(Wal)nuts to you!

Last Saturday evening we took part in a Soirée Énoisage, an evening of nut-picking. We arrived at seven in the evening to find tables laden with cracked walnuts. Someone had spent two days cracking 400 kilos of walnuts in preparation. After removing the nutmeats, we tossed the empty shells on the floor. Bowls of nutmeats were emptied periodically and whenever the table became visible through the nuts, an additional pile was laid before us. It was a real community effort—about a hundred people had all those nuts emptied in less than 2 hours. For our efforts, we were served dinner and copious wine. (Wine is always copious at these events!) At the end of the evening, there was a tombola (raffle) and we won a bottle of wine to take home, which was fairly expensive considering how much we paid for our raffle tickets. And, we had the opportunity to buy a bottle of walnut oil, fresh from the presses in a few weeks. As we were leaving, after midnight, it was apparent that the cleanup crew was short staffed, so Kaye helped with the wash-and-dry asembly line so it was almost 1.30 when we got home. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera—maybe next year.

The weather has been very cold. It got above 0C today for the first time since last Friday. We're sure the house is warmer than before we replaced windows and doors and added insulation, but it still gets c-o-l-d. Our bedroom is cold, but not as icy as it was before. The bathroom seems not to be as chilled on cold mornings; of course the freezer humming along in there might warm it up a bit, as well as the double-glazed window and the insulated wall. The body of the house cools off in the night, but warms nicely when we turn the heater up in the morning. The coldest part is still the kitchen, which was 14C (less than 60F) when we came down for breakfast this morning. Closing the terrace and kitchen shutters at night seems to help a bit, but not last night. We have a theory that heat from the wood-burning stove in the kitchen goes through the door into the body of the house. In the next days, we'll try to keep the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house closed when the fire is going to see if that helps.

Still no word on Ed's Carte Vitale. Time to call again.