Quiz, picnic, and whatnot

Friday night was the quiz where we (Ed, Kaye, Mike, and Sally), having won the last round, got to provide questions (our prize). Since the participants are mostly expats living in this area, we decided we'd include a good share of French questions. It was hard work, but we all thought we had a good quiz. There were three teams competing and the winners were the folks who had made the quiz that we won. We neglected to take any photos, though. (If you'd like PDFs of the questions, just ask.)

Saturday Ed's choir was part of a picque-nique musical on the grounds of an old mill near Montbron. We arrived early so the group could practice a bit beforehand. That's Ed playing the keyboard in the back.

Meanwhile, Pogo wandered around making himself at home in any shady spot he could find. He wasn't too particular about whom he was sitting with.

The entertainment included some amateur music (flute and voice), an exhibit of line dancing (some of the choir members are part of the same line dancing group where we attended a couple of lessons last fall), a group playing folk music, the choir singing and leading a sing-along, and one of the choir members doing some solo numbers. The choir suffered from lack of practice and organization unfortunately. Here are the choir guys singing Lazybones, along with the lead singer from the folk group (in costume).

The musical picnic was held the same day as the Fête de la Motte in Mazerolles (our commune). Kaye worked serving food there last year. We missed the dinner, having had our picnic already, but stopped by in time for the post-meal festivities. There was a 30-minute humorous film in which a farmer who is getting married sells his story to a reality TV show. Plates of popcorn were served to the folks who'd had their dinner there. Kaye understood some of the film, the main actor in particular, while Ed mostly enjoyed the physical humor. At the end of the film, the bonfire was lit.

Monday we had a huge thunderstorm and lost power for over an hour. Worse, we again had water in the entry and living room. Here's Sophie exploring the water in the entry after we moved furniture out of the way.

(A funny Sophie story, while you're here. This evening she flopped down on the kitchen floor next to the water bowl and dipped water to drink with her paw. No camera handy unfortunately.)

Late Monday afternoon, we made an emergency trip to the vet when we noticed that Pogo seemed to be bleeding from the back end. It turned out to be a huge bloody tick attached underneath his tail. Yuck. He got an antibiotic shot (ow!) and a soothing spray.

Tuesday evening we were eating dinner outside in the shade and started worrying because Sophie wasn't around and neither of us had seen her since the early afternoon. We walked around calling and calling and finally heard her miauw coming from a neighbor's garage. We went to get the key and found her, calling us, high up on the beams. Poor pussy! She seems to be no worse for the wear.

The weather has been mightily hot in the last days. Thunderstorms are forecast again for tomorrow night and the next morning. This should cool things down a bit, we hope.