Good to go

The woman at the village hall called this morning to say that she had received both Walt's and my new residency permits in the day's mail. Youpi !, as we say in French. We have another year's lease on la vie en France.

With Nicolas Sarkozy, the presidential candidate who wants to crack down on immigration into France, over in Washington DC schmoozing with GW Bush and Condi Rice, supposedly burnishing his image as a future world leader, who knows what the future will bring. The election in France is scheduled for next spring and Sarkozy is pretty much the leading candidate for now.

As for the weather, it's still hot and now humid here. There are storm clouds gathering, but Walt says the weather sites show the rain showers going east and west of us. We need some rain. We haven't had any in September so far. The ground is very dry and the grass is brown and parched.

In Saint-Aignan, there is a significant road works project going on down by the river in town. The road that runs along the Cher from the bridge to the Grand Hôtel is closed, and traffic is being diverted in several directions. Detours (called déviations in French) are set up all around the town.

I don't know what the road work is all about, but I know that our friends who will be arriving Saturday and staying at the Grand Hôtel will be affected by it. Over the weekend, it will likely be quieter at the hotel than usual because there will be no traffic on the road out front. On Monday and Tuesday, however, there might be the noise of jack-hammers and dump trucks to disturb their calm as the work week starts.

There's nothing to be done about that except to get up and out early to do some touring. I have plans to visit some medieval villages over near Loches that I read about in the Cadogan guide a few days ago.

Hey, it's raining. Good.