Jouet France continued..

May 11, 2066 - Tiling and all that entails...
Vicki and I went for a bit of shopping to LeClerc which is a combination grocery – everything store. It was there I bought a pair of khaki Capri pants to paint and tile in. Oh yes..I hadn’t told you the good news. When I arrived yesterday I had already been forewarned that the house was undergoing renovation – tiling etc so of course like the bright spark I am, I asked ‘how can I help? It seemed that holding and handing tiles to Vicki while on her hands and knees was one of the things I could do. So I needed a pair of pants that I could throw away at the end of this French leave as I suspect they will be covered with tile cement and lavender blue paint. Paint..? yes. I am also helping paint the last of the French shutters on the bottom row.
Vicki true to her Girl Guide training has been turning out gourmet meals on a two burner camp stove <last night for example we had duck in orange sauce>  and copious amounts of tea is boiled up in the living room as that is where all the available plugs are. Washing up the dishes is done at the moment in the ‘tile room’ as that is where there is the only working sink and you have previously been introduced to the only toilet “conveniently” located downstairs.
So if I do anything silly like drop a tile and paint the shutter the wrong colour its ‘THE POND” for me.
So far I have escaped that fate.

 


May 12, 2006 - Cazaubon
This morning Vicki and I in the pouring rain went to Cazaubon to see the market <all of four stalls and not much to write home about> and to get me to a ‘tabac’ so I could recharge my cell with an Orange card. I went in and bought 10 Euros worth so that should do me for a while. Then off we went to a small café for coffee and hot chocolate. One thing I noticed here, people leave their umbrellas outside the door of the shop on the street with no fear of someone taking their ‘parapluie’ away. I am now in rural France and small ‘polites’ are a matter of course.
The Gascogne architecture is a real mix from  original timber plaster walls <columbage> to a salt box style which Vicki’s maison exhibits.
Being so close to Spain, every small town boasts a bull ring but they do not kill the bull nor tease it with those horrible sharp picadors – here they literally dance with the young bulls, something that is interesting to watch for the first half hour according to Vicki but then you wish they would ‘get on with it’. So no fear I will be treated to a bull dance any time soon.