Our place in France Chapter 38

I’m sorry! I’m sorry! To all those who looked for something to read on Sunday evening or Monday morning, only to find that there was no blog! The week ran away with me and when I looked again it was gone! But here we are, better late than never.

As you must have gathered, it was quite a busy week. Tilly had arrived the week before and was a huge help in moving the furniture into its new positions enlarging the living space in the lounge and creating a very elegant dining room. However, her real reason for being here was to straighten out some old paperwork, so there was plenty of driving back and forth to both Villeneuve and Viillefranche to find government offices, banks and so on.

We were all invited to enjoy and evening meal with our neighbours, Ann and Laurent, which was a daunting prospect but once again, Tiilly was a star, acting as translator when we got stuck which was quite often. Laurent was the chef and had prepared a delicious lamb and spinach dish which was served with a locally traditional dish called Aligot (pronounced Ally-go) It is made with mashed potatoes mixed with a special cheese and is very tasty. Serving it was a small problem as the cheese becomes stretchy and one has to lift and roll the serving spoon o get any on to the plate without making a huge mess.

Driving into town and back was spectacular as the autumn colours were at their best and we were completely blown away by them. An exceptionally strong wind one night then blew the leaves away and we were delighted to see, the next morning, that they had blown into neat little piles. I  recall the scene in Camelot where Arthur is extolling the virtues of Camelot and Guinevere says to Arthur: “And I suppose the autumn leaves fall into neat little piles.” And Arthur replies: “Oh, no, my lady, they blow away completely at night” Well we may not be Camelot but obviously close.

The cold weather has brought on a completely different way of dressing. There is only one word for it – layers. Sometimes as many as four layers, but usually two with more added if we go outside. The wood burner glows brightly for most of the day keeping the house nice and cosy but both of us don our fluffy slippers as soon as we come indoors and we were pleased to note that Tilly had brought hers along too.

Now that I have written down all that happened during the week, I really don’t know why I should not have had time to write it all yesterday but I was busy for some hours making use of our free-phone-calls-to-anywhere-in-the-world on both Saturday and Sunday and then, of course, we just had to watch the final Formula One Grand Prix race of the season on Sunday afternoon, and that is how time goes.