04 Wednesday Feb 2015
Posted in Sentiments
“How IS the country?” asked my friend Patricia after opening the door to her teeny tiny tony Paris flat.
I allowed how it was just fine.
“Je DETESTE la campagne!” she announced firmly, indicating that she was not about to come to Martizay to return my visit anytime soon.
26 Monday Jan 2015
Posted in Gallery
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Loches dungeon (click to enlarge)
Right in the middle of the town of Loches there is a castle. And right in the middle of the castle is a marble stone indicating the room where, in 1429, Joan of Arc begged Charles VII to man up and go to Reims to get crowned.
19 Monday Jan 2015
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
L to R: Stephen, Kay, Tom, & Louise. Just look at those desserts!
Of our 821 regular readers, about 800 of you totally ignored my birthday Saturday. Regardless, being old and creaky has not diminished my interest in celebrations, although the actual number is irrelevant.
15 Thursday Jan 2015
Field trip! Yesterday we left home to visit Jackie Fisher’s favorite village in the region: Angles-sur-l’Anglin, which is about 25 minutes away. The tongue twister of a name means “Anglos on the Anglin River,” because it is one of the many regions here occasionally populated by the English, usually post-invasion. Today, the British actually buy land and houses here, which is so much more civilized.
11 Sunday Jan 2015
Posted in Accommodations, Gallery, Sentiments
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Look carefully and you’ll see the crowd outside the church
As I write this, sympathizers all over the Western world are holding gatherings in honor of the seventeen victims of last week’s terrorist attacks on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and the ensuing carnage.
07 Wednesday Jan 2015
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Tags
We are in our very French kitchen, having breakfast after a whirlwind orientation from the delightful John and Jackie Fisher, our British hosts who are bravely entrusting their house and critters to us.
03 Saturday Jan 2015
Posted in Accommodations
We made it! As far as Paris, anyway. After ten hours en route, one of them racing through the Amsterdam airport, we found ourselves checking in at the Hotel Paris-France, which looks really good from the outside, and has an easy name to remember to tell the taxi driver should there be too much absinthe.
03 Wednesday Dec 2014
Posted in Travel
In our last episode (and it WAS an episode), we revealed that our two-month winter rental in Mexico had fallen through, taking our winter vacation rental money with it. We also said we were applying as housesitters to mind three goats, five chickens, and a cat at a farmhouse in Central France. The menagerie needed tending for three months.
23 Sunday Nov 2014
Posted in Accommodations
Wait’ll you hear this one. You know that Tom and I have been lucky in our nomading about. We do a lot of advanced planning, true, but people who travel are always subject to surprises. Some of us love that! Saner people understand that it’s a wacky way to live and prefer to stay home.
01 Saturday Nov 2014
If you’ve been following Tom’s new blog, the Foolish Flyer, you know that we spent last weekend in and around Lake Chelan in Central Washington State. Tom’s mission was the North Wing flying toy factory; mine was exploring new places.
The Expat Almanac 