Roman mosaics at Villa Loupian

Thursday November 25, 2010 Day 148

Happy Thanksgiving Day! Roger and I, along with four ladies, celebrated by going on an AWG cultural outing. Today’s was to Bouzigues for lunch of oysters, mussels and other seafood, which were delicious. The restaurant was right on the Etang de Thau - a saltwater pond which would probably be called a bayou in Louisiana - and the seafood was very fresh - the owners of the restaurant own oyster beds and apparently fishing boats as well.

Afterward, outside the restaurant, we watched workers preparing some nursery-sized oysters for placing in oyster beds. Here, they cement the immature oysters to strands of rope on a frame. The frames are then lowered into the water and the oysters are left to mature. This method is different from that used in south Louisiana, where the immature oysters are placed in bags which are attached to frames. The frames are floated in the water, bag-side down, for maturation.

After lunch, we moved on to the village of Loupian to view the remains of a Roman farm villa built in the 1st century CE. In the 2nd century it was converted to a hunting lodge, and an extensive array of Gallo-Roman mosaics were inlaid into the floor. Over the years the lodge was dismantled/destroyed and the mosaics were forgotten and covered with soil. In the 1930s, the area was being farmed and farmers turning the soil discovered the mosaics Unfortunately the discovery was made because the mosaics were being plowed up and therefore destroyed before anyone realized what was beneath the soil, but some of the rooms were almost complete, or had been completely restored. Others were all or mostly lost. The faded area in the pictures shows the restoration, the darker tiles are the original pattern. The empty gray space indicates areas where archeologists are not able to determine the pattern.

There is one mosaic in particular, seen above, which consists of a flat “painting” of ten small cubes. As we moved along the floor and around the corner, the shape of the cubes appeared to change continually. My description does not do justice to the effect - it was an optical illusion almost two thousand years old! I was reminded somewhat of those portraits in which the eyes of the subject seem to move as the viewer moves. Unfortunately the photo does not capture the effect either, but this particular mosaic was truly fascinating.

Haircut

Wednesday November 24, 2010 Day 147

We took the blue tram out to the end this morning for a trip to Ikea and Casino Géant. It was cold this morning, so I wore my winter coat for the first time. We were shopping for a mattress pad for our bed and some buttermilk (babeurre) for the pecan pie. We had no luck with the latter. I may have to try a buttermilk substitute, or use a different recipe. We already looked at the Monoprix and the Carrefour grocery stores where we usually shop, without success. We checked Ikea first for the mattress pad and found one for 18 Euros but didn’t buy - we first wanted to check out the Casino Géant - the Wal-mart of Montpellier. We were actually looking for a couple of other items as well, and hit a home run with them. We needed some drain cleaner as our tub is slow to drain; not stopped up, just slow. We also wanted some adhesive hooks on which to hang our hats, coats and scarves, as this apartment has no coat closet. It has a lovely hall which leads to the kitchen, and there is a wall in the hall that is just begging to be put to use hanging coats, since I cannot paint it. We managed to find a package of 3 hooks for 4.50 Euros, which is rather high, but we bought a couple of packs anyway. We also found a mattress pad for only 13 Euros. We picked up a pie crust from the dairy case and a couple of miscellaneous items then headed back home.

While Roger was at chess, I went out adventuring. First I took a sample of my butternut squash soup to Judi at the English Corner shop. I asked her where she gets her hair cut, and she suggested a place where her husband, Chuck, gets his cut. She herself gets hers cut in St. Jean de Vedas, a suburb of Montpellier where she lives. She was headed out, so I didn’t stay to chat. Instead I went to a shop we passed this morning on our way to the tram and bought some black gloves, as the cold is coming and I think I will not be sorry. I also picked up some leg warmers, as I tend to get cool in the evenings sitting around our apartment. I dropped into another Two Euro store - a different one from the one we usually stop at - and I found a whole package of 12 adhesive hooks for two euros. I bought them, even though we had already bought six this morning. I also found a couple of small measuring cups. We only have one in the apartment and it is a huge 1-litre cup with no markings for amounts under 100 cl. These are a half-litre and a quarter-litre cups, and they should be great for my cooking.

