Cook and Eat and harpsichords

18-10-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Monday, October 18, 2010 Day 110
This morning I walked to the house of a woman named Caroline for the AWG’s Cook and Eat. This is a function whereby a few members agree in advance that the group will cook certain foods, then Caroline and Sue purchase the ingredients, and a maximum of 12 ladies combine their cooking efforts for a delicious lunch. Today we had sweetbreads, chanterelles in cream, an oriental salad, potatoes and pineapple upside-down cake, along with the ever-present baguettes and equally-ubiquitous wine. We learned how to prepare sweetbreads, peeled potatoes, julienned carrots, mangoes, and peppers, blanched and removed the membranes from sweetbreads, mixed cake batter, and generally cooperated in producing a delightful meal. The company was even more delightful. We were ten ladies, mostly my age or older, sharing the commonality of living in France and dealing with the French, and it was refreshing. When it was over, I walked Vivienne to the gare. Vivienne lives in Séte, and it was her house that the garden club visited a couple of weeks ago and where we had a lovely meal and a wonderful time. Her husband Alain brought her to Montpellier this morning, and they had at least some difficulty getting to Montpellier because the truckers have engaged in a slow-down action whereby they have blocked all the lanes of the highway except one, and traffic trickles through. Another woman was almost two hours late to the Cook and Eat, but I think Alain took back roads and Vivienne arrived pretty much on time. But they agreed that she would take the train back to Séte rather than have him fight the traffic again. Vivienne was uncertain of the route to the gare, so I was happy to walk her there. Actually, when we got to the apartment, and I pointed out my flowers in the window box, she knew how to get the rest of the way to the gare, but having nothing else to do and knowing that Roger was playing chess, I went ahead and walked her all the way to the front of the gare. She said later she had to wait an hour and a half for a train since the slow-down has affected the train schedules as well. From the gare, I walked up to the Place Charles de Gaulle to see Roger playing chess, as it was 2:30 by this time. When I arrived, there were no chess games in progress, and an oriental-looking gentleman was leaning against one of the tables with a bag over his shoulder, looking as if he were waiting for a chess partner. I glanced around for Roger. No luck, so I headed home.

While I was gone, Roger spent the morning running errands. He went to the computer repair shop to pay for the attempted repair of the computer and to pick up the flash drive upon which we asked the repair guy to transfer my files. Then he went to the local Tabac at the corner to pick up some tax stamps, which we have to have when we go to our immigration appointment on the 29th. The cost is 380€ each. Ouch! While he was out, he drifted over to some bins that a local bookstore always has outside and scanned their wares. He found two beginning French books for .20€ each, so he bought both. He ate lunch at a Turkish Kabab place, then spent the afternoon on his computer until about 2:15, when he left to go play chess. There are many ways to go to the Place Charles de Gaulle from our apartment, and we did not cross paths, but he must have arrived at the chess tables shortly after I left. He stayed until after 5:30, stopping for a baguette on the way home.

In the meantime, I had problems again with the electricity at the apartment - again! I started a log of the occurrences so we can try to determine exactly where the problem lies. We didn’t get much of anywhere today – the power refused to come on and stay on until after Roger came home. He removed a fuse and the power didn’t go off for the rest of the day. The fuse powers a couple of outlets and the washing machine, and we didn’t need them in the evening, so he left the fuse out.

We agreed that we did not need much supper besides the baguette, and after eating, we went out to the computer repair place to ask for our hard drive. The gentleman there said he wasn’t sure which of two it was, and his assistant was already gone for the day and asked us to come back tomorrow. On the way back, we walked past a harpsichord store. There were three harpsichords in the shop. I couldn’t get a good picture of the front ones because of the glare. This one is better, although a bit fuzzy, as I had to turn the flash off, it was late afternoon so the natural lighting was poor.