Photo Tour of Our Gite

Bonjour, everyone. Before I get to the photo tour, I want you to know that the head cold that assaulted my body in the middle of our stay in the Netherlands is for the most part gone. There are varying theories regarding the cure. I took massive doses of vitamin C for several days, which I'm sure helped. Then one night, Ben, Ellen, Carol and I sat around a roaring fire in their backyard fire pit and drank a bottle of excellent Port wine that they brought back from their trip to Portugal and saved to share with us. Ben and I drank the lion's share while we answered questions from their Question Box. (Who, in your opinion, are three of the greatest Americans of all time? If you were deaf and could hear for only one hour each month, what would you like to hear? What animal would you like to be? If you could have been at any historical/cultural event ever, which would you choose? It was actually a lot of fun.) But what I meant to tell you is that the next morning I awoke with no hangover, no queasy stomach and NO COLD! Vitamin C? Maybe. High quality port wine? Hmmmm. You be the judge.

I have contracted a new malady, however. It's called in French, marché fièvre. It is translated, market fever. If you get it, you go to the farmers' market five or six days a week, traveling from town to town, following the markets. Sunday - St. Cyprien. Tuesday - Le Bugue. Wednesday - Bergerac. And on and on. You can't help yourself. The fresh produce is so beautiful you just have to buy some. And then there are the cheeses! I resisted the fresh sausages until today, when I purchased a duck sausage and a goat cheese sausage (really). There are so many more to try. Then you wander into a patisserie and fortify yourself with a fruit tarte or perhaps an eclair. Maybe it's not a fever; maybe it's love!

So anyway, I thought you'd perhaps like a little tour of our home for the next month. So, follow me. (Before I forget, you can always double click on any photo to see it full screen.)

This is Beauvert. The main part of the house is where our hosts, Jean-Pierre and Danielle, live. Our gite is the section at the right of the photo.

To the left, as you face the house, this is our view.

Jean-Pierre has several lawn mowers.

This is our terrace, which we use to dine al fresco whenever we can. The entrance to our gite is on the right, where the little floor mat it.

You enter through the kitchen.

Next to the kitchen is our first floor dining and work room. It's a comfortable place for writing and using our laptops because...

...it has a wood-burning that keeps the room quite toasty on cool Dordogne mornings and nights. The warmth rises adequately to the second floor.

On the second floor is our living room. It's very cozy. It's so cute that I thought I'd do my writing here, but I keep gravitating to the dining room downstairs. We're still settling in and finding a good "flow" in our home.

Our bedroom is tiny but it works. Instead of a photo of our bed, which looks strikingly like beds everywhere, I chose to show you what we see when we open our eyes in the morning. Well, that's a little bit of a fib. When we open our eyes around seven, give or take twenty minutes, it's still dark. The sunrise here is around 7:35! On our first morning I awoke in the dark and went back to sleep. I stayed in bed until the view looked like this photo. "Yikes!" I said when I looked at my watch and discovered it was 8:30! I felt like such a slacker.

We're gradually settling into a routine. See Carol. See the math book. See Carol work on her sabbatical project.

See the pool. See Carol. See Carol play. The pool is lovely, and for about four hours in the afternoon if the sun is bright, it's a great place to hang out. The water is very, very, very cold. We appreciate our friend, Peter's, heated pool much much more.


See Marc. See the fire in the hearth. See the fresh coffee. See the New York Times (virtual edition). See the smile on Marc's face. Vive la France!