Water restrictions have begun and unexpected visitors

After a month of hotter than usual weather, we're now coming out of a spell of cooler than usual weather. There has been lots of drizzly rain for the last week or so, but it's not enough to affect the drought. On the weekend we drove over the Tardoire, one of our local rivers, and there was no water to be seen. The water situation is now bad enough that our commune now has water restrictions for personal use. No filling the swimming pool (if we had one), no car washing, no watering of lawn, shrubs, or flowers. Nothing that hurts too bad right now. We can still water the potager, the vegetable garden, not that it especially needs it right now. In between the drizzle, we worked in the garden for a while, tying up tomatoes and picking zucchini, which are the only things that have been doing well in the garden.

Working under cover, Ed has sanded and refinished all the woodwork around the entry. The original stuff was wanting to be redone and the new bit that filled in around the new front door had never been finished. Looks quite nice now.

Friday evening we attended a choral concert that Ed was had planned to take part in, but changed his mind when it seemed like too many other things were happening to make the commitment. (Many of his fellow choir members participated in the 200-plus chorus.) The concert was supposed to be outdoors in the courtyard of the chateau at La Rochefoucauld, so we dressed warm and were prepared to huddle together under our umbrella. When we got there, we discovered the whole event had been moved into a sport hall, which turned out to be quite warm. The choir, standing for more than an hour under lights, must really have been suffering, since we were broiling in the audience. Ah, well, it was fun anyhow.

Saturday evening we went to a concert/picnic, organized partly by one of Ed's choir friends, benefiting children of Chernobyl. Although the disaster there was 25 years ago, it seems there is still widespread poverty in the area, with lots of broken families and children in orphanages. Every year they bring a group of children to France for one to three months. Apparently there are small groups like this all over France, each making a small contribution to improving kids' lives. This was another outdoor event, moved into the local salle des fêtes. There was musical entertainment from local groups, some quite good. Quite enjoyable.

Monday evening we had unexpected visitors from the Netherlands. Our friends Patrice and Wim were staying at a nearby camping and came by. Yesterday, we visited them and went for a nice walk through a new-to-us area. Here are Frits (lower left), Patrice, Wim, Ed, and Pogo on the road.

Afterwards we stopped at a grocery to pick up supplies, then came home and stoked up the barbecue for a lovely evening.