Unpacking continues

We're still here, still unpacking, still using the ancient computer. The ethernet card for the Mac has arrived and with luck it will be installed today.

We generated a huge stack of empty boxes and yesterday someone came to pick them up for their move. Today we start on generating another stack. Our grandmothers' china is in the china cabinet. Our clocks are found, wound, and chiming. Kaye's cookbooks are in their shelves. The office starts to take shape, although the computers remain in our bedroom until we can get the phone line moved. We're waiting with unpacking most of the kitchen stuff until more cabinets are installed. Ed's put up the two over the kitchen sink, which look just like they've always been there. Before long we'll have to finalize the plan for one wall and make a trip to IKEA in Bordeaux for those cabinets. Then we have to start the hunt for handles.

Unpacking, rediscovering our stuff, is nice because of all the memories. So many things we have are gifts from friends and famiy. It's nice to have these things back with all the warm thoughts they bring.

Hail. That was over a week ago now. It wasn't the nice Dutch hagel, that stings when you're out biking. This was serious hail, up to golf ball size reported, although we saw only cherry size. Time to stock up on cognac since that area was badly hit. Our local vintage, St. Sornin, lost 30% of the harvest (and 20% last year to another hailstorm). They predict two years for the vines to recover. New emerging crops were flattened in the fields. The leaves of our hydrangeas, water lilies on a nearby frogpond, the neighbors' fig tree, all on the storm side of buildings, look like someone went after them with a hole punch. Hydrangeas on the lee side of buildings were unscathed. Our flowering shrubs like azaleas, rhododendrons, and camellias went from cheerfully blooming, some just past their peak, to looking quite pitiful.

Meanwhile the grass continues to grow, rain continues in the forecast.