Lost its edge?

These days I keep thinking my blog has lost its edge. Actually, maybe it never had an edge. I hope it at least has had a center.

There's an expression in French that says « les jours se suivent et se ressemblent » — the days keep coming and are all pretty much the same. Isn't that depressing? Well, not necessarily, I guess, if you like the days you are having. And I do like mine.

We can see this grain silo from up in the Touraine vineyards.
It's over on the other side of the Cher River, on the rail line.
That's a château d'eau — a water tower — in the background.

But this year the days seem less interesting to write about. I feel like I am posting the same topics and the same photos over and over again. There's nothing edgy in that.

Maybe edginess is overrated.

Yesterday was showery, with some lightning in the evening.

And then again, what applies to days being the same day after day does not apply to the years we have been living through here in Saint-Aignan. They have all been different.

In 2003 we had just arrived and everything was new and exciting, but more than that, it was the year of the great heat wave, the canicule. The whole country was buzzing with excitement over that.

We felt afterwards that we were lucky to have survived. The previous eight years of living in the cold San Francisco fog had thickened our blood. We had to adapt to radically hotter weather, and without air-conditioning.

Callie caught this bird yesterday and pulled most of its tail
feathers out. I rescued the bird and let it go outside our fence.
It didn't fly away. I think it was a baby merle, a blackbird.

Our 11-year-old dog had survived the move and was beside herself with excitement to be out in the country after all those years in the city. She discovered off-leash freedom, along with deer, rabbits, field mice, and snakes.

And our neighbors had a big Bastille Day party and invited us. It felt almost like the party was being held in our honor. We met a lot of people that day, and had a fantastic time.

We had the house's terrasse (I call it the front deck) tiled so we could enjoy living out there. We had some electrical and plumbing work done to update the place just enough to make it livable.

In 2004, we got it together to "create" a vegetable garden. We bought a rototiller and learned how to use it. We had a bumper crop of tomatoes, beans, eggplants, peppers, and squash. The garden was a success beyond all our expectations. Our neighbors were impressed, as we were.

We also had a lot of company from America in 2004, and that was fun. We made new friends, some of whom we met over the Internet. We enjoyed spending time with old friends. We really started exploring the surrounding countryside.

The Touraine grapes are looking pretty good.
— 07 August 2007 —

In 2005, we decided to do a lot of work in the house, and to do as much of it as possible ourselves. We didn't have a lot of company coming to visit, so the time was right. We scraped, sanded, and painted the walls in four out of the eight rooms in our house. It was hard work, and it took months. But the result was good.

We made our first trips back to the U.S. — me to North Carolina, where I grew up, and Walt to upstate NY, where he grew up, and California.

The summer of 2005 was absolutely perfect. It wasn't too hot, and it wasn't rainy at all. The garden again was amazing. It's too bad, in a way, that we didn't have more American visitors that summer. They would have enjoyed the weather.

Saint-Aignan sunrise
— 08 August 2007 —

We had a new shower installed in our bathroom, greatly increasing our level of what they call confort. Living here felt a lot less like camping. Old friends came to visit and decided to buy a house about 10 miles south of Saint-Aignan. Now we see them a lot more than we had in years, though they still live mostly in California.

Our French neighbors continued to have big summer parties and always invited us. The old dog continued to enjoy her life in the country, but she was showing her age and feeling arthritic. She had a minor stroke that summer, we realized later. She recovered enough to enjoy the nice fall weather.

In 2006, it was cold. We had six inches of snow on the ground for more than a week in February and March. That's unusual here.

We had company all the time. People — old friends from California — started arriving in March. The dog passed away in March, and Walt and I sneaked in a trip to Paris, a week in an apartment in the Marais, between houseguests. A good friend came to stay with us for three months and travel around France some.

Touraine grapes still dripping from last night's rain

— 08 August 2007 —

April, May, June, and July were very busy. We went for short trips to the Dordogne (to see the Sarlat area), Paris (for tennis at Roland Garros), and Normandy (mostly to see the Mont Saint-Michel with our friend, who hadn't been there before). And we saw and re-saw most of the main sights of the Touraine region.

We had a woodstove installed in April. In July the garden was great. An old friend — a Parisian who is old enough to be my father, who lives mainly in the U.S., and who was once my boss — came to stay for two weeks in July, when the weather was nice and hot, and he and I toured all around the Loire region. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about the history of the region as well as some new French words and expressions.

This sign is on a concrete utility pole in our hamlet, which is
called La Renaudière. Le Désert is the name of a settlement
about a mile away, down on the banks of the Cher River.

By August, I was exhausted, and the weather turned rainy. The garden faded early. Walt and I, dogless, were able to go spend five weeks in the U.S., driving from NYC up the Hudson as far as Fort Ticonderoga, and then south to the coast of North Carolina. We drove to Atlanta to see the new aquarium there and to see friends.

We then spent a week in a rented condo on the N.C. coast, enjoying time with my mother, sister, aunt, and cousins. An old friend from Washington DC came a stayed a few days with us. Then we drove to Alabama to see good friends and up to Urbana, Illinois, to see others. We flew back to Paris from Chicago in November.

This year, 2007, our weather has been strange. We had only one week of cold weather, and that was at Christmas. Then it turned mild and stayed that way until April, which was very warm and dry.

May, June, and July were exceptionally chilly and damp. The garden is a big bust this year. We are getting zucchini and it looks like we'll have pumpkins, but the tomatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers don't look so good. In my mind, I've written the garden off this year.

Wavy rooflines are a nice feature of old French houses.

But what a year it has been for fruit -- cherries, plums, apples, and more. In May we got a new dog, a puppy, and she has been taking all of our time (as you know if you've been following the blog).

We haven't had much company. We haven't been out sightseeing and we haven't traveled anywhere.Well, except that short trip to Paris I took in July. We continue to make the house more comfortable, modernizing the wiring and the kitchen.

Roses in a neighbor's yard

So every year has been totally different from the others. While the days all seem the same right now, the idea that 2008 will again be a totally different year is a nice prospect.

The funny thing is that I've had a lot more time to blog in 2007, and I've taken to blogging daily. Maybe that's been a mistake. Now I feel like I have less to say, but more time to say it.