Then I went for my haircut. I dropped into the recommended shop and there was only one technician, apparently the owner of the shop. Her name is Josiane. She was talking to a woman who had a dye job in her hair, but she agreed to start cutting my hair if she could interrupt at some point to rinse the dye out. We talked in a mixture of English and French, mostly the former, and she carried on a conversation in French with the other woman. It turns out that the other woman teaches English in Lunel, a town on the way to Nimes. The haircut went well - I indicated I wanted it fairly short on top because it is too heavy, and she took off a bit more than I had hoped, but it’s not too bad. In fact, it should hold me until we get to Dallas in January, where I plan to get a cut and perm. On the walls of the salon were four or five large paintings and several smaller ones. Before I left, I had been invited to a Vernissage, which translates literally as a varnishing, but I think it is the opening of an art exhibit where hors d’oeuvres and probably wine are served. In the shop she had an assortment of earrings for sale, and as I looked at them, I realized they were made of paper - strips of paper rolled up, forming a sort of barrel. They were only five Euros for a pair, so I bought one, thinking that since I have a paper hat, I should have a pair of paper earrings to go with it.

I came home and started some rice soup using the rice trio we bought at Arles yesterday. I got it all the way down to the finish when I realized we had not bought eggs today. The recipe called for four, and we had only two. So I separated the soup into halves, put one in the refrigerator and used the two eggs to finish half the soup. I got it much too salty, but other than that, it was pretty good; not great, but pretty good. We ate it with a fresh grain baguette from the bakery. Yum!

Arles and Van Gogh

Tuesday November 23, 2010 Day 146

This morning we caught a train to Arles with a goal of seeing old Roman ruins and visiting the Museum of Ancient Arles. The museum has a temporary exhibit which is the culmination of twenty years of excavations in the Arles River, including almost 700 pieces illustrating the variety of products that were used in the city, including scales, amphorae, statuary and architectural fragments. The exhibit was set to close in August, but has been held over until January 2 of next year.

We arrived at Arles and set out on a walk along the river toward the museum. When we arrived, we discovered that, unfortunately, it is closed on Tuesday! We could have picked any day, and wouldn’t you know, we picked the one day of the week it is closed! Sigh. That means, if we want to see the temporary exhibit, we will have to get back here before the end of the year.

Fortunately for us, Arles offers plenty to see even without the museum. There were Roman ruins right outside the museum, part of the Roman circus. We walked from there to the Office of Tourism and picked up a city map, then set off for the city center. It was lunch time by the time we arrived in the city center, so we had a lunch of soup, salad, chicken breast strips on skewers and potatoes. It was quite cool, so we enjoyed tea with our lunch. Then we walked up to the Roman arena and the theatre. On our way up to the monuments, we passed an open courtyard where four or five kittens frolicked. We paused and I got my kitten fix - one of the kittens came directly up to me and hopped upon a wall, allowing me to pick her up and pet her for a bit.

When we left the kittens, we went to the theatre. It was built in the time of Augustus and had seating for 8,000 on 33 tiers. In the middle ages, residents of the town mined it for the stone used to build it, and erected a town wall. It has been majorly restored and is used today for concerts and shows. On the grounds lies a fragment “cemetery” containing row upon row of recovered stone from the original theatre, some of them quite large, others much smaller. Many of the pieces have intricate carvings on them. Roger speculates that this is some archeologist’s dream - to reconstruct the theatre using these pieces.

 From here we went to the Arena, a two-tiered Roman amphitheatre which dates to the first century BCE. It seated over 20,000 spectators and was built to provide entertainment in the form of chariot races and bloody hand-to-hand battles. Today, it draws large crowds for a sport only slightly less brutal – bullfighting – as well as plays and concerts in summer. It has an oval arena and 60 arcades on two levels. Like the theatre, it was mined for its stone after the fall of the Roman empire, when it was transformed into a fortress with four towers and more than 200 houses were built inside it - becoming a real town on its own. In the nineteenth century, all the tenants were evicted and the arena was restored for bullfights.

