Wednesday and Thursday

Lunch al fresco
Petite Louise
La France Profonde

Wednesday -- Again, grey and cold, with bouts of heavy rain. Tom was up early and mastered the French phone as well as the French GPS in the car by the time I got up. We went to the main house to say goodbye to Solange who is heading off to the Dordogne, then chatted for a couple of hours with the family. We had had a lunch of bread and Camembert on our own, and a dinner of Tom’s favorite sausages, a salad of beets and tomatoes, and some more of the endless California carrots.

Another daughter, Pascale, arrived in the afternoon, but with a hairline fracture of her ribs from a fall in Los Angeles several days before. We decided to let her rest and delay a visit until the next day.

Thursday dawned bright, then there were showers, and then warm sun. We chatted with the family, had lunch on our own, and rode bikes to the home of Bertrand’s brother Herve, where the female donkey has just given birth to a baby, called an “anon”. Although the baby is only three weeks old, he is very big. We gave mother Penelop some apples from the Delaubier trees, and took off. We made a small detour to a menhir, a prehistoric standing stone, next to a neighbor’s cornfield. By then it was time to return to the Gite, where we had been invited to join the luncheon guests for coffee. Jeanne and Bertrand were entertaining their friends Michel, Monique, and sister Odile. We knew Michel from the time we first met Jeanne and Bertrand when they were on a walking trip in the Cathar country; at a dinner party one January, Michel found the bean in the cake, making him the King of Paris. He chose me to be his Queen. I still have the paper crown.

After a bit, nephew Pierre and his wife arrived with young Louise. We chatted until about 4, when we excused ourselves to go to the store for a few necessities, and visit the bakery and the tourist office. Then back for a dinner of quiche and squash.

Paul has installed a wifi network, and we were able to log on briefly for news and to send a few emails. As it happens, the hot spot does not reach the petite Gite. We may have to put the computer in the car and drive to the front door to pick up mail! But the sight of three people – Alana, Paul and Pascale -- with four Macs sitting on the dining table, each consumed with his or her computer screen, in the remote French countryside, was quite a picture – La France Profonde.