Just a cold, or covid?

I've decided that what I have is a cold. Not allergies. A bad cold. I'd been having allergy symptoms for about a week, until yesterday. Then I took a turn for the worse. Walt has it too. Congestion. Coughing. Aches. Pains. A drippy nose and crying eyes. Is that what covid is like for people who've been completely vaccinated? I don't have any fever, but I had chills all day yesterday. I had to cancel my haircut appointment. I had planned to go to a friend's house to help her upgrade her computer, but I thought it was better to cancel that too. Don't want to spread this thing around.

Maybe this is where I need to go today. Well, not this specific pharmacy. It's in Paris.

Février 2003 (10)

We could very well have ended up living in Montrichard, about 10 miles downriver from Saint-Aignan. In December 2002, the agent who was helping us find a property showed us five houses over there. One nice one had flooded a few years earlier, so we rejected it. Another was pretty funky inside, and it had nearly flooded too. Besides, there was a campground across the road from it, and a gypsy camp just half a mile down the road from it. As you can see, the river was again pretty high in February 2003.

I'm glad we ended up in Saint-Aignan. It was thanks to the real estate agent we found to work with us. He's the one who said we'd get more house for out money over here. And he was the one who wanted to show us the house where we've lived for 20 years now. It didn't have everything we were looking for, but it had some big positives and potential. We've been happy here, that's for sure.

I took this picture of Montrichard (pop. approx. 3,300) in December 2002.

Février 2003 (9)

It was a very frosty morning in February when I took these photos. A black swan and some ducks were strutting around the grounds at Chenonceau. Some flowers — mostly primroses, I think — were already blooming. The sun was shining brightly through the stained glass in the chapel inside the château. Those three women in the painting pictured below didn't seem to be bothered much by the cold...

Février 2003 (8)

Before we left the Loire valley for Rouen in February 2003, my friend Jeanine and I stopped for an hour or so at the château de Chenonceau. I'm not sure Jeannine had seen it before. We went inside and took advantage of fires burning in several of the château's big fireplaces to take the chill off. It was a cold but sunny day.

The Cher was full of fast-flowing, muddy water. The two formal gardens on the banks of the river were all cleaned up for the winter. Pictured below are le jardin de Diane de Poitiers and one of the fireplaces in the château. If you go to Chenonceau, go in winter, when there are fewer tourists, or go early in the morning, before the tour buses arrive, unleashing the tourist hordes.

Février 2003 (7)

Here are four more of my February pictures taken at the château de Chambord, near Blois, 20 years ago.

I was using a Kodak DC4800 Zoom digital camera.

Février 2003 (6)

I'm still backtracking a little this morning. I took these photos in Blois and at Chambord. Blois, an old royal city, is about half-way between Châteaudun and Saint-Aignan. It's only a short train ride or drive from Paris. Two famous figures in the town's history were the Renaissance kings Louis XII and François Ier. Louis was born in the château de Blois and was king from 1498 until 1515, nearly 17 years. His emblem was the porc-épic (porcupine). That's Louis on horseback below. His successor, François Ier, was king from 1515 until 1547, more than 30 years. He had a new wing added to the château de Blois (that's its monumental staircase in the photo below on the left). He was an avid hunter and had the château de Chambord built a few miles south and east of Blois as his hunting lodge.

   

   

That's my friend Jeanine on the left and me on the right. We made the obligatory stop at Chambord on our way from Rouen to Saint-Aignan. You can see the château in all three of the photos just above. The weather was beautiful, especially for early February.

Février 2003 (5)

The woman in the photo just above is my old friend Jeanine. She and I had stopped to stretch our legs and have a look around on our drive down to Saint-Aignan from Rouen in early February 2003.

Maybe you've never been to, or even heard of, the town of Châteaudun (pop. 17,000 or so). It's about 80 miles southeast of Paris and 60 miles northwest of Tours, half-way between Chartres and Vendôme. That puts it about 55 miles north of Saint-Aignan, a 90 minute drive. I don't know it very well, but I've been there at least three times over the past 20 years.

