France

We had a fun and yet hectic two weeks in France. It was only hectic trying to look at houses and decide if now was the right time to buy or not. Other than that we did a lot of nothing. The first week we stayed at a B&B with an english family outside of Aubusson. They were really nice and we were the only guests so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It had a swimming pool but as the weather never cooperated we didn't get a chance to take advantage of it. It was mostly cool and a bit rainy for the first part of the trip.
Then we moved the second week to a gite in Chapal at another english couple, John and Jane's, property and really had a much better stay there. It was a two bedroom gite with a living area and kitchen so we made our own breakfast and Jane provided us with eggs from their chickens. They were the happiest chickens I have ever seen and they produced the tastiest most golden yellow eggs.

I thought I would throw in a couple of pictures here of Andrew getting on with the livestock. You know he wasn't raised around animals so he was a little hesitant at first when I suggested he feed the stale bread to the chickens. But he felt it was safe as there would be a fence between him and the girls. Look how fast they took to Andrew jumping up on the wall to say hello.

John thought he would help Andrew get over his fear by bringing one out for him to touch. The dogs all looked on to make sure he was doing it right!

We thought it was funny because two of their dogs understood english and the other two only understood french. Pretty sad when even the dogs are smarter than us!
Then one evening we were sitting out in the garden with John and Jane and along came a farmer and his son driving the cattle from one location to another down the road.

Then they stopped to say hello. Ever wondered what a cross between a Limousin and a Charolais would look like?! Yes, they are kissing.

We drove down to another area to look at a property and arrived in time for lunch. We found the one restaurant, Chez Boulette, in the village and decided to go for it.

It was obiviously where the locals ate and yes, everyone looked up when we walked in but then went back to lunch. We were seated and asked if we wanted an aperitif. After that not too much was said as there were no menus and everyone got whatever the chef made for the day. The waitress did ask if we wanted wine and when Andrew said "yes, red please", they just looked at us as if we were crazy. Of course, it would be red, that's what they had! The first course came and it was a piece of crockery with what I said was chicken but Andrew said beef. Anyway, it was chopped up into smaller pieces and mixed with herbs and served with bread. It was actually pretty tasty. Then came the salad course. It was a green salad served with homemade pate. Normally I am not a big pate person unless it is veggie but this one was good. The middle of the pate had a duck mousse that was amazing. Very rich but I suffered through! Our main course was chicken with carrots in a red wine sauce. And of course then there was raspberry tart for dessert. Then the cheese platter came out with some of the most amazing and tasty cheeses I have had in a very long time. Yes, this is lunch and then you have an expresso to top it off. They do not eat a big dinner and so this is the main meal of the day. We got it all for a whopping 13 euros ($15) each.
After our meal we had time to walk around the village a little and let our lunch settle before meeting the estate agent.