Monday, July 4

As it's not a holiday over here (!) today, we got mail, an unusual occurrence any time. This was from Martin...

Made the mistake of going to the supermarket, actually TWICE, today (not the same one, but hey, I first didn't have anything to fix for lunch and it was too late to get to Carrefour about 20 minutes away by the time I managed to get out of the house about 11:30 this a.m., so I went to the Intermarche in Lalinde and then went to Carrefour late p.m. for supper after it was good and hot, e.g., about 5:30 p.m.--a case study in how to maximize the hassle and discomfort). Everybody, and I MEAN EVERYBODY, almost, in both places was German. This week being the beginning of the traditional European vacations, schools got out last week...the area has been descended on by Germans on holiday. The markets should be fun for the next few weeks (Evelyn, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but SO many of the vendors in those big markets are farmers from the area, and lots of them are, shall we say, not young...and they, er, don't like Germans...) If you don't know who Evelyn is, she's my pal who's a German economist (actually a mathematician turned economist) in Marburg. For that matter I'm German, too, but from sorta before the 20th century when there were all those wars and things...

This all means that the merchants at the markets will probably be even nicer to me than they usually are (hey, they figure out I'm either English or American, and then they figure out I'm American, and they are actually very nice to me...).

Weather okay. We had one seriously humid, ghastly hot day...42 degrees, e.g., about 107, was hot, Hot, HOT that night, and then the next day it cooled off considerably. It has since been hot in the daytime (80's or so) but it stays cool inside if I keep the shutters closed, and really cool at night. No rain.

Bought my sister a present for her 60th birthday, September this year; it's (the present) much, MUCH older than she is. Nineteenth century, actually. Got it at a Vide Grenier yesterday (which means "empty attic", and basically means "yard sale", "garage sale", if you're American, or "car boot sale" if you're a Brit. There are also "Brocante" sales, which are basically "flea markets", but there's shall we say overlap. Both are rampant on Saturday mornings and all day Sundays in the heat in the summertime around here.

Cheers, Lillie