 A view of the city and the Rhone river from the tower:

From the Arena we made our way back to the city center. On our way down, we passed a woman who was exiting from an apartment with her dog. We smiled and went on our way, headed to the Roman thermal baths. We followed some signs but were unable to locate exactly where the baths stood. At one point, Roger headed off one direction and I another. As I walked along, who should come around the corner but the woman and her dog. I asked her where the baths were and she kindly paused and pointed along the river a bit further than we were looking. I think our problem lay in the fact that from that point, there was no road access and we had to walk along the riverbank to get to them. The signs are for those in vehicles and thus we were misled into thinking they were slightly elsewhere. The baths were interesting - much of the outer façade remains although the inner portions are greatly destroyed.

From the baths, we returned to the city center, taking refuge from the cold in a Moroccan gift shop for a while. We were too tight to let go of any of our money there, especially since Roger has hinted that we may go to Morocco some time before we leave France. We did admire some of the tin cats outside his doorway.

The city is located in the Camargue region, known for its brightly-patterned fabrics distinctive to the region. Many of the shops were full of these fabrics, both for sale as lengths of cloth and made into various items.

They also seem to celebrate cidadas, a selection of which were for sale in several shops.

 We didn’t buy any fabric, but we did buy some interesting rice. One bag is strictly red rice, another is a mélange of three rices - brown, red and black. I have no idea how I am going to use them, but I am intrigued. We stumbled onto a Russian exhibit while crossing one of the main squares of Arles. There were glass cases of matryoshka, or nesting dolls, a whole case of Russian St. Nicholas, several mannikins wearing native Russian costumes and a display of painted eggs and black boxes. The exhibit was in a large building which was formerly St. Anne’s church. We came upon the exhibit late in the day, while we were killing time before going to the train station. The church was heated and it was a great place to warm up as we enjoyed the exhibits. There was even a video of some cartoons, but they were all in Russian. Since we could not understand the dialogue, it was hard to follow, but we sat and watched for a bit, grateful for an opportunity to rest in the warmth after our long cool day.

Van Gogh spent almost a year in the latter part of his life in this city, and it was in Arles that he hit his stride as an impressionist painter. As a result the shadow of Van Gogh is everywhere in the city. We happened by one shop where we could see a shopping bag covered with a Van Gogh print hanging just inside the door. It may have been Arles, A View from the Wheat Fields, or Harvest in Provence. Actually, it could have been any one of several but it was splendid - a canvas of golden yellow. Although we passed up the shop initially, we returned there hoping to buy the bag to carry our rice in. No luck - she wasn’t selling it, only using it for display. We ended up buying a postcard, a Van Gogh picture cube and a print of a lovely Van Gogh painting of a peach tree. He painted numerous pictures of the blooming fruit trees shortly after his arrival in Arles. During the spring, he learned of the death of his friend and mentor, Anton Mauve, who had urged Van Gogh to use color freely. Van Gogh dedicated this painting to his friend. I think it is a beautiful painting, one which is seldom seen among his more popular paintings.

Van Gogh said in a letter in 1883, "And my aim in my life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life, I hope to pass away, looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, 'Oh, the pictures I might have made!'" Isn’t that a beautiful epitaph!

For a delightful retrospective, check out the youtube Starry Night video with music by Don McLean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM It is not new - I first saw this several years ago but I still enjoy it and I hope you do too.

A sad day in history

Monday November 22, 2010 Day 145

Yahoo reminded us to ask ourselves where we were 47 years ago today. I was in my fifth grade classroom. It was on a Friday, and my fellow classmates and I were standing around during a break between lessons when an announcement came over the loud speaker that the President had been shot in Dallas. A short time later, another announcement was made, this one that the President was dead. We were informed that we would have early dismissal and that the buses would be along shortly to pick up those of us who rode buses. I think we were out of school for the entire following week. We were already scheduled to be out Wednesday through Friday for Thanksgiving, and with the state funeral on Monday, school officials probably didn’t see any point in bringing us back just for Tuesday. We watched a lot of the proceedings on television. Such a sad and sobering time for our nation.

