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| Bellac |
Greetings from Bellac. It is now Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 3:27 am. We have been up for over an hour now. Two french presses of coffee and an episode of Broadchurch behind us and we are wide awake, so as good a time as any to get the blog started. We kicked off the voyage at the Plaza Premium Lounge at YVR. It is a perk of our MasterCard. Here we enjoyed a few glasses of wine, and a light lunch. The chairs were comfortable with nice background music and a view of the planes. It was almost civilized. From the relaxing start, our journey continued smoothly but it just is an arduous expedition. Maybe we are getting old, but it
really is worth the effort. I romantically think that we are just 3.5 hours south of Paris, but that would be on a good day with no traffic, and from the centre of the city, not from the airport. Our flight was on time, (thanks Air France) and the journey through the airport was painless. The customs line was long but moved steadily. The bags were on the carousel and the car was ready for us. On leaving the airport, our GPS seemed to have trouble finding a satellite, and then had forgotten where home was, and wouldn't calculate a route. By the time I re-entered the address, we had missed a few turns. Fortunately we weren't too far off route, and were able to get back on track. The route took us east of the city to avoid Paris traffic, but found construction traffic which delayed us. The other issue was a night with no sleep, new contact lenses, new glasses and bright sunshine. Our usually steadfast driver was forced to give into sleep, and I took over the driving. Don't tell Enterprise. After a few crew changes, we arrived at our exit only to find it closed for construction. This just added a few more minutes to our long journey. We finally arrived in Bellac at the grocery store by 3:00 pm. Picking up a few supplies for the evening, it was the final leg back to our French home. On arrival we were relieved to find it still standing. Unlike last year this time, the front door opened, and we were inside.
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| Notre cuisine |
Opening up the house and unpacking wore us out and it was down for a nap. On waking a couple of hours later, the sun was going down as was the temperature. We quickly ran around turning on the electric baseboard heaters. (So much for energy conservation). Dinner was a roasted chicken, some cheese, bread and hummus. We retired to the living room with a cup of tea and some tv. It didn't last long before the snoring was louder than the tv show and we were off to bed by 7:30 pm ish. After five house of good sleep, we were up. Which brings this entry full circle.
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| The church |
Today's plans are to do a full grocery shop, look into buying an inflatable bed for our extra summer guests, (don't worry, there is a real queen size bed ready for you), and a printer. The weather for the next few days is sunny with a temperature in the mid to upper teens. 15 today, by Thursday, 18. I checked out my garden, and there are a few daffodils blooming and my hyacinths are bursting and a few days more of sunshine should bring them into full bloom. I will be getting my hands dirty later this afternoon, getting into the terroir.
We'll skip ahead to 8:30 am, and we have napped, showered, and are ready for Bellac.
Not boring you with the minute details of our day, we now sit here in the kitchen at 4:00 pm with the window open and sunlight poring in. I have cracked open a 1664 beer, while Steve enjoys a pain aux raisins. The fridge is full, the house insurance was paid, we have had our exercise, and now time to relax. The garden will wait until the morning as soon as the fog burns off. We chatted with our neighbours down the street, Barry and his son Miles on our way back home. They are some more of the English speaking residents of Chaptiere. (the name of our neighbourhood).
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| Vern on the Pont de la Pierre |
So we keep leaving the dream, and with the weather as it is, it really does feel like spring.
