And there went October

The household wildlife theme continued in October. Ed went to light a fire in the kitchen late one afternoon and discovered an edible dormouse (Glis glis) cowering in the flue. (They're called "edible" because the Romans ate them as a snack. We'd have had a nicely roasted one if Ed hadn't gotten it out of the chimney.) It was alive but not feeling too lively. Harriet was living outside in a pen at this point so we left the dormouse under the kitchen porch in Harriet's old box with a hot water bottle and a little dish with some oatmeal and raisins. The next morning it was gone. It didn't seem to touch the food, so we're still in the dark about feeding them. In the picture you can see its lovely cloud of whiskers and its fluffy tail hanging down.

A couple of days later, we let Harriet loose. Sad and exciting. We put out food every evening for her and have seen her a couple of times. She seems to be thriving.

The next weekend, we took ourselves to Poitiers for a concert by a Bulgarian choir and orchestra. The concert was held in the Palais de Justice, a building dating back to the 11C. The room is known as the Salle des Pas Perdus, the "hall of lost footsteps," a huge (dining?) hall that was fitted by Eleanor of Aquitaine—supposedly footsteps are silenced by the vast size, 50 metres in length by 17 metres in width—which might have been the largest in contemporary Europe. You can guess how the acoustics were for the music. We were lucky to sit on the second row, though, so could hear quite well.

The following weekend we were expecting to pick up our friend Bill in Limoges. Before he arrived, we had an unexpected visitor who stayed a few days on his way home to Oxford following a couple months biking mountain passes, the famous Tour de France ones as well as others in Italy. We waved good-bye to Jim on Friday morning, then went to Limoges to meet Bill for the Fraire des Petits Ventres. This is an annual festival on the Rue de Boucherie, an area of half-timbered houses where the butchers of Limoges used to live and work.

The festival specializes in things like tripe, pig's feet, boudin noir, andouillettes, rillettes, grillons. For the first two hours after noon, the street is jam-packed with people buying their lunch or dinner and sampling bits of food. We ate well, but didn't bring anything home.

The next evening we went again to the Fête du Vin at St. Sornin, where we ate and sampled wines, coming home with three more glasses for our collection. We neglected to take pictures this time.

The next afternoon was the old folks' lunch in our commune, where we were treated to a royal meal: aperitifs and toasts with caviar and other tasty bits; a creamy mushroom soup; scallops; a bit of apple sorbet with calvados; roast beef and veggies; salad with cheese; chocolate fondant with raspberries and vanilla ice cream. All this accompanied by ample wine. We went home quite well stuffed. The menu was presented as a fan of "leaves."

The next weekend we had lunch and did a bit of sightseeing in Poitiers before going to a wine tasting for Haut-Poitou wines. (The whites were interesting, the reds were blah.) We visited again (first time for Bill), the lovely Romanesque church Notre-Dame-le-Grande. 

The ceilings and columns were repainted in the 19C ("unfortunately," per the Michelin guide) in a kind of Byzantine-Roman style. Unforuntate, perhaps, but still impressive.

We visited a little museum at the tourist office, then walked back to our car, passing the Rue de la Cathédrale. You can see the cathedral in the distance. Now we know where this is, we'll make a point to see it closer on another visit.

Bill trained away on Sunday afternoon and we're getting back to our normal quiet lives and catching up with chores and errands.

Our internet service has been deteriorating throughout October, so we've been interacting with Orange, our ISP, trying to get it fixed. No luck so far. We have another trick to try this weekend to try to isolate the problem. We'll see.

October weather has been lovely, cool but not cold with some especially beautiful sunny days. Not much fall color this year, though. The cranes are moving through on their way south, so cold weather must be on its way.