, some exterior wood glue and some wall fasteners, Kelly needed paint. We found our items and found each other and proceeded to the checkout cashier. As it turned out she had inadvertly bought MAT paint so after the discovery at the car returned to the store to trade in the 2.5 liter carton of MAT for the more desirable Semi-gloss. She also bought the black glossy she wanted to finish the mullions of the waiting room exterior.
The whole works is spectacular.

The Donkey Faire

Monday 12 May, 2008
Today is the BIG DAY! The donkeys are coming, the donkeys are coming! I was up early to witness the arrivals, donkeys from everywhere in France in one’s, twos, tens, tied to rails in the Champ du Foire (Fair Field). Beautiful, noisy and a cause to celebrate Asses of the 4 legged variety. Our hope this year was that the weather would be nice instead of the storminess of last years version. Up early, at dawn, for no good reason (part of ageing) I looked out the comp rm window and the skies were clear. Whoopee! Even before dawn the trucks were lining up to deliver thier braying hoards onto the Champ (shaw-mp). I grabbed my trusty Nikon Coolpix S10 and set it to movie and left the house bound to see the beginnings of todays Big Event in Lignieres. The movies are in two parts, each about 5 minutes in length. Just click the links below.

The Donkey Faire Continued:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbBHfJCNu2U

Too big to upload? Who knows, I’ve tried three times now to no avail so just click the link and watch it on YouTube. Sorry.

After the 2nd video (about 11:30) I returned to the house to prepare for our late afternoon lunch for 10. My grand idea for this gathering was to have the group make thie own sandwiches. Well…that’s how I set the table up, you know…plates of onion rings, tomato slices, pre-cut bagettes, lettuce leaves etc. and a big salad. This was to be made easier by the addition of leftovers from the meal the night before at A&R’s place. Easy to do, fun outdoor-sy at our now long table with the additional length furnished by my library table which I just completed. Sure. Wine by the bottle was soon flowing among the gathered group and conversations went off like firecrackers in every direction. I thought I made to announcement re:making your own sandwiches, but the second the plate of meats (chicken and pork) were deliverred to te table the group swarmed on them like hungry wolves. What sandwiches? Oh well, best laid plans and all of that. Much wine was drunk, the Vouvray Sparkling was especially delicious and made for a festive occassion. The party moved indoors with the coming of the late afternoon rain and we raided the bar closet for samples of the many bottles. Great fun was had by all as usual, Our Little Supper Club.

The Day We Got DSL!

It happened about 9:05 this morning, I was just up, barely awake past staggering stage but before coffee. Into the comp rm I went to check on the weather program…and much to my surprise (It HAS been 6 weeks you know) the Network Magic program popped up with a “Internet Connected” message! I looked at the LiveBox and saw the normal blinking lights, no joy, just another bity of noise to confound and confuse. The message faded then came on again a minute later, I looked again at the LiveBox and the DSL light was ON! Not Blinking…ON! Wowee! Then it went off…huh?
So I tried Internet Explorer and l’viola! There it was…Orange.fr! Hot shit! Got it! I walked into the bedroom to announce to Kelly the great news and back again it was still alive and well. I sat down to see every @#$$#@ application on my machine doing downloads to update the now seruiously out of date (5 weeks) software. Sooo cool this is, we are back online again! Upon examination we have a 20MB/sec ADSL-2connection, bloody quick compared to our old 8 MB one and the even slower 1.5 one in California.
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We drove to Bourges and Mondail Tissues to get the required cloth for the entry hallway, it’s curtains and the curtains for the waiting room. We chose three wonderful designs and got the required yardage for each and wandered off to the Carrefour store to fill my list of needed groceries for next week.

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.