We walked the Peyrou, again in our stepped-up mode, then went to the grocery store to begin our holiday food shopping. It is not easy to find certain items in the stores here, so I made plans and a grocery list for several recipes, although I only need to cook one or two. We will celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday with the AWG at the Domaine de Fondespierre, the same place where we had such a pleasant walk Thursday. On our way to the grocery store, we found the Comédie crowded with a more than a hundred little booths. Several people have told me that Montpellier has a wonderful Christmas market, and these are evidently in preparation for same.

This afternoon after Roger left for chess, I went out looking for fifteen thousand steps, and I got lucky. I went to the English Corner Shop to visit Judi and Chuck, but this is Monday and they are only open Tuesday through Saturday. I went to different grocery store from the one we visited this morning, looking for buttermilk and cranberries or cranberry sauce - found the latter. Then I walked along the edge of the historic center where we live, enjoying the Christmas decorations. When I discovered I only needed about fifteen hundred steps to meet my goal, I set out for the Euro store to buy some supplies. When I got home, I had more than met my goal. I have told myself that I will reward myself with Speculoos when I have walked at least fifteen thousand steps the previous day. If I don’t meet my goal, I can’t have any the next morning for breakfast (or any other time). Since our AWG walk on Thursday, I have barely gotten seven thousand steps a day, so this was a victory. It should make that Speculoos taste REALLY sweet!

Here’s a shout-out to Keith Eckstein, yet another follower. Thanks for taking an interest, and welcome aboard. I’m honored. My blog may be a bit more pedestrian than what you hope for, but I do some pretty fine cooking. You are certainly a busy blogger yourself!

Lazy days redux

Sunday November 21, 2010 Day 144
After a couple of lazy days, we did the Peyrou this morning, in our stepped-up mode. Exhausting, but it feels good later. I am discovering more and more how out-of-shape I am. When I get back to the States and get settled into a house, I want to find a gym and a personal trainer.

Other than that, we spent yet another pretty lazy day. It is Sunday, so there is no chess. Elisabeth is surprised that Roger would spend so much of his time playing chess with so much to do and see in and around the area. But I don’t think we can be out and about adventuring every day - we have to have our daily lives as well as our adventures. In fact, we have discovered that we generally need at least one day to recover from an adventure before we hit the next one! I do have to admit that we have really dragged these last three days, but the weather has not allowed us to get out much. It is easy to blame it on the weather - if I put that into the active voice instead of the passive, I would have to say that we allow the vagaries of the weather to keep us indoors. I guess that puts the blame where it belongs.

Saturday November 20, 2010 Day 143
The market today was large, crowded, cool and threatening rain. Indeed, we arrived back at the apartment afterward just in time, as the rain came only a few moments later. The thing I like about the markets is that I never know what is going to be there, and the anticipation of discovery is always present. We were not disappointed - we saw something we had never seen before: cabbage roses. I have read about cabbage roses but have never seen any. But the instant we saw them, Roger and I immediately knew what they were!

There were three kittens for sale (or maybe just to give away - we didn’t check) in a box in the middle of the sidewalk. Oh, for a kitten fix! But I didn’t ask - I was afraid he would insist that I take one. Or all three! There were falafel, and Roger bought a paper of ten. Delicious! There was a vendor there whom we had never seen before. He was selling plain white dishes, of all sorts and shapes, much like those used in many restaurants. The prices seemed to be reasonable, but we are not in the market for much of anything except for a teapot. We bought salmon, turnips, carrots, onions, two Christmas cacti, and pecans (Roger wants pecan pie for Thanksgiving).

