Sage on the garden path

Sage in French is la sauge. This plant grows on the edge of our back-yard path. It was growing there when we came to live in Saint-Aignan more than 20 years ago. I wish it was flowering right now the way it was when I took these photos on a day in May 2005.

It rained all day yesterday. It wasn't a hard rain, but it was steady and lasting. We've had above-average rainfall nearly every month since September 2023, according to the French weather and climate web site I follow to stay aware of such things.

All this reminds me of a summer a dozen or so years ago when it rained constantly. CHM was in Paris. Back then, I would call him a couple of times a week just to chat. (He wasn't yet as deaf as he was to become a few years later.) I'd call him and say: Bonjour Charles-Henry. Est-ce qu'il pleut à Paris ce matin ? Non, he would say. Pas encore !. And we would both laugh comme des enfants.

What ever happened to the drought here in France? Accuweather is forecasting a hot dry summer for 2024 in North America. I wonder if our summer in Western Europe will be like that. I hope not, actually.

Our village (5)

I'm being fairly random this morning. Two shots of our village's "skyline". Three shots of yellow wild flowers, including one with an orange-and-black caterpillar on it. And then a cloudy sky over the green Renaudière vineyard. I took these on a sunny August day in 2008.

The weather woman on Télématin this morning spoke for all of us when she said, as she presented today's forecast: Ça continue, et nous en avons ras le bol. Il pleut, il fait froid, et aujourd'hui on va avoir des orages violents !

Today, by the way, is a big holiday.   It's the French Labor Day and there are supposed to be parades and marches all over the country.  Good luck!

CHM's nieces

Charles-Henry's nieces came back to Saint-Aignan this past Saturday. They stopped by in the evening (in a frog-strangling downpour of rain) so we could look at some photos together. We ran them as a slideshow on my laptop computer and displayed them on our living room television screen. Here they are. Their father was CHM's brother. He passed a way nearly two years ago at age 101. CHM passed away in February at age 99. Thanks to Walt for the photo, taken with his phone.

Our village (4)

Views of the Cher River at Mareuil in the Loir-et-Cher (41) near Saint-Aignan

A plaque in the village center at Mareuil — autumn leaves — a typical house on the banks of the Cher

Our village (3)

    Driving into the village from Saint-Aignan               The town's main square with the church and the town library

A closer view of the church                   The town in autumn.

Le château de Mareuil                  La mairie de Mareuil

Our village (2)

I won't write much on this post because I've written several long comments on my previous two posts. Go have a look. Here are some more photos of our village that I took when we first arrived here 20 years ago. Things haven't changed much, but several new (small) subdivisions have been built all around the village over the years.

Our neighbor the mayor has two years to go on her second six-year term in that position. I wonder whether she will want to continue. She's a year or so older than I am, and her husband is getting close to 80. They have a vacation home on the coast down near Bordeaux, and I know he wants to go live down there. I wonder what changes a new mayor might make in the village.

Our village (1)

These are some photos I took in our village when we first moved here. That was in June 2003. The village has a population of nearly 1,200 people. These days, it's sort of a suburb of Saint-Aignan, in the sense that the only retail store in the village is a bakery. There's also a hair salon. There's a garage that repairs cars and sells used cars. And there's a post office that's open five mornings a week. There's also a lending library. And there are wineries where you can buy boxes or bottles of local wines. Saint-Aignan (pop. 3,000) is less than 5 miles away with many more businesses, including hotels, restaurants, banks, insurance companies, doctor's offices, etc. Blois, a small city, is 25 miles north. Our village has its own mayor, who is one of our neighbors.

According to Wikipédia, the village has a land area of about 12 mi² and it is on the left (south) bank of the Cher River, which is 365 km long (225 miles). The village church is dedicated to saint Martin de Tours.

Those mystery guests

So for a couple of hours yesterday evening we had company. That doesn't happen much any more, since people travel less than they used to — at least the people we know. I wanted to take photos but I didn't. It didn't seem right. So I give you a photo of our living/dining room and empty chairs. The visitors were two of Charles-Henry's nieces. I had never met them before. They made a special trip to come meet us and talk for a while about their uncle, our friend.

We sat around the dining room table for a couple of hours and reminisced. I'm talking about two women who are just four or five years younger than I am. We shared information about CHM's life. We compared notes. We each drank a glass of some of the local bubbly wine. It was nice. I have a feeling we'll see them again. More tomorrow.

L'enterrement et le pot

This is what I wrote about un pot in a comment on yesterday's post. It is a glass of wine or whatever you want to drink, usually in a café. And it's ponounced [poh] with a silent H. On prend un pot avec des amis. By extension, organiser or faire un pot means to invite guests into your home or colleagues at your workplace to have a drink of whatever you are serving. I guess it's a cocktail party in a way. Un pot d'adieu is a going-way party. Yesterday's pot at the neighbors' house across the road was a crowd of maybe 50 people drinking glasses of the local bubbly wine or beer. There were some finger foods. We were lucky with the weather, which turned off mild and sunny, so most of the crowd stayed outdoors. It was fun.

Pot is an interesting word. It can mean a drink. It can mean a party. It can also mean "luck" — j'ai eu du pot ce jour-là. I was lucky that day. Manger à la fortune du pot means to take pot luck when talking about lunch or dinner. Un pot au feu (the T is pronounced) is a boiled beef dinner, and une poule au pot (silent T) is king Henri IV's famous chicken in every pot. And there are many more meanings as well. Le pot d'échappement d'une voiture is the car's muffler. I don't know if this link will work, but if it does you can see how many definitions there are for pot and how many expressions use the word.

I didn't take any pictures yesterday. It didn't seem appropriate, especially at the cemetery, and at the pot I was busy talking to people. I think there were more people at the cemetery than there were at the house afterwards. People told me that the cathedral in Blois was pretty much full for the religious service/funeral earlier in the afternoon. I sort of wish I had gone to Blois for the funeral but we were busy getting the house ready for our mystery guests, who are supposed to arrive at about 6 this evening. We've never met them before. They aren't staying overnight, and we're not cooking a big dinner. Nous allons boire un pot ensemble and get to know each other in person and not just by telephone and e-mail. These guests live in Grenoble and are on their way to Bayeux in Normandy (of tapestry fame) for some kind of family reunion. More tomorrow... maybe with a photo or two.

The village cemetery (2)

These are some of the graves in the village cemetery that have plaques with words on them. Maybe you'll be able to read some of them. By the way, after the funeral in Blois and the burial in our village cemetery late this afternoon, Bernard's widow and children vont faire un pot in their house across the street from us. We're invited. Do you know what a pot is?

Some of the most common family names in this area are Ledys, Barbier, Marteau, Bigot, Denis, etc.