Where have we been?

No place, really, just finding it difficult to sit down and write. So what's been happening? Let's consult the agenda and see what we can find ...

The woodshed is finally finished: 

And it's filled with something over four steres (cubic meters) of wood for the kitchen heater. Not in the picture but in the corner to the right of the door is a pallet of pellets for the heater that warms the rest of the house.

We finally planted the last tree of our "parental grove," one tree for each parent. This one's a pecan tree. Pecans are remarkably hard to find in France; this one came from the UK. But there's only one and we don't know what the variety is, so it's not likely we'll have many pecans.

We took advantage of a sale at a local nursery and bought ourselves six fruit trees. These are planted across the bottom of the South Forty. There are two pears, two apples, and two plums, all of different varieties. Right now the stakes holding the trees straight are thicker than the tree trunks. (The parental grove is beyond this in the west corner.)

Our Dutch passports being about to expire, we needed to go to Bordeaux to get them renewed. Our appointment was on a Monday, so we made a long weekend of it. We arrived Friday evening, just after the local xmas market was opened, causing great traffic jams that made getting to the hotel a bit difficult. Saturday, when there was no rain in the forecast, we walked around the center, seeing this and that. Sunday we took it a bit easier and drove to the new science museum where we saw an exhibit on the Lascaux caves, including large part of the second reproduction (which will be on tour in the US soon). Monday morning we went to get our passport pictures taken (no glasses, hair behind the ears) then showed up for our appointment. You should be able to view some pictures on Facebook here. 

We went to another quiz and came in second. We sent our winnings of €17 to Phoenix as a gift. 

We continue to have lots of rain, sometimes just drizzle, sometimes fairly serious. A couple of weeks ago, had a very cold windy spell, with sub-0C temps. This week the weather has been warmer, still windy and rainy. A couple of dry days right now, but the rain will appear again shortly.