After lunch I spent some time preparing my blog for my father to read. He is not internet savvy, so I decided to print it out for him. He also has macular degeneration and has difficulty reading small print. So my mission was to print it out and send it to him. As I started working on it, I realized that the costs might be rather high in doing it from here - I have to pay ten cents per page for printing, and it costs almost a dollar to send an envelope with about five sheets or less of paper. Because I blow the font up to 20-point type, my blog for him presently consists of well over 200 pages. At that rate, the cost would be well over $60, and that is just through the end of October. My sister Jane came to my rescue and agreed to print the blog out for me, so I spent almost an hour this morning setting it up to send to her. She said she got a couple of reams of paper for just the tax, and a couple more for a dollar plus the tax, so she is in good shape for paper. The real expense will lie in the printer cartridge.

Roger declared that it was too wet and cold to check out the chess area today, so we spent the afternoon being lazy indoors.

Life above the 40th parallel

Friday November 19, 2010 Day 142
Today was apartment-cleaning day, and other than that, we spent the day indoors, trying to recover from yesterday’s walk. It rained today and was rather cool, so we were not in any mood to walk the Peyrou. It seems we spent the entire time on our computers.

Roger went to chess but came home early. He said he got too cool with only the light jacket he wore. As the days progress into late fall, he may have to wear his new black jacket.

The days are getting cooler here. I have never lived this far north and it surprises me how low in the sky the sun is, even at midday. The sun sets earlier every day. In fact, it hides behind the building across from us about 3:00 or so, although actual sunset is around 5:00 now. It is hard to believe that it will be setting at 4:30 by Christmas. Of course, sunrise is creeping later as well - pushing past 8:00 already. I have spent all my adult life living below the 30th parallel, so this is something that takes some getting used to. Fortunately, it won’t be too long before things will begin to turn around. I will look forward to those times!

Check out this jowlly dog we encountered! He must be pretty old, as he moved rather slowly and with a bit of a limp. His owner had to hold him up so I could get a good photo.
 

Le Domaine de Fondespierre

Thursday November 18, 2010 Day 141

The AWG has a “walk” scheduled every month. There are many marked walking paths around the Montpellier area, and the club has several faithful participants for each walk. This time we went to the Domaine de Fondespierre, which offers a number of walking paths. Mariannick led and set a nice pace. There were eight of us, including Roger, myself, Mariannick, Katharine, Julie, Susan, Maggie, her daughter Laura. Not long into the walk we paused to take in the sight of the Castle Castries and the village of Castries in the distance, with its church spire sharing the skyline with the castle.

On the grounds of the Domaine lies an aqueduct built to supply the Castle Castries several hundred years ago. We turned to walk along the stone water channel for the aqueduct, topped with stones. We walked along the stones, or alternatively on the path beside them. Some 100 meters along, we came to at side waterway. After some discussion, we decided must be a trough for watering animals. It was only 5-6 meters long, located a few meters away from the main aqueduct channel. We resumed our walk along the channel, then veered away from it after another 100 meters or so. The day was lovely - mostly sun with some clouds, and a temperature of about 15 degrees. When our path led us among trees, we were almost cold, but in the sunshine we shed our jackets and soaked in the warmth.

We crossed a road and a few meters later came upon an arch - the remains of a Roman bridge - spanning a brook. There were stepping stones constructed across the brook, so we paused here for a photo op. The fields were full of late wildflowers of which I have no experience, but they were lovely. Just before lunch we came across an entire section of heather. Shortly after noon we selected a sunny spot to eat our well-deserved picnic lunches, varying from chicken to a tuna salad with cheese and tomatoes to meat-filled pastry to sandwiches, accompanied by yogurt, potato chips, pickles, fruit, and avocado. Several of the walkers shared tea. Such healthy choices!

On the trail again after lunch, we soon came to a chaplet standing alone alongside the path, which we explored briefly.

We continued our walk and discovered the aqueduct in the distance, beautiful against the oranges and yellows of the autumn vineyards. 

Our path took us along the vineyards and under the aqueduct, standing tall and resplendent in the November sky.

