A week or so ago, we played a couple of games of pètanque with friends. The idea is to do this a bit regularly. The nearest "court" we've found is in a nice shaded spot, and it makes a pleasant afternoon.
Last Monday evening, we attended another quiz evening and surprised ourselves by tying for third. (We thought we'd done much worse than that.)
Last Wednesday we visited a local cave, la Grotte de la Chaise, that is not usually open to the public where neanderthal remains have been found. The tour was guided by André Debanath, a professeur emeritus specializing in the prehistory of the Charente. Since the tour was in French, we understood only part of what was said, but it was very interesting nevertheless.
The first room we visited had a large opening to the outside, and was lit by daylight. The ceiling of this room collapsed at some point, but there are many layers of habitation represented. From here we walked, bent over like Escher figures, through a very dark tunnel into another room. Teeth and bones of all kinds of animal were visible in the walls here, and the ceiling was covered with stalactites. (In the back there's another room, where someone has turned on a flashlight.)
Out for a dog walk at dusk one evening last week, we had a nightjar fly between us at shoulder level—very silent in flight. We know these are around but seldom see them, so it was a treat to have one so close. And one morning recently, there was a young green woodpecker looking for its breakfast on the rejuvenating lawn.
We continue to have lots of drippy rain. A big thunderstorm last Tuesday evening caused flooding in Cognac. It's very strange to have flooding in the midst of water restrictions. Luckily the day of the cave trip was dry, but pètanque on Friday was cancelled.
We were quite late getting everything out in our garden, mostly just in time for the drought, but squash is doing quite well. We have two kinds going, regular zucchini/courgettes and globe zucchini. This is the harvest from one very prolific day. The photographer neglected to include something for size reference, so you'll just have to believe the the upper right globe is bigger than a softball and weighed in a just over a kilo! Things have slowed down a bit now and we're getting about one regular and one globe per day. And eating and freezing lots of squash!
We have a kitchen mystery going on. Bits of what looks like mouse poop have been appearing on the open shelves in the last months. It's unlikely that it actually is mouse poop, one, because of Sophie in the house and, two, because nothing has been chewed or eaten. Mice will get through plastic and cardboard with no effort, and nothing has been damaged. Just lots of poop. A few days ago, Kaye thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye (when otherwise engaged in pasta rolling), something dark, and possibly furry, scurry along the baseboard. Imagination, perhaps. What is leaving the poop behind? Whatever it is doesn't appear to eat anything so setting a livetrap could be futile. Spider poop? We don't have that many spiders, although there are always some around, and surely they could get into closed cabinets easily. Lizard poop? They do get in the house, but seems like Sophie or Pogo would go after these if they noticed. Bat poop? Bats climbing around on shelves? Surely not. Maybe I'll try soaking some of the droppings in the next days to see if we can figure out what they eat.
Today is the 29th anniversary of the day we drove away from Houston.
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