Off to Provence! Maybe.

Well we won a Gate on eBay FR. Of course he won’t ship it, of course. Therefore we must go and get it, all 377 miles down and 377 miles back. We won’t do this in one day either, two down and one back is the current plan. The Gate? It’s to replace the gate we now have between the alley and the courtyard which is of some fine wood with a twirly-gurley art nouveau iron gate, much more in keeping with the olde ruin than the somewhat plain-jane wooden one. The new (old wreck really) gate is located deep in the south of France very near Nice. in the hills just beyond the coast. It’s all rusted and sad looking now but after we load it on the roof of the trusty ol’ Avensis and haul it back I’ll see if my friend R or A&R will/can sandblast the bad stuff off, I’ll apply a metal primer and we’ll paint it black. We bought the bloody thing for about 165 Euros…at the current exchange rate that’s $257.40 USD. That’s cheap as these things can go up to $2000 depending on style and condition. Old iron sells. New ones are ok…boring but available, olde ones suitable to us for this house are NOT so available and thus you must use eBay to find them and typically they are expensive. This one’s pics on eBay FR were awful, I had to enhance them with Photoshop so we could eye it with some detail. Looks good.
NOTE: At least it DID…as the seller guy has now returned our payment! Huh? So we write back once again to straighten this mess out hopefully and schedule the trip. Oh Jezz.

#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.

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.
___
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.

Covering the walls…

Blog Entry Wednesday 30 April, 2008
Rainy and cool, windy too…shit weather, mucky. There’s a music event downtown at L’Halle this afternoon, we will go with an umbrella. It’s the annual fete du Bain Douche (our event location in town about three blocks away), many musical acts that come from far and wide, well…not so wide I guess, France mainly and maybe they visited some other place before or might have even come from there for all I know but…you get the picture. Not pricey, generally under 20E a seat or less, always some freebee performances held at various locations about the village which always attract a crowd. It starts today and runs through the weekend. We have plans to attend all the free ones as we spent PLENTY at the Pretemps Du Bourges a couple of weeks ago.

This is my Lignieres_Weather Cam image just a few minutes ago, typical morning traffic as the commuters rush off to coffee…oops work. Looks out the TV/Computer Room window towards the
northwest. Ah Lunch hour is but 4 hrs from now then 2 hrs off to think about the rest of the day. Hmmm.
3 pm, still no DSL with the clock winding down on the France Telecom workday. Nothing ever is as promised with FT. What a way to run a business. It is now 9:58pm, many resets and attempts to configure the long lost DSL service brings nothing but the blinking INTERNET light. I saw an ad today in the old Connexion newspaper for an all English DSL service for 29 bucks a month, maybe I’ll give them a call tomorrow.
We spent much of today working on the old waiting room, new fabric on the walls except for over the fireplace which we will do tomorrow. Then I begin the build of the bookcase.
Kats: Interlopers in the form of ferals, also known as terrorists, or insurrectionists are using the courtyard for secret meetings and attempts to enlist one or the other of or Kats in their own causes. So far Furry has been singled out for rough treatment as she fails to attend their meetings and doesn’t supply food or drink to the cadre which now includes Long Tail, Sammy, Blackie and at least two others whose names we don’t know. The Barn is their hideout at least we know that much. Their goal? The take over of all kibble supplies, both Kat and Dawg with the long term goal of trading the Dawg food for Kat food and cooperative Dawgs. That’s all I know now, more to come.

Lost In The Woods

Blog Entry 4/24/08 Thursday
One of my talking points has been abolished, at least for now…it was 81 degrees F here today. So much for the cold of Lignieres, the continuance of winter, the obnoxious clouds and rains, the river out of it’s banks. So much for it all…we had a breath of summer today and it was wonderful. We sat in the sun this afternoon and drank rum and coke and talked to our wandering cat Furry as she explored her territories. Her nemesis Long Tail was no where to be seen so Furry was free to examine her domain without challenge today, tomorrow may not be so good for her. Such is the life of our cats.
Later in the afternoon we made a grocery run to Issoudun and then promptly I made a right turn a bit early and we found ourselves wandering thru new territory headed towards Chezel Benoit and our friends house there. Lost in the woods, we saw the managed forest cut here and there; the individual trees lined up against the dirt road for miles and miles. Finally we exited the forest and headed off in the right direction for an evenings visit, a few laughs and a bit of using their computer for our latest fix of email and news.