As we walked along a road, we were greeted by lovely white horses eager for whatever we would feed them. Unfortunately for them, a sign asked us not to feed the horses, so we restrained ourselves - not difficult since we had just finished lunch and most of us ate everything we brought! Maggie speculated that the horses might be Garrigue horses because of their color.



Then there was the area from which Mariannick said an attempt had been made to quarry stone, but it was found that the stone was unsatisfactory so the beginnings of the quarry were abandoned.

As we walked along, Mariannick pointed out an area where stone was once quarried, but it was on private property and we were unable to access it. A short distance along, we crossed a field, walked along a road and came to the entrance of a large quarry which was the source of a lot of the stone for Montpellier buildings. It appears that it has now been abandoned, but inside it was incredible. There were several acres of area where stone had obviously been removed, and the spaces are now filling up with water and soil and trees - truly wonderful! We noticed small rings and markers in several of the walls and someone in the group realized that this area is used for rappelling, possibly a training ground for emergency crew training.

 Note the tree below and check the next photo to observe how its root travels down the rock in search of water and nutrients.

Here we paused to consult Mariannick's map before exiting the quarry and heading back to the cars.

We trekked back through the field and returned to the road, past the horses and on toward the end of our journey. A woman on the road was working with one of the horses and Maggie paused and asked about them. She was told that they are a cross between Spanish and Garrigue horses. 

Finally, our journey was almost over.

As we approached the road, however, we noticed to our right another old quarry, this one much smaller and considerably more overgrown than the one we saw previously.

Then we were back to our cars and changing our shoes. What a wonderful walk! As I checked my pedometer, I found that it read almost exactly 20,000 steps. Great job, ladies (and Roger)!

Tomato soup - a little bit of heaven in a bowl!

Wednesday November 17, 2010 Day 140
It was quite cool this morning, so we didn’t make the Peyrou. We went to the grocery store in the late morning for supplies. I allowed myself to buy some Speculoos spread after a month hiatus. I am going to have to eat this sparingly, as it has 89 calories in 15 grams (about a tablespoon, I think). I was pigging out on it in September and October, hence the need to chart that food and count those calories. Sigh.

Roger left for chess around 2:00, and I left to go to the Peyrou, where I picked up the pace from our usual activity there. I completed three rounds in 30 minutes, the same amount of time it usually takes us to do two and a half rounds. I guess we have been sandbagging! Afterward I continued my quest for 20,000 steps. I didn’t find them all, but did find more than I found yesterday. I’m still looking!

I blanched a couple of pounds of tomatoes for tomato soup this morning. When I got home from my walk, I chopped them and proceeded to make some tomato soup. It turned out really, really well, particularly for the calorie count, which is about 100 per bowl. Fair warning: I am probably going to be discussing the calorie count of lots of foods as I struggle with my diet. Unfortunately the butternut squash soup we had yesterday had more like 300 calories per bowl. Ouch!

There is a shop around the corner from us called The English Corner Shop. They have lots of foods from both Great Britain and the United States. In fact, shoppers are invited to order their favorite foods and the shop will see about importing them for us. They have just started a website as well, and one of my recipes made the Recipe of the Month. I submitted my tomato soup recipe and took some down to the owners of the shop, so that recipe will probably be next time’s Recipe of the Month. It was REALLY good! Check out my barbeque sauce recipe which is the first Recipe of the Month for the brand-new website.

http://englishcornershop.fr/Site/Recipe_of_the_Month.html

The other day while walking to the market, we noticed an interesting display in the window of an optical shop. I thought this was a clever use of dryer ventilation duct!

Ivy? or ivy-leaf geranium?

Tuesday November 16, 2010 Day 139

Peyrou this morning, plus some exercises in the apartment. Then we went to the Arceaux market for a number of items. Before we left for Italy, I found a recipe for Butternut Apple Harvest Soup, one for tomato soup, and one for potato leek soup. Using the recipes, I made an extensive list of items to purchase, including squash, a Granny Smith apple, potatoes, onions, leeks, nutmeg and a few other things. On our way back we stopped at the bakery and got a whole grain baguette.

