Another Ordinary Day in France

To give you an insight into our mundane lives here in France in our retirement, we thought we'd describe our day.

Being Friday we started off with our regular French lesson from 10 till 11. This comprises at least half an hour of chatting until we get round to correcting our homework.

We then dashed home for a pee, collected some sandwiches and then went off to see the Tour de France in a village 10 minutes away.

The villages on the route of the 'Tour' all treat it as a holiday and often there are meals and 'a bit of a do' which carry on into the evening. We didn't get to the route until about an hour and a half before the riders came through, but we had missed the majority of the publicity caravan that preceeds the riders, throwing sweets, toys, hats etc. into the waiting crowds.





Finally the riders appeared around the corner and whoosh, 15 seconds and they're gone!




Just as they appeared the batteries on my new posh camera failed and I had to rely on Sue on the little snappy camera.

The Tour finished for another year, we went off shopping. But, first we stopped to pic-nic in the shade of a tree to get out of the 35 degree sunshine. We ate our lunch looking at an idyllic local scene.

Having done the necessary weekly shopping we popped in to the English Bookshop and, whilst we were there we looked at the display of paintings exhibited in all of the little shops which line the street up to the medieval part of the town. This then led us to talking to one of the shopkeepers who explained how her husband had renovated and redesigned their shop. We were both raving over how he had done it and the lady was very patient with us!

So we finally made it home just before 5 o'clock. Just enough time to do a couple of little jobs before we went next door for a post-tour apero party.

The party got a bit lively when JJ's cousin and his wife joined us and it became more difficult to follow the french conversations as it all speeded up. We left them to it at about half past eight so I could go and light our BBQ. Barbecued fresh sardines and home grown vegetables went down nicely.

But not finished yet! We then set to and watered the flowers and the vegetable garden in the failing light. So here we are now blogging before we fall in to bed at 11 o'clock at night.

Just another ordinary day.