Summer evenings

Yesterday we had some friends over for apéritifs. It was a beautiful day and a splendid evening. S. and F. are Dutch and have a house in Saint-Aignan where they spend summers. They both speak English (do all Dutch people speak English?), and S. speaks perfect French as well. Their daughter C., who lives in England, is visiting, and she we here too. The last time we'd seen her was three or four years ago. We know them because of this blog.

The moon over the vines on a recent morning

Walt made little melon balls that he stuck on toothpicks with a little piece of jambon cru (prosciutto), and I made something really exotic: tuna salad. I also made some cornmeal crackers to spread it on. We had all that with some white wine from the Domaine de la Renaudie, which meant we were drinking wine made from the grapes that grow in the vineyard out back.

That same moon

After our friends left, Walt and I sat out on the terrace for another two or three hours, watching the stars come out and the bats swoop around. Actually, I never saw a bat, but Walt swore he saw them. I don't doubt it because we see them often at nightfall in summer. But you have to be quick, and maybe I wasn't...

Tiny pink flowers at the edge of the woods

What I did see, and Walt too, was a very big satellite pass by overhead. It was the international space station, and it was a fast-moving, very bright spot of light — much bigger than an airplane or any star. We saw several airplanes fly over too — you can tell they're airplanes because their light blinks on an off — and we saw at least one other satellite go over. Many stars twinkled.

Seed pods, I guess

In past summers, we've spent numerous evenings on the terrace , but this year we haven't had so much warm weather or so many clear skies. Yesterday afternoon, it was fairly hot out, but late in the afternoon there was a nice breeze. The breeze died down as nightfall approached, but there were no mosquitoes or other insects of any kind to force us to retreat into the house. Maybe the bats were eating them all.