Company's come and gone

Yes, yes, we're very late about posting this time! Our friend Bill, a colleague from Compuware who was laid off at the same time as Ed, has visited us (for the second time). If we'd been organized we would have posted before he arrived, but we just didn't manage.

Bill arrived very late on Wednesday when his train was delayed getting out of Amsterdam. On Saturday we went to the 26th annual version of a foire with local food products, only to find it was disappointingly small with just a handful of vendors. We tasted some very nice pâtés, but that was about it. There was an interesting display of old scooters, motorcycles, cars, and trucks that occupied us for a short time. A cheese vendor was setting up as we were leaving, but we decided not to wait. We went on to Angoulême and made a partial round of the remparts, visited the cathedral, etc.

The next morning we visited a small bric-à-brac in Vitrac-St. Vincent and then attended a hunt dinner in St. Adjutory. As usual, they didn't start serving the 12.30 meal until well after 1.30. Meanwhile we were treated to "tunes" on the huntstman's horn (valveless). Strangely, they seated all the English-speakers at one table, which was not as much fun as previous dinners where we've been mixed in. We had pâte of boar, venison stew, boar steaks, etc. More food than you think you can possibly eat. Bill won a bottle of wine in the lottery and the hunt chairperson gave us the end of a bottle of cognac that didn't get finished. At the end of the meal when most of the people had left, a fellow at another table decided he needed to do a striptease. He wasn't so drunk that he couldn't climb on the table and do a passable strip with appropriate peeks. We're not sure what brought it on, but he didn't want his photo taken. Sitting at our table was an acquaintance who sings, that Ed is trying to get to join his choir. They sang a bit just before we left.

The next morning we waited for Toupargel to deliver, then took ourselves to St. Amant-de-Boixe to see an exhibit of medieval artifacts, only to find the museum closed. The church was open, though, so we visited this. A peculiar feature is that the nave and choir are not in a straight line, as you can see in the photo:

The east window behind the altar is covered with a blue cloth, giving the blue lighting effect. Most of the church had been rebuilt, but there were a few old bits of frescos and such. The façade is old and in very bad shape.

After this, we went to see the Roman amphitheater near Les Bouchards. There's now a visitors' center nearby, but we didn't stop to see this.

The next day we headed to Cognac to visit the Otard distillery, which is in the chateau where François I was born and lived. The walls of the chateau, inside and out, are covered by a fungus that grows on the evaporating cognac fumes. The tour guide was rather bored with the chateau itself, which is in rather bad shape but still old and historical, but perked up when we got to the barrels of cognac. The tour included lots of sniffing of cognac flavors and finally a tasting. Bill very kindly bought Ed a bottle of his favorite. (Kaye still doesn't appreciate cognac.) We expect that at each of the major distilleries, you'll get a part of the cognac-making story and look forward to visiting others.

After the distillery tour, we walked around Cognac for a bit. That Tuesday was a day of national strikes (protesting retirement age being raised from 60 to 62) and we ran into the largest group of marchers in the Charente. In the park where the big events are staged during the Blues Passion festival (that we didn't attend this year), we found these musicians:

And here are Bill and Kaye standing next to a statue of François I:

On our way back to the car we found a group of very old, half-timbered houses:

Wednesday, we got Bill to the train station in plenty of time. We all had a nice rest after so much tourist activity.

Like two years ago, we have had hornets under the peak of the roof again. This means keeping doors, windows, and skylights closed in the evening since they are attracted to lights. You can hear them bonking against the windows, like The Birds come to life on a smaller scale. Since we're shortly going to have the area between the wall and the roof closed (hoping to preserve more heat in the winter), we called an exterminator to get rid of these mean things.

For those waiting as breathlessly as we, there is still no action on Ed's Carte Vitale. If the new application doesn't arrive by next week, Kaye will call again to request this.