… that I bought that fan blower yesterday.
It went on at about 07:30 after breakfast and it’s still going around even now as we speak. And I’m not surprised as we’re having another scorching day.
It took ages to go to sleep in the heat last night, and I was flat out until the alarm went off. But I’d been on a few travels too, including one where I was back at the farm at Les Guis (although it wasn’t that particular building) with the rain pouring in through the roof every time that it rained.. I’d had to take a party of tourists around to show them the sights, but there aren’t any sights round there so it was something of a rather pointless ramble. We ended up eventually at the cross-roads on the hill where the road from Le Quartier to Ars-les-Favets crosses the road from Virlet to Montaigut-en-Combrailles, looking down on everywhere and not knowing where to go to next.
After breakfast I had a relax, and then hit the streets for town. In the heat.
First stop was to see that big sailing ship that we noticed in the harbour on our return from Leuven. She’s called the Marité and is a three-masted goelette built in the early 1920s. She actually took part in the Grand Banks fisheries off Newfoundland until 1929 and then around the various fishing areas of the North Atlantic until the 1960s when it took to general tramping.
Having already been saved a couple of times from scrapping, she was put up for sale in 1999 when she was bought for preservation. The restoration finished in 2009 and here we are.
it’s possible to go for a sail on her, and I shall be looking out for the trips.
But as an aside, she’s a ship of just over 200 tonnes, which you light think is pretty small for braving a North Atlantic winter. But that’s four times bigger than Columbus’s Santa Maria, and hos other two ships, the Nina and the Pinta, were smaller still.
At the bank, yes, my accounts are transferred over. And they gave me the cheque book. But where are the cards? “Ohh dear” blushed my conseilleuse and dashed off to do some hasty manipulations. “They’ll be here next week” she said two minutes later.
Forgotten to request them, have we?
I picked up some spuds and a baguette, and bumped into someone with whom I’d been having a good chat at the Marité.
Back here, I had Rosemary on the ‘phone. She’s had a bit of a disaster back home in the UK and I do feel sorry for her. WHat with her health and all of that, this is the last thing that she needs.
Lunch on the wall overlooking the harbour didn’t last too long. It was far too hot to stay out there very long. I came back here and … errr … went away with the fairies for all of three hours. Astonishing! I even ended up going on a skiing trip around the promontory here in the deep snow with Hannah and her friend.
And the pie?
Delicious. That worked well. And with a dollop of mash, peas, carrots (cooked in the steam cooker which I have now resurrected from the grave) and gravy it was even better.
I shall have to do this again.