Thawed out at last

Last Saturday evening we took ourselves to a Franco-Quebecois concert at the church in Montbron. The Franco part was a largish local choir that Ed said, rather generously Kaye thought, needed a bit more practice. The Quebecois part was the main characters from a group called Châkidor, a guitar-fiddle duo playing country-western-bluegrass-cajun (kah-zhuhn). They were professional entertainers and a bit of fun. Their French was clearly North American, and much more understandable that the local French. (This may turn out a bit like Dutch too us. When we first arrived in NL we found the Belgian Dutch on TV much easier to understand than the Dutch Dutch. Now it sounds slow and simple.) On our way home, a pair of glowing eyes at the side of the road ahead turned out to be a deer crossing the road. A bit further another pair of eyes, closer to the ground, turned out to be a fox doing its shall-I-or-shall-I-not-cross-the-road dance. Ed slowed way down and the fox finally made its dash.

Sunday we went back to Montbron for a disappointing marché de Noel. Since then several people have told us this is a boring one. We agree and won't go again, even though it's fairly close.

We had a tiny warmish spell, where Ed finally got in the last lawn-mow of the season. This was the first opportunity since all the scaffolding and equipment for the new roof went away. Now the lawn, such that it is, looks nice and tidy for the winter. The weather has turned cold again and snow is forecast, but we hope too much of it doesn't hang around.

Still no activity on Ed's Carte Vitale. Last week we couldn't get out on Thursday to go to the local visiting hours. So Kaye called yet again on Monday and spoke to what seemed to be a very knowledgeable and helpful person, who said she'd call back by the end of the week. It now being Friday afternoon, one doesn't think this is going to happen. Maybe the application will show up in the post next week.