Almost two weeks ago, we attended the annual concert in Lésignac-Durand, organized by Frédéric Langlais, the local accordion whiz and his wife Nathalie, who sings. This is the third one we've attended. It's not that we're big accordion fans (we not), but Langlais is the top of the field and the whole event has home-grown sort of feel. In previous years the concert opened with pieces performed by young music students. This year the young student was Fred and Nathalie's eldest son on violin. Before the concert we lunched with friends and left Pogo at their house while we went across to the concert, while their father/father-in-law napped out the concert. When he awoke, he though Pogo might like to go outside. Indeed he would. There were (semi-feral) cats in the yard to chase, which he did right out of the yard and out of sight. When we returned from the concert Pogo was not to be found. We walked the village, calling, calling. Finally he showed up, from a road where both Ed and Kaye had searched already. He was goofily fine, as always, and couldn't see while we'd been worried.
A curious thing, though, when Kaye took Pogo on a long walk the next day, as they walked by cows close to the road on the way back, instead of charging them as he usually does (that's why we keep him on the leash around cows), Pogo actively moved to the other side of the road, keeping Kaye between him and the cows. Since then he's been less fearful, but he shows no sign of charging as he has in the past. Seems like Pogo's Big Adventure might have included a close encounter with a cow.
At our favorite charity resale shop we found a wardrobe to replace the boring white IKEA one that we had in the entry. We are very pleased with it.
We've been to another quiz, where we came in the middle. It was quite a hard quiz and the top and bottom teams we separated by only a few points. We all thought we'd done really poorly so we were pleased to be only 5 points off the top teams.
Last weekend we did another walk with dinner. We were pleased that we managed 9 kilometers. We were tired at the end, but we made it. Photos are here.
We've been invited to a luncheon tomorrow for the bénévoles, volunteers who've worked at commune events in the last year. We decided to decline this year, since we expect a big, long meal with lots of alcohol flowing. Hope we don't offend anyone by skipping it.
On one of our recent walks, we noticed at the mairie that one of the items on the agenda for the next meeting was a discussion of a letter from our barn-owning neighbor to the commune. Especially since there had recently been quite some work next door (serious cleaning out as well as painting and extermination), we were curious to see what this was about. When we stopped by after the meeting to ask, the mayor sat us down to explain. The letter was part of a long-running "conversation" between the mairie and our neighbor, dating back to at least 2007, but both sides sending pages of letters and documents and (apparently) ignoring what the other has said. There is nothing that worries us directly, but things that may be of interest.One of the complaints our neighbor makes is the water that runs into her barn from the road. When it rains very heavily, this water actually comes up through our floor in the entry and living room. We think the commune is now going to put some drainage in across the front of the barn and then next to our house down to (or below?) the South Forty. Probably a good thing for us. Meanwhile the barn-owning neighbor is busy again. Exterminators yesterday and cleaning today. Maybe her American artist daughter is actually going to come to live here. Or ... ???
On the other side, our elderly neighbor recently returned home from her second surgery this year. She was looking very trim and lively. Yesterday, her daughters spent the whole day there and we could hear angry words being spoken. And they took all the chickens away. It was very quiet this morning. We're going to miss the cock-a-doodle-doos and the chicken chatter all day.
In the last weeks, we've noticed rooting or digging marks in neighboring fields. Yesterday we found the same thing in the South Forty. We're not sure if it's badgers or if boar are coming this close to the hameau. Also in the South Forty, we've found an area with lots of holes like a stick had been poked into the ground many, many times in a small area. We don't really have an idea what this might be, but will keep our eyes open. Spiders?
In September every year, the Circuits des Remparts is held in Angoulême, where old race cars zoom around the city walls. This year's race is tomorrow. (We haven't yet attended this.) In conjunction with the race, there was an interenational rally held today. Part of the course was not too far from us, so we went over to watch some of the action. We stationed ourselves at a point where the cars had to come to a full stop (you'll see how well they did that) and make a hard right turn. We took a short video (less than 1.5 minutes) of the action, but Blogspot is having trouble uploading this, so you'll have to do without. (We'll spare you more than a hundred car pics.)
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