Labor and weather uncooperative

Our friends C & J from California made it to Italy from Paris last week, despite the Air France pilots' strike. Their flight out of Roissy-CDG had an Air France flight number, but it was operated by CityJet, which is evidently a British company. When I talked to them on Sunday, they said it was 70ºF in Florence.

Walking Callie in the vineyard on a rainy November afternoon

It was more like 50ºF here in Saint-Aignan. It's been like that all week, with low gray clouds every day but one. We did have a sunny day on Wednesday, thank goodness. But yesterday it was dreary again and when I went out with Callie for our afternoon walk, it was raining again. I think it is raining lightly as I type this and it's supposed to rain pretty much all day. November, eh?

A November vineyard scene

C & J are arriving from Florence on Sunday and coming straight to Saint-Aignan. This time, there is no airline pilots' strike. That's the good news. There's plenty of bad news to mitigate that.

First, there is talk of a train strike. It was supposed to start today, but according to a report I read on the online Le Figaro newspaper site, the labor action has been delayed, or postponed. Now the strike is scheduled to start on Sunday. What time of day is not yet clear.

Somebody has been cutting and stacking wood out in the vineyard

C & J are scheduled to arrive at Roissy-CDG from Florence at 3:00 p.m. and have been planning to take the first train they can get from Roissy to the Tours TGV station at St-Pierre-des-Corps. The TGV is the high-speed train and you can take it from CDG airport without having to go through the middle of Paris or otherwise change trains before you get to Tours.

Here's how I see our house in Saint-Aignan these days:
in monochrome.

That's when it's running, of course. We are hoping C & J will get a train on Sunday afternoon, but they have reserved a rental car just in case. If they get the train, we will go pick them up at St-Pierre-des-Corps, which is about an hour's drive from Saint-Aignan.

So if the TGV is not running they will rent a car. And guess what the weather forecast is... Snow. There's a decent chance that it will be windy and snowing in Paris by Sunday afternoon. It could even snow a little bit here in Saint-Aignan — we are 150 mi./250 km south and a little west of Paris.

But here's how the camera sees it: in living color.

We will be watching the news and weather reports carefully all weekend, hoping the worst doesn't come to pass. I'm optimistic that the TGV trains will be running Sunday afternoon and that we will be able to drive over to Tours in the evening to meet C & J at the station there.