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Thursday, September 23, 2010

We walked the Peyrou this morning for 30 minutes of stair work. We’re getting pretty good at this – we don’t tire out as quickly as we did, and we worked up a good sweat today. On the way up to the Peyrou, we mailed our insurance contract. It is an obligation of our rental agreement that we purchase rental insurance. We didn’t really want to do it, but our landlord insisted – indeed, he expected us to already have the insurance when we arrived. We consulted Francis about who to call, and got a quote a couple of weeks ago. We finalized it through e-mail and authorized the payment through our bank, and this was the contract, signed by Roger, that we mailed back to the agent. I think we have only 1,000€ of coverage, but then again, we have very little other than our two computers, a cell phone and clothing.

After our workout, we walked to tourist office on Place de la Comedie and picked up a bus map. There were tents set up on the Place de la Comedie for some sort of festival, so we began to explore the booths. We ran into two people we know – Rachel and Patricia. Rachel was hostess at the Apero – the first AWG function which we attended. She was sitting at a cookie booth speaking in English to a woman running the cookie booth, and kindly introduced us to Laura. We chatted a bit, bought 2 cookies, and departed. .

I was guilty of piddling around about getting my AWG membership application taken care of, but it involved a couple of steps – I had to put the application on a flash drive, take it down and get it printed, then I had to get a check to put in with the application. Have I mentioned that we have no checks? We have a checking account from which we can access cash and which we can set up to pay people on a regular basis (rent, phone bill) whose banking information we have, or even on a one-time basis, such as the insurance. But we have no way of getting making one-time payments in smaller amounts to people where we don’t have their checking information. So earlier this week I emailed Patricia and asked her if she would be kind enough to write a check for me if I give her the cash. She agreed. So when we ran into her at the other end of the festival tents, she had a few minutes, so I paid her cash and she wrote me a check. She was headed to lunch with a friend, so we parted ways after a few moments and we went home to lunch.

I had been pondering what I was going to take to tomorrow’s event in Séte, and I decided to get some of Laura’s cookies. We returned to the booth and she was gone, but her husband was there. I checked to make sure she wasn’t going to the book club meeting tomorrow, as I didn’t want to bring her cookies if she was going to be there bringing her cookies as well! Her husband assured me that she would not be going to the book club, as they had to man the booth for the weekend. I bought two packages of cookies, sampled some others which he kindly handed out, and left. While we were out, we mailed the AWG membership application. First, however, we had to go to the cybercafé down the street to make a copy of my photo ID to accompany the application. We went in and made the copy, then asked how much. The woman running the counter said 10 cents, so we fished into our pocket and purse and came up with five 2-cent coins. She laughed and said something I didn’t understand about the church and the beggars there, so I turned to a guy there who is my language reference, and he said that, when people pick through small change as we did, it is asked of then whether they robbed the poor-box at the church. We laughed, thanked her and left. I think it may have been an insult to her to pay her in such small change.

We are headed to Séte tomorrow, and a woman named Anne has agreed to give us a ride. We checked out bus line for the trip up to her area so that she does not have to come down to pick us up. There is so much construction in the area that it makes getting to our apartment via car very difficult. Not only that, she was kindly providing us a ride so we owed it to meet her wherever was most convenient for her.

We picked up some groceries this afternoon, including some more flavored tea. This one indicated on the package that it had blueberries and raspberried in it, so it was a surprise (a not-unwelcome one) to taste cinnamon in the tea as well. It has been one of our pleasures (and occasionally one of our irritations) to discover unexpected flavors in foods here in France.

Alas, my computer does not work. Sigh. It is powerless, even when I plug in the power cord. I think the problem lies in the on-off switch. I wrote Francis and asked him to recommend someone. He called and said he was having lunch tomorrow with someone who does computer work, and he said he would have the gentleman contact me.

My faithful readers will note that there is a three-day gap in my postings - my last post was dated September 19. My notes and blog for the 20th through 22nd are on my computer, and I will try to post them in some sort of flashback when I have the computer again. In the meantime, I will soldier on with Roger's computer.