17 January 2013

Winter days

It's very cold here this morning. The temperature is –4ºC (25ºF) according to our outdoor thermometer, and it's only 11.5ºC (53ºF) in the house. (We don't keep the heat on overnight — the first thing I did this morning, before I made coffee, was go downstairs and turn it on.)

The pictures in this post show winter in San Francisco, not in Saint-Aignan.

Walt saw this photo on my computer screen and said that he liked it better
than a similar one that I posted yesterday. So here it is.

The weather widget on my computer desktop reports –9ºC (16ºF !). That weather service has found an extremely cold spot in Saint-Aignan for its thermometer. The TV weather report that's on right now says the temperature in Touraine this morning is –4º.

Crisp, clear winter air made it possible to take this shot from far away.

I'm spending a good portion of the days right now working with my Google Nexus 7 tablet computer, trying to figure out how it works and what it can do. I figured out how to get accented characters like é and à and û on the on-screen keyboard yesterday. I've downloaded some free "apps" for file management, etc., from the Google store.

San Francisco isn't all skyscrapers. This shows the Mission District and the Bay Bridge.

And cooking: yesterday for we had boudin noir (AKA blood sausage, black pudding) and boudin blanc (white sausage, white pudding) that we got from the traveling butcher. Both were very good. I made some sautéed potatoes called pommes de terre sautées à cru to go with them and then we had a big salad of escarole lettuce (scarole) and cooked (red) beets (bettarave, beetroot).

Walt did some "winter cleaning"
(can't really call it spring cleaning)
in the kitchen a couple of days ago.
He's perched up there like some kind
of  mountain goat. He said the wall
over the sink needed to be washed.


As always, you can click on the pictures here to see them at a larger size.

10 comments:


  1. -2C in Jarnac this morning. I still refuse to wear socks, but may have to, if it gets any colder.

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  2. Tell Walt the wall above my sink could use a clean as well!!

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  3. Your pics bring back memories for me of the summer of 79 Ken.

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  4. Colder there than here!

    Bravo for the super cleaning, Walt :)

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  5. Are the vineyard workers out there working in the cold today?

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  6. 77 F in LA today! Thank God as we couldn't take the 50's temps any longer.
    Ken, are you going to get games from your tablet? You should check the demo for "chicktionary" and of course "bejewel" is amazing too.

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  7. There is no way I could even think of sleeping in a house without heat during the night.

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  8. Dean, yes, the crew was out there. Walt saw them in the morning, and I ran into them on the afternoon walk with the dog.

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  9. Thanks for another great photo of your kitchen. You asked awhile ago if your kitchen had been painted when I was there. Yes, you had just finished the project when I visited in 2008. Cheryl was there and it was also the night of the tremendous storm.

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  10. BettyAnn, I accidentally put my answer to your comment on my Jan. 18 post.

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