Putting it all back together

We've now spent some time cleaning up after our big painting project and getting some furniture and rugs put back into place. There's still touch-up work to do, and doors to paint, but we can take our time with those.

Yesterday we had Jean and Nick of A Very Grand Pressigny over for lunch. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. Before lunch, we took a drive over to the Domaine du Chapitre winery in Saint-Romain-sur-Cher, where I bought some rosé in a bag-in-box and J & N bought a couple of dozen bottles of various red and white wines. Then we came back to the house and had our lunch out on the terrace.

Moving things back in, and getting ready to hang pictures

It lasted several hours, with lots of conversation. We started the meal with some duck breast prosciutto on bread, and then we had zucchini balls with a curry sauce that Walt made. The main course was rabbit braised in a white wine sauce with lardons, onions, and prunes. There were cheeses after that: Valençay, Neufchâtel, Tomme Blanche, and Saint-Nectaire. Dessert was a crumble tart that Walt made after harvesting some rhubarb from our patch out back. We had coffee to counteract the effects of the wine that accompanied all that food before J & N drove back down to Le Grand-Pressigny.

One thing we have put back up is this batik
we've had for 10 or 15 years.

The weather remains dry and warm, but with more clouds than we've been having recently. We might get a few more showers. Even so, April will finish very dry. The weather forecasters are comparing 2011 to the very hot and dry year that was 1976.

A reminder of the nice wallpaper we started with

That year, starting in April, there was a serious drought all across France, and especially in the north. Farmers in Normandy had to have hay trucked in from other regions to feed their cattle, because the pastures in that normally damp, cool, and green region were totally parched by the hot sun. The rains finally came back in September 1976.