Guilt

Blog Entry 04-16-08 A Wednesday w/o you know what…
Today I tackled the wall fittings for the curtains all 10 feet of them. Drill holes, then bigger ones follow, then install the retainers that hold the bronze curtain fittings, quite a job but done after about three hours. I hung the rods too after drilling them for the end fittings. Ladder going back and forth and me climbing up and down got the job done. Kelly worked to seam the curtains, cut and cuss at her chilly sitting job. She worked for hours to get the curtains ready for hanging. I lounged in the sun part of the time. Guilt.
The day was clear and sunny, cold but endurable. I worked at my kitchen cleaning things up and prepping for dinner. The kats wandered in and out watching carefully for the feral kat gang that has invaded the courtyard and displaced them. None found they still dove into the open door of the laundry room when the slightest breeze made any sound. Cowards.
So Kats and Duck and I sit and watch TV Francaise…”Nouvelle Star” chock full of “Stars” who aren’t …YET! But TALENT seems somewhat missing in this group. Tired Franck Sinatra covers and hip rock-like ballads just can’t do much for this group in my mind. Yet I watch…hoping someone INTERESTING will appear with real TALENT instead of ego-centric posturing in each and every one contestant. Oh well.

Brrrrr still…

Blog Entry 04-15-08 A Tuesday without what you suspect…
Today was soooo cold, a high of 10 here…50 degrees and the promise tomorrow of more of the same, only colder, down to ZERO! That’s 32 for all you Californians and this is APRIL! At least there isn’t snow! Shit! The house project was put on hold as we sought refuge in the Toyota to keep us warm for the day, yes diesel is expensive but comfort is comfort and we needed a dose of it to keep our spirits up. So off we went to Leroy Merlin in Chateauroux to get wood for the wall clothing project and new aluminum tubes for the curtains in the dining room, they needed to be stiffer and in one piece. Leroy has LOTS of Quincallerie (hardware) and I found the bits (good English term) I need to repair and create the new rods. Off then to other stores to fulfill our needs for the rest of the afternoon, at least we were warm.
Back to Rue Ruin Americaine I undertook the job of replacing the existing computer with the one I brought from the US. Far more modern and capable of video it will do us for the next year or so. I am a computer conservative…I’m at least one generation behind the current and sometimes more…I am holding on the Windows XP as well in deference to Windows Vista until I hear something good about it and it’s been almost 2 years since it was released. Where’s Google when you need them?
Tomorrow the curtains will be made and installed in the Parlor with any luck at all. I bought the material needed to hang the curtain rod holders so all I need to do is fabricate the holders. A simple job, surely!

Kats at War

Blog Entry Monday April 14, 08
Still no Internet, oops, I said I wouldn’t bring the subject up. Sorry.
The Kats are officially at war. Every move makes the other suspicious and growling, slinking away to hide under a bed, couch or at the remotest corner of the house. What is up? I don’t know, could be they are simply house-bound and determined that the other one caused this situation in some way. They sit and stare at the top of the stairs, at the half-opened doorway into the Tv room or dining room just waiting to throw a paw at the other one. Only the food bowl arena is apparently neutral territory. Many short skirmishes without many wounds or serious damage being done, yet they are definitely at war today.
Our friends D and S came by today with a huge bag of books for Kelly’s perusal, mostly modern fiction that they share an interest in the authors. Kelly traded a few of hers to somewhat balance the books. They are headed across the little pond to the UK for about a month to tend to a rental and a paint job D landed to bring in a few precious Euros. I wish I could do something to make a few bucks but alas here that is neigh impossible for a nearly 65 year old man or woman for that matter especially two from the United States.

