Ovens back in gear

Last Friday evening we went to a marché de nuit in nearby Montbron. We went rather late, since Kaye was finishing up some fig jam made from very ripe green figs that our neighbors gave us. As we slogged up the hill to the center, we came upon the first entertainment, a group of South Americans, dressed as North American Indians, and playing House of the Rising Sun on panpipes. A bit bizarre. The market was huge, covering the entire center of Montbron, which is one of our largest nearby towns. We found ourselves some fast food for dinner and wandered around looking at all the stuff for sale, but weren't very tempted by much. We did bring home some nice olives, though.

Monday morning, Kaye went to our mairie to get a certificate de vie, proving to her pension that she's still alive. It looks like this will be an annual occurrence.

Our French tax bill for 2009 has arrived. No penalty for being a bit late and the amount is not breath-taking—hooray! No news yet on our taxes for the last two months of 2008, which was over a year late. (And no news in the saga of Ed's Carte Vitale, but that's not expected this week.)

Tuesday, we made an outing to Aubeterre sur Dronne, in the south of the Charente, one of les Plus Beaux Villages in France. Our primary reason for going was to see the Eglise de St Jean, the biggest monolithic church in Europe, built into the hillside under the chateau. It was fascinating. On the Aubeterre site, under the small picture on the left, click the link "Visite Virtuelle 360°" for a nifty look at the church.) The name Aubeterre is from Latin, "white ground", and the city is built of white limestone. (Photos are available on Facebook.)

Wednesday morning Kaye discovered the that second oven was working, a bit of a surprise since in two previous attempts, it would hardly get above room temperature. That afternoon Julien our friendly stove repariman came. He replaced the thermostats in both ovens and will send the old ones off to the manufacturer for analysis. It is nice to have the ovens back!

Ed has managed to keep the top part of the South Forty pretty well mown, but the bottom was waist high with grass and small trees. This afternoon, our neighbor's son volunteered to mow this bit with his tractor. Dix minutes, he said, but it was more like thirty. He'll do it again in a few weeks, and then we should be able to take over with the regular mower. Now we have lots of mulch for our potager that didn't get planted this year.