When Roger left for chess, I started making the butternut squash soup. The recipe suggested that the prep time should be about 30 minutes, but I have food processor or other chopper, so I had to peel and hand-chop all the veggies, including half a butternut squash, a potato, four carrots, two leeks, an onion and an apple. This task alone took me more than half an hour, and with the rest of the preparation it took an hour to make the soup. While the soup simmered, I read. When it was through, I left to walk for about 30 minutes, looking for 20,000 steps. I didn’t find them, but I got close - I ended the day with almost 18,000 steps. The soup was EXCELLENT - a full-bodied soup with a wonderful golden color and a delightful texture. I will definitely make this again, using the other half of the squash.

When we moved into this apartment, there was a plant on the front balcony (such as it is) which I identified as an ivy. It looked pretty sick - no one had been watering it and it was on the verge of literally drying up and blowing away. I watered it the first day and moved it from the front to the back of the apartment so that it is now outside our bedroom window. I didn’t think a plant which looked that shabby deserved front room treatment. I saw to watering it and caring for it and it came back to life. Indeed, it has been looking quite healthy. The other day I noticed that it had three small pink buds on it, and they have since opened. I showed Roger, and remarked that I didn’t know ivy bloomed! I did some research which indicates that mature, woody ivy will bear both flowers and berries, but this is definitely not mature growth. After pondering it for a couple of days, we have decided that it is not an ivy but an ivy-leaf geranium. This makes much more sense, although I can’t say that the flowers look particularly geranium-like. I think they are only three bloom of what should be a full geranium flower head. They are pretty nevertheless.

Gaining weight - sigh!

Monday November 15, 2010 Day 138

It was cold today and neither of us felt like pushing the other to go to the Peyrou. We got up late, then did some exercises in the apartment to assuage our guilt about not getting out. This afternoon while Roger played chess, I went shopping and walking. I went to rue Gambetta to get another teapot since we broke ours right before we left. I went to the same store at which I bought that now-broken teapot, and they had none. Sigh. I think they have reduced their regular inventory in order to make room for Christmas stuff. I did get a couple of wash cloths for Roger, as we are reduced to one at the apartment, the other one having disappeared when we did laundry before we left for Italy. I also bought a nifty little bread basket. It folds flat and has ties at the corner to create a box.

As I passed one of the local craft shops, I saw an interesting plant hanger on the wall by the shop.

Part of my goal in being out was to get in some steps, so I walked a while, planning supper in my mind and scoping out shops. Neither of us was interested in cooking tonight, as we are still trying to recover from our trip, so I decided on a rotissarie chicken which I picked up in the street. I went to an organic food shop and bought some whole wheat pasta, despite the fact that I’m pasta-ed out from Italy, and I bought some rather dubious beans from a greengrocer. I got home and started snapping the beans and awaiting Roger’s call, but he must have called just before I got home, as he got in ten minutes after I did. He said a young man showed up today at chess and stomped on everyone else! Roger did beat him one game but the young man is quite a strong player.

I have decided that I am going to have to start charting my food again. I don’t know if I have gained any weight lately, but I feel heavier. We don’t have a scale, so I can’t monitor my wieght in that manner. My clothes don’t feel any snugger, but I just feel heavier overall. Italy was hard on me, with pasta almost every meal and, of course, cannoli and other Italian goodies to snack on, not to mention our Patrick cookies. Sigh. I am thwarted in my food charting in that the journal I usually use doesn’t work properly in this MS Works spreadsheet that I am limited to on my new computer. Sigh. I have an MS Office, but it is in LaPlace, locked in a storage unit. I have determined that I will borrow Roger’s laptop a couple of times a day and enter my eats and exercise. This won’t take too long and I am sure I can usually catch the computer idle occasionally. I also need to exercise more, so one of my goals is 20,000 steps a day. But today I only got about 13,000. I’m going to have to pick it up!