Of mice and movies

Last Tuesday we went up to Poitiers to see the last Harry Potter in 3D (for Ed) and VO - voix originale (for both of us). (We actually tried to see this in Angoulême, a much shorter drive, the week before, but found that our source of movie info had incorrectly said that it was being shown VO. Oops.) Poitiers being a lovely city full of sites to see, we went a bit early, in time for lunch and, this time, a look around St Hilaire, a lovely romanesque church on the edge of the center of town. A Unesco world heritage site, it's yet another stop one of the routes to Santiago de Compestela that thread through the Poitou-Charentes area.

The church originally had wooden roof and 3 aisles. When they decided to replace the roof to reduce the risk of fire (the church had already burned twice), they found the columns wouldn't support the new roof, so they added another set, narrowing the nave and resulting in two additional aisles.

Thursday, leaving her camera behind, Kaye and a friend went to see the abbey of Fontaine-Vive in nearby Charras. This is an old cistercian abbey, with not too much known about it. Twenty years ago, it was bought by an English couple and is still being restored. It was long abandoned and in much need of help. The church had been used as a barn and one transept served as a dormitory at some point. Shortly after they bought it, the roof of the church fell in before they had a chance to secure it. The gardens are especially interesting and we had a lovely English tea at the end of our visit, complete with cucumber sandwiches and scones.

Kitchen mystery, continued: This afternoon Kaye was cleaning the mysterious poop from some of the kitchen shelving and found one single package of Figalous (similar to Fig Newtons) with one corner that had been eaten into. From a shelf full of cookies and a cabinet full of dried fruit, sugar, flour, chocolate, etc., all wrapped in easily chewable cardboard, paper, or plastic, our discriminating guest chose Figalous to dine upon. Very unmouselike behavior to our minds. We suspect that the droppings have been appearing at heights because Sophie doesn't climb much into the shelving. (We're thinking of making space for her to wander there.) We've now set a live trap on top of the choice Figalou package, baited with, yes, Figalou filling. Wait and see.