25 January 2021

Spring and summer, 2006: frantic!

You'll have to forgive me for confusing two of the Dordogne châteaux. It's a wonder I have any clear memories at all of that first half of 2006. In early March, we had friends here from California. We were busy, out sightseeing, driving all around, going out for meals. The day our friends (Chris and Tony) left, our dog Collette had a severe stroke. She was completely paralyzed on one side and could only walk in circles. She died about 36 hours later.


By the way, I'm decorating this post with some more photos that I took in the Dordogne in 2006. The day after the dog died, other California friends, Susan and Ray arrived to spend a week with us. We were again very busy, running here and driving there, sightseeing, and eating in restaurants. It was good for us, because if we'd been alone we would have had time to realize how empty and lonely the house felt without poor Collette, who had lived with us for nearly 14 years.


When Susan and Ray left, we decided it was time to get away from the house and Saint-Aignan for a spell. We rented that apartment in Paris that I've blogged about recently and we spent a week walking the streets of the city. It was therapeutic. At the end of that week, our friend Sue was arriving in Paris and planned to come spend three months with us. We met her at the airport and we three took the train back to Saint-Aignan.


Not long after that, we had more visitors from the U.S. It was Evelyn and Lewis, and two friends of ours from Normandy, Marie and Florence, also came to visit. They all stayed in a chambre d'hôtes just down the road, and all of us again were busy driving all over the countryside, eating in restaurants, seeing châteaux and churches. Right after they left, Sue, Walt and I went to the Dordogne for 5 days.


It would continue that way into May. Friends John and Candy from California, as well as one of our closest friends, Sue's cousin Cheryl, came to stay for a week or so. Sue was still here. At the end of that time, we drove up to Paris, where Sue and Cheryl had rented an apartment for a week's stay together, spent a couple of days and nights there in a hotel, walking around the city, eating in restaurants, going to French Open tennis matches.


By then it was late May and it was time for us to get the vegetable garden planted. In the middle of all this, we had major excavation work done to get our house connected to the village's new sewer system. In mid-June, Walt, Sue, and I took a quick trip to see the Mont Saint-Michel, a four or five hour drive from Saint-Aignan. We stayed in hotels.


In late June, we drove Sue back to the airport north of Paris for her return to California. Read this post on my blog for a taste of the kinds of adventures we had that evening. We finally arrived a couple of hours late at CHM's, where we were going to spend the night before driving back home. Finally, in July, CHM came to Saint-Aignan for a week, maybe two, and he and I, and sometimes Walt, toured all around the region by car. I put more miles (kilometers) on the car in that one five-month period than in any other whole year since we've lived here.

17 comments:

  1. I clicked the link for your aventures rocambolesques. In fact, they were.

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    1. The first two photos are château de Montfort. Again!

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    2. Yes, I know now. I wasn't looking at photos on the internet. I was just convinced that we hadn't returned to Montfort after a quick stop on the first day of our trip (second picture). I was convinced that we walked up to Beynac. As I've said, that whole period with so many visitors (including Harriet and Alfred) was so chaotic and busy that it's surprising I remember anything.

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    3. Quel contraste avec ce que nous vivons maintenant. Nous allons vers un troisième confinement en France. On saura mercredi comment ça va se passer cette fois-ci.

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    4. Cette pandémie de coronavirus est extrêmement dangereuse, puisque des variantes du virus font leur apparition et semblent plus dangereuses quant à leur transmission que le virus otiginal. On comprend ce qu'étaient les plaies du Moyen Âge et qu'on y avait pas les moyens actuels de lutte.

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    5. When was it the last time Harriet and Alfred came to France? They probably didn't come last year and I guess they might not this year, unless...

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  2. Great photos, wonderful old château.
    Thanks for alerting me to the return of quick editing etc. The gloom has lifted!!

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    1. Blogger is very frustrating these days. Nothing works the way it used to. Some days I'm ready to call it quits.

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    2. Same here, but admitting defeat goes against the grain!!

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    3. Is there anybody at Google/Blogger that needs to save his/her job if they're not inventive with Blogger? New improved?

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    4. Blogger is free software. I don't know how Google justifies keeping it going.

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  3. Holy cow, that sounds crazy hectic! Good friends are a cure for all that ails us :)

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  4. It’s a wonder you were able to remember your own name at the end of that frantic time!

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  5. Colette was a sweetie. I'm glad I got to know her.
    Wonderful photos (and narration--what a year!), as ever.

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    1. Except for Collette's passing, it was all fun. I wish we could live through it all again instead of having to stay confined...

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  6. Can't believe that trip was almost 15 years ago! It was so much fun- that was the time we had "flat Stanley" for my nephew. I enjoyed reading about your experience trying to pay the 60 cents for parking at Sue's hotel.

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    1. One thing I neglected to say was what a good time we had during those five months of visitors and sightseeing. I remember flat Stanley! At Chambord, for example.

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