Warm again

Wednesday morning, the fioul finally arrived, more than a week after we ordered it, so we are closer to being toasty in the cold weather now.

The shop where we bought the new stove called one morning last week. We'd ordered a white stove (i.e., the cheapest), but it seems like we had a choice of a black top with gold-colored handles or a white top with silver-colored handles for the same price. The gold seeming a bit too pretentious, we opted for all white. We are looking forward to the arrival of this stove. Shall we call it Blanche? Or Bianca? Or just It?

Saturday evening we went to a choucroute (sauerkraut) dinner at a local restaurant/bar. Unlike a similar Dutch or German dinner, there was not a potato to be seen, but lots of nice bread instead. The meal was just sauerkraut, homemade, with chunks of meat and sausage. Good, but we rather missed the Dutch-style stamppot. A local "character" showed up, who is actually from Montemboeuf near to us, who apparently makes the rounds of bars on Saturday night, drinking a couple of pastis at each stop. He was well-known to most of the people there. We seemed to be his last stop for the night, and he made quite a scene, hitting up on a woman at our table. On the way home, we saw a fox near the entrance to our village!

Monday evening we went to the second meeting of a new gardening club. It's a mixed group of French and English, with most of the program in French. It will keep us busy learning new vocabulary.

Kaye got a new crêpe pan (finding an affordable, non-stick one was a non-trivial task) and seasoned it, starting with boiling potato peels in it. The pan has done its first round of crêpes now, and it is definitely a nice pan. The old crêpe pan will go to recycle. We'll have crêpes again before the season is over.

On market morning (Thursday), Kaye went to the butcher to buy some veal shank to make osso buco for her Cooking Italy course. She was worried about getting exactly the right thing, but learned that veal shank in French is ossobuco. Too easy! There was none to be had that day, but the butcher ordered some, so Friday we had some yummy ossobuco in bianco (white wine, no tomatoes).

The surrounds for the bedroom windows are starting to look very nice. Ed's getting quite experienced with the filling and caulking. Another coat of paint and the surfaces should be ready, waiting for the trim.

The weather seems to be more normal winter now, with cold nights and warmer days and even some sunlight. The skies were so clear a few days ago that we got got ourselves up before seven to watch the ISS go over. We didn't go outdoors but watched it appear from one bedroom window, then watched it fade away from the other one. Our camellias continue to bloom and bulbs starting to peek through the ground.