Good Morning Readers
Well we had a lovely week with Richard, Lynn and Dave the dog. Wallace has now moved back into the house rather than living in next doors outbuilding. Lyn and I got one kitchen wall painted and I have three of my four cupboards up (only 3 brackets for fitting them to the wall arrived). This afternoon I plan to start sanding the large cupboard in preparation for painting, so that, that side of the kitchen will hopefully be complete in the next week. Pat and I still need to complete the upstairs area, but Richard and Pat did get a large amount done.
On Wednesday we all went to a market which I had been told about in a town called Piégut-Pluviers which is in the Dordogne, it is a very large market. It was great to wander around and just look at what people had on offer. We came away with some basil plants, cherries and a rockmelon (cantaloupe). The main street has been pedestrianized for the market but it has got so big that it spills out up the main street that still has vehicle access, it was “interesting” to watch a large coach and a large truck try to drive down the street with market stalls either side, people and dogs everywhere and traffic trying to come the other direction. A modern day version of survival of the fittest perhaps?
After our morning exploration of the market we headed off to one of the local restaurants for lunch. We went for the menu de jour (menu of the day) which was soup, vegetables, main, cheese and dessert for the grand sum of €14. We did have to buy our drinks on top of that. There was only a choice on the main course – mussels or steak; we all went for the steak. So the meal starts with a big pot of soup in the middle of the table which you serve yourself from along with bread, then came the vegetable course which I didn’t eat as it ended up being mushrooms, cucumber (which I did eat) and pâté en croute, which is basically like a giant pork pie sliced – not my thing! Then we had steak and chips, cheese (served again with bread) and then dessert (I had the dark chocolate mousse). Two hours later we rolled out of the restaurant (along with a very well behaved Dave) feeling incredibly full. The steak was fantastic and we did come across a cheese that we hadn’t had before a Tomme Blanc, so we are going to search that out.
Thursday, we were planning on visiting an Roman site nearby, but we ended up going to Rochechouart for a morning coffee and a walk around and then we headed off to a nearby lake for a picnic lunch. All very relaxing as the weather was absolutely wonderful. After lunch a lovely stroll around the lake. It also gave us an opportunity to see what repairs and how the clean-up was going, I must admit I was impressed; they seem to have got everything sorted in regard to the damaged buildings. They are still trying to remove a lot of the fallen trees however. Friday morning saw Richard, Lyn and Dave the dog depart, we were sorry to seem them go.
A quick update on the garden, everything is growing like mad as the weather warms up. We have had a couple of thunderstorms so we do get rain, but I have also had to hand water. The cucamelons have started to grow so I’m happy with that, my corn plants are shooting upwards. My tomato plants now also have some little green tomatoes on them and the courgette plant has quite a number of little yellow courgettes. My lettuces (well the ones that are still alive) are nearly at picking size (one definitely in the next week and I would say the others in two weeks) and I’ve planted out a couple more so that I will have more later on. The blueberries are just starting to ripen. All in all the veggies are going well which I am really happy with.
One last thing, I have been meaning to put this photo on my blog for quite a number of weeks, but I just didn’t get around to it until now, so here it is….
my heart just for you…
The almost completed cupboards
Pat hard at work
Dave the dog