Blog connections

I've been blogging here for about 18 months now, or a little more. I started the blog with an American audience in mind. In fact, the people I thought would read it were my friends and former colleagues in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, plus my family and some friends in the eastern part of the U.S. And those people are often the ones who leave me comments on the blog (you know who you are).

Recently, I've been getting comments and e-mails from local people here in the Loire Valley as well. Just today, Jeff7 left a comment on a topic I did last summer on the place called La Corroirie du Liget — here's a link to the post — which is an old fortified farm complex about 20 miles southwest of Saint-Aignan. In his comment, he says the rooster I photographed for my topic went mad and started attacking visitors, so he is no more. I hope he was turned into a delicous coq au vin, but Jeff7 didn't say.

Callie came to us as a result of a web search too.
The kennel where she was born has a web site.
I think her back legs are growing faster than the front ones.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Olivier regarding this topic about the old Aiguevives abbey (link) located about 10 miles west of Saint-Aignan. He wanted to tell me that the two horses I photographed for that topic are named Kilk Lady and Cochise. Kilk Lady is a Connemara pony, Olivier says, and he also says there is a gîte at Aiguevives and lists a web site. Click on the Union Jack icon to see the English-language version of the site.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from a Dutch woman who says she and her husband have a house in Saint-Aignan where they spend most of their vacations. She invited Walt, Callie, and me to come by for a drink one day soon. We plan to do so.

I also got an e-mail a few months ago from a man in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) who said he spent a nice week at the Château de Villentrois 25 years ago. He found my blog by doing a Google search on that château, which is located about 10 miles east of Saint-Aignan. In April he wrote back to say he and his kids would be coming to spend a few days in Saint-Aignan in July. I told him we should get together while he is here, and we've made that a plan.

A British friend that we met through British friends who live in Saint-Aignan told me she had Googled Saint-Aignan before coming over here from Bristol to spend a week. My blog came up as one of the first search results, she said. "Yours is the blog with the black background, right?" she asked me. Yep, that's the one.

Callie in the vegetable garden —
she's probably deciding where she'll dig her next hole.

An old friend that I had lost touch with, a guy I knew in Paris back in 1975-82, found my blog too and sent me an e-mail to say he was glad to see I was enjoying life in the French countryside. I hadn't heard from Philippe in almost 25 years. He now lives near Fontainebleau, outside Paris.

For me, one of the most amazing blog finds ever, however, was Claude's. Claude is a Parisienne who writes two blogs, in fact: Blogging in Paris in English, and Vieux, c'est mieux in French. It was my friend Chris (she comments as Chrissoup) in California who first sent me a link to Claude's blogs, telling me that this woman in Paris was posting gorgeous photos. That was more than a year ago.

Fantastic ham, mushroom, and cheese pizza that Walt made yesterday

I looked at Claude's blogs in January 2006 and agreed with Chris that the photos were fantastic and the blogs were interesting. I bookmarked Claude's blogs. A few weeks later, I looked at them again and suddenly Claude's name came into focus. "Well I know her," I said to myself, "or at least I know her by reputation. She is a dear friend of friends of mine back in Urbana, Illinois."

I sent a link to Claude's blog to a friend in Urbana and asked her if this was indeed the same Claude. It was. Claude was a name I had been hearing and a person I had known about since the mid-1970s but had never actually met.

The rains of recent days, continuing today,
have turned everything nice and green.

In late March 2006 Walt and I went to Paris to spend a week walking the streets of the city. I called Claude and we got together one afternoon in a café in the Marais. Now Claude is planning to come spend a few days in Saint-Aignan next week.

When I told my friend Marie from Normandie (she comments on my blog too) about Claude, she was surprised. "You know Claude Covo too?" she said. Marie knows her because of Claude's work as an English teacher and webmaster. Le monde est petit, n'est-ce pas ?