Walking - sans Egan

Monday, September 27, 2010 Day 89


We walked the Peyrou this morning then, as usual, headed down to the Comedie to see what was happening there. Nothing. We bought some peaches from the only vendor down there today, then came back home.

I told Peggy I would walk Egan some while she was gone. She had told me to call Fatima, who would be caring for the dog in her absence, but when I called, the woman on the other end of the line said Fatima was not home. I intended to go for a walk about 2:00, but Roger was napping then, so we didn’t get out of the apartment until about 3:30. We walked to Peggy’s house anyway on the off chance that Fatima would be there. She wasn’t, but Egan greeted us eagerly by sticking her nose, then her paws, under the gate. That was all we could see of here. We left her there and went for a walk to try to find the river in this area. On our way along, Roger, who could see over some of the fences, called my attention to some grapes hanging inside a yard. I stood on tiptoe and was barely able to see a couple of grapevines trained along an area above a small garden area, forming sort of an arbor. Roger called out to someone then waved, and we started to walk on past the house, but the woman to whom he waved came to her gate, opened it and invited us into her yard. We admired her grapes and the grapevines where she pointed to them growing along the porch. Then Roger spotted a cat and I walked over to get my cat fix. We chatted in my stilted French for a moment, then thanked her and moved on. We walked probably 45 minutes, but we were without a map and didn’t find it, so turned for home. When we got home and saw where we had walked, we were dismayed to find that we were just a few steps away, had we gone under an underpass at one point. Ah, well . . . the walk was really good for us anyway, probably well over an hour. We ended by dropping into our favorite boulangerie around the corner from our apartment to get a baguette, some dessert to go with supper, and some miniature meringues. The cost was 5.05 Euros. Roger paid over the 5 Euro bill, and we both dived for change. I had nothing but Euro coins, but Roger had a selection of various coins. Rather than be accused of having robbed the poor box again, we handed her a 10-cent coin. She rejected it, pulled Roger’s coin purse toward her and selected the coins she wanted. There were thanks all around and she said “à demain” which means “see you tomorrow!” and we responded in kind. We laughed heartily on several levels as we left the boulangerie – first, that she WANTED the small change, second, that she expects to see us tomorrow, since we have gotten into the habit of dropping into her shop many evenings around 6:00 to see if there is hot bread available, and third that she works to correct our French.