Another Saturday – Oradour Sur Glane

Oradour Sur Glane
Blog Entry for Saturday 12 April, 08
Well, we still do not have internet service. Maybe not enough time has drifted by but we have it not in any case. This is just too bad. So it will remain as I can tell little from the France Telecom site since I do not yet have the required account name and password. I will no longer bore you with this aspect of our misery, the next time you hear anything about the i-net it will be that we have it and I have posted all the blog entries as history. So there.
Yesterday we drove south 2.5 hrs using Bonnie the Tom-Tom to the ill-fated village of Oradour Sur Glane. It is but a ruin of the day the Nazi’s came to town, June 4th, 1944. They destroyed it and all inhabitants in a frenzy of tank shelling, machine gun fire, fires and explosions. The populace of some 642 persons was almost completely wiped out. Men, women and children shared the same awful fate. The place has been left en situ (as it has remained) since. It is a hauntingly and at the same time terrible reminder of the horrors of all wars. There were but 7 survivors of that day who lived to tell the tale. The Nazis partied until late into the night revelling in their “victory” over the residents, it was no victory in the normal sense as the residents were largely unarmed, surprised and cut down before anyone could respond. Horrible. The trials that speak of this war crime became a laughing stock as well when most of the soldiers and French civilians that were in charge of the operation were freed from their jail cells, some even had death sentences that had been overturned.
We drove the 2.5hr route home in the late afternoon with scattered clouds and spotty rains. The weather remains cold and wet day in and day out preventing my work outside in the garden and preventing the painting inside (too cold).
We had our dinner with 4 of our closest friends Thursday night, it was great fun and went on for hours and hours, 7 to be exact! Only 4 bottles of wine passed our lips as well, a new LOW record it was too!
We are usually good for several bottles more but somehow the atmosphere did not allow us that freedom this time. The Thai/Chinese/Vietnamese food came off OK, I was disappointed in my garlic/lemon grass soup, too dark, cloudy and in need of a kick of something, perhaps mint or basil…too late now. The red chicken thai curry was mildly hot and very tasty I thought but brought little comment good or bad, the oyster sauce beef was ok, but I thought it a bit confused, too many flavors (R thought the same), I’ll rework it next time with fewer sweet peppers. The pork nems were good but the rice paper dissolved somewhat when frying, opening the interiors to the fry oil of ½ sesame and ½ grapeseed oil. My apple/ginger tart was ok, I would have liked the apples more cooked…er ah…softer but it was ok, also the pastry shell needed more time to pre-bake so the bottom would have been crisper. With the vanilla ice cream on top it was good though if not great. We finished up with tea and coffee and a bit of Floriovo liqueur and a nip of Scotch. Very nice beginning for our visit I thought, Now to plan the next one.

Tele Repaired! Whoopee!

Blog Entry_04-09-08
Well sure as heck France Telecom came and went today at about 9am as scheduled. They found a bad connection OUTSIDE on the side of the house…huh? How’s that got anything to do with anything? Let me review this telephone problem as I have lived it.
1.Inet and Telephone worked fine on the day we arrived. That was the 21st of March as I remember.
2.10 days later it all went away. 4/1 came and all was inert, dead, mort, fini etc.
3.On the 4th we got a letter telling us they cut off our Inet and Telephone for non-payment.
4.We paid the balance in arrears and were told we would have our phone back last Wednesday or Thursday.
5.That didn’t happen so we went to the Tourist Board, they called for us, found out that they had turned the tele back on and were surprised we had no phone and got a crew to come out today and check our connection.
6.They came, they fixed it.
7.Huh?
So now we have a telephone with the promise of an actual internet connection sometime in the next week. Good luck to us. Kelly called Jane.
The dining room is shaping up, we worked on it all bloody day, cloth is hung on all the walls and Kelly produced the curtains as well. A full day. I prepped the beef marinade for the oyster sauce beef dish and made the ice cream mix as well. Tomorrow will be a cooking day as well as cleanup of the dining room to make it ready for our guests, now all 4 of them.