There's a big old château in Châteaudun,as you might expect. The donjon is one of the first round castle keeps ever built in France, and is one of the most imposing and best preserved.

There are old houses, narrow streets that wind down a bluff along the Loir river, and several churches. The house pictured on the left was built in the 1570s.

The Michelin guidebook gives Châteaudun and its château two stars. It seems like a good destination for a day trip once the weather improves a little. Maybe we should go on a Sunday, when the town is quiet, and have a good walk around with Tasha on her leash.

Février 2003 (4)

Today I'll just post another set of photos that I took at Chartres in February 9, 2003. When I think back on that trip to France from California, I realize I made the most of it. I was in Rouen for a few days, saw and had dinner with friends, and walked around the city while it was covered with snow. I also saw Chambord, Saint-Aignan, Chenonceau, and Chartres, all of which are major landmarks. And then I spent a few days in Paris before flying back to San Francisco. Now that I don't travel any more — at least for the time being — it all seems pretty amazing.

Février 2003 (3)

After Jeanine and I drove from Rouen to Saint-Aignan to see the house Walt and I were buying and to measure the rooms, and after our stop at Chenonceau, we drove up to Chartres and on north to Rouen. I took some pictures at of architectural details at Chartres with the Kodak CD4800 Zoom camera I was using then. Here are a few of them.

In the bright sunny weather we had that day (Feb. 9 — 20 years ago today!),
the Kodak camera produced some fine images.

Février 2003 (2)

We had a strange thing happen yesterday. Walt had an errand to run in the morning. He went out and tried to start the Peugeot, but the car's battery was dead. He came back in to tell me the Peugeot wouldn't start, so he'd be taking the Citroën. It was parked in the garage, but it wouldn't start either — dead battery. It was weird that both batteries failed on the same day.

The weather was cold, but not that cold, and anyway the Citroën was in the garage, which is not heated but not that cold either. I called our insurance company's assistance line, and within half an hour a man with a battery and a set of jumper cables arrived and started both cars. We drove them over to our mechanic's garage and another 15 or 20 minutes later we had two new batteries.

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On the evening of February 1, 2003, I was in Rouen, staying in a little apartment that my friends Jeanine and Henri owned in the building where they lived. Another Rouen friend, a woman I had met on an internet forum a couple of years earlier — her name is Marie — and her husband, Francis, invited us all over for dinner. Above left are H and J and then F and M.  I've known Jeanine for more than 50 years and Henri for at least 25. Above right is the main course for our dinner — un plateau de fruits de mer (a seafood platter). Actually, there were two of them.

Above left is another photo of the dinner hosts and guests. The woman in the center of the photo is Florence, an English teacher in Rouen. Marie was an English teacher too, now retired. And on the right is the plateau de fromages, the meal's cheese course. A good time was had by all.

Février 2003 (1)

Almost exactly 20 years ago, I spent a week in Rouen, the city that's the administrative capital of Normandy. Walt and I had come to France in December to look for a house in the Loire Valley. We found that house — the one we live in now — and once back in San Francisco we put a down payment on it. I needed to come back to France in February to finalize some of the arrangements for our move-in, and to measure the rooms so we could decide how many and which pieces of our California furniture we would send to France when we moved.

In planning my trip, I decided it would be a good idea to go spend two or three days with friends in Rouen. I had lived there for a year in 1972-73, and visited many times over the years. My decision turned out to be a good one, because when I arrived at Paris-CDG airport on January 31, it was snowing. I took the train up to Normandy, and then my friend Jeanine and I drove her car down to the Loire Valley a few days later. She was curious to see the property we had found to buy. (That's the famous cathedral in Rouen above right.)

The photos here are some I took in Rouen on February 1, 2003. I know I've posted some of them before, but for some it may have been as long ago as 2013. In 2003, a few days later it also snowed in Saint-Aignan the day Jeanine and I came to the house so that I could take some photos and measure the rooms. That snow didn't quite "stick" and didn't interfere with our travel plans, which included visits to the famous châteaux at Chambord and Chenonceaux. On the way back to Rouen, we stopped for a short walk around inside the cathedral at Chartres.