Dog Days of Summer... what ever they are.....

As I write this post we are enjoying the Dog Days Of Summer. In writing this, I wondered what the dog days were, so below is a link to National Geographic's explanation of this term. National Geographic's explanation. The grenier is all but finished, we even spent 2 nights making sure all was comfy and spider free :-} and now we are just waiting on the lettuce (which is doing very well) and the cucumbers dans la jardin. Nothing else is really in the pipeline. We have just bought a reading chair from the local second hand store and a night stand from a local antique store to complete the grenier. Steve did discover a beautiful old beam down in my garden shed, and struggled to find a use for it, but it still lies in the hallway awaiting a second life. We have tweaked the kitchen, by replacing some shelving that the previous owners took away leaving only the holes, with some utensil/baskets etc. 

We have heard lots about the Olympics that got started last weekend and have seen the odd highlight on the BBC. We can not see anything of the Canadian coverage, as it is not available outside of Canada due to the broadcasting rights. So we cheer for Team GB (Great Britain). I did discover the app Francetv Sport, so we do get some French highlights of the games. Well we try to avoid it all due to the drug scandals, the other controversies that has surrounded the games and it has sports that only get watched once every four years, which is too often for some of them. We caught some of the men's synchronized diving from the 10 metre platform. Can't wait until 2020 to see it again. If I can stay up tonight, I will try to watch Canada vs Germany in Women's football. 

The weather has turned hot again, and we seek relief in the back garden with Kir Royale. Several weeks ago I attempted to order a Kir as an aperitif at a local restaurant. The waiter asked questions that I didn't understand, so I switched to a beer. A Kir, which we have since learnt, is a popular French cocktail made with a measure of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine. It sounds sickly sweet, but really isn't especially with a dry wine.  Since that uncomfortable stumble with the language we have found crème de cassis in our local grocery store and we make our own. There is also the Kir Royale made with champagne instead of the white wine. Well we have a supply of sparkling wine, so we make our own version of Kir Royale. A nice way to celebrate 4:00 (16:00) or any time actually.  

Confolens

We rented the car again for two days last week. This allowed us to stock up on the big provisions as well as to discover more interesting villages and locations.

This trip took us to the shopping centre in Limoges to pick up a few essentials such as some shelving/storage for the kitchen, a radio, and what ever we saw that we didn't know that we really needed. The trip home took us past Lac Saint Paradoux for a dip in the lake and a pique-nique. It is great that we have a beautiful swimming lake only about 30 minutes from the house. Saturday took us through the backroads to Confolens. They were in the middle of their festival and we were lucky to discover a parking space. We wondered along the market, across the bridges and through the church and antique stores. We picked a tent set up for the festival for our lunch. On the way there we had passed through many picturesque villages and even more on the way home. We do have to pace ourselves as you can overdose on the historic antiquities of the country. It is still hard to get used to villages that seem lifeless on a Saturday afternoon. We are so lucky our village/town has the appearance of life even on a hot summer afternoon.

Lac Saint Paradoux

We are now back to frequenting our favourite bolangerie, as it has reopened after their vacation, congés. Our second choice is now away on their congés. We have just had the August long weekend here in France, celebrating the assumption of Mary into heaven. Saturday night we attended the evening market celebrating the local producers. The bandstand had accordion music, the bar was open, and there was a barbecue. We enjoyed the music and a beer or two as we had already planned a meal for the night. Sunday, we splurged and enjoyed an evening of beers and burgers at our pub just down the hill. They had an acoustic trio

playing contemporary music such as Ed Sheeran. The lamb burger and Steve's pork burger were as great as we remember from last summer, loved the fries. 

With a new week, I started some planned exercise. I now do power walks each morning, or at least the last two mornings. Up and down our hill on our side of the river twice. It is almost a 4 km walk in just over 30 minutes. It's a start anyways. It will go along with our other walks to the village for groceries or other errands. Tuesday saw the Tour de Limousin pass through Bellac. This was our second bicycle race this summer. Even though not as famous as the Tour de France, this year's was the 49th edition of the race. Bike racing is much more a cultural thing here in France. People don't seem to mind to be seen in public in their bike racing tights. I guess much like the bathing suits. It still was quite a rush to have the bikes and the accompanying cars racing right past you down the narrow streets.

It is hard to believe that we are now in the middle of August, and I have begun to have my teacher/back to school dreams. With only 3 weeks before I will be back to work, I will have to work to complete my summer bucket list. It shouldn't be hard, but the becoming fluent in French I think will take a bit more work. I am checking my school email for the first time today since mid July. Boy do I get a lot of junk email. I am even checking my hotel reservation and train schedule for my return to Paris in early September. But that is in the future, and as I've been trying to do this summer, is to live for the moment, and that includes finishing my second Kir Royale and making sure I am sober enough to barbecue the sausages for dinner tonight, but it is a low priority......