Dreaming of France -- Moving Misadventures

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

So, it happened. We actually closed on the sale of our house and managed to move out this morning. It sounds much simpler than it was.
Closing was scheduled for Friday. On Thursday, the buyers scheduled a walk-through. I fumed a bit because that was precious time I could have been packing things.
Then the call came from our real estate agent. The washer and dryer were supposed to go with the house. We had just moved them out to Spencer's apartment the weekend before.
This was our second contract. The first one fell through, but the agent asked us whether we planned to leave the washer and dryer. We told her no. So we assumed, she would put that in the 2nd contract too. She didn't. So that was her mistake.
Because the washer and dryer were gone, the buyers wanted them replaced or a $400 credit. We decided the credit would be easiest. Then they changed their mind. They wanted a washer and dryer there and wanted another walk-through to prove that it was working. Obviously, we had no time within the next 24 hours to buy and install a washer and dryer.
They also had another demand that we give them $400 toward electrical things that they wanted fixed. Earl's brother is an electrician and had fixed all their requests, but they brought in another electrician who suggested other fixes.
We offered $400 for the washer and dryer plus $300 for the electrical work. They refused. They wanted an actual washer and dryer installed, plus $500 for electrics — they upped the price. And, to guarantee the washer and dryer worked, they also wanted a $400 check held in escrow.
Earl drew a line in the sand. No. It was the principal of the thing.
The real estate agents both chipped in $100 toward the electrics. We agreed to buy our neighbor's used washer and dryer for $300 (a steal). The escrow check was still tripping us up when we walked into the title office to sign that Friday morning.
The title guy convinced us that his company would hold the washer and dryer check in escrow and would not release it unless all parties (including us) agreed. They also set the deadline for five days so it doesn't drag out. So we agreed.
Saturday was supposed to be spent moving out, but first we needed to move the washer and dryer from our neighbor's basement to our basement.
As they moved the dryer, the heavy-duty cord swung up and hit Earl in the forehead just above his eyebrow, leaving a drop of blood perched against his sweaty brow. When they reached our basement, they realized the plug didn't match the outlet for the dryer. Earl would have to replace the cord so they matched.
My sons went to move the washer. As it started to slip on the stairs, Spencer grabbed the bottom of it and it sliced the web between his thumb and finger. Our neighbor doctored him with a beer before his girlfriend drove him to the urgent care for four stitches and no more help moving things.
At some point, the new owners drove past (spying on us) and noticed the porch swing was gone. They immediately called their real estate agent who called ours, who called us. The porch swing was on hooks so it didn't have to stay. My friend Sheila had asked for it.
Friends stopped by to help as we winnowed down our belongings, still it looked like we couldn't possible finish by 10 a.m. Sunday.
We had optimistically planned to finish Saturday and spend the night at Earl's brother's house. We canceled that plan.
I can't begin to describe so you can feel the physical and emotional exhaustion of Saturday. Without a run, I logged over 19,000 steps just carrying things up and down stairs, out doorways and into pickup trucks -- 46 staircases, my Fitbit says.
Grace dropped by and I made her help me carry a desk and a chest of drawers from the basement to the garage - -I had heard Earl's moans of pain as he tackled another flight of stairs with the new knee he received last month. Grace professed to be exhausted and I stared her down with a look of disdain. She didn't know what exhaustion was.

The house finally empty 

When Noreen and her husband dropped by to pick up the cross country skis and offer to help, they looked around our house with pity. They couldn't see us escaping the items left to move.
"If we were moving to a new house, I'd just tell the movers to pack up everything and I'd sort it when we got there," I explained, " but there isn't a new house. We have to get rid of everything."
Between 5 and 6 p.m., we made three trips to Goodwill, donating bookshelves and ottoman's and bags and bags of books before they closed for the night.

Then we settled in to go through the remaining bookshelves and boxes in the basement. They were things no one else could help with. They were personal -- did we save the newspaper clips with our bylines? Which kids' books would we want to read to our grandchildren? Which letters from friends, family, old boyfriends, siblings would we want to read again someday?

The back room in the basement where we stored everything, finally empty late Saturday night. 

We fell asleep around 11 and woke this morning at 5:30 to finish.
Earl drove the futon we'd slept on to my friend Najah's house at 8. He came home and took a load of things to the storage unit (which has to be emptied by Thursday) then a final load of things to Goodwill at 9.
Spencer stopped by to pick up the small television he wanted to put in his room, along with some weights, a broom and a vacuum. I kept cleaning, making my way toward the back door.
Yes, at 9:40, I stepped out back, Swiffer mop in hand. The house was clean and empty.
Earl had pulled up behind the neighbor's car because Spencer was behind our garage. And, as we were ready to leave, he realized he didn't have the keys to the pickup truck. He'd driven it into the alley, so the key couldn't be far.
We spent a frantic 15 minutes searching for the key, retracing his steps. A neighbor came over to help look as we combed through the snow that had fallen the night before.
Finally, he held up the key which he had dropped into a bag of trash. If you saw how many bags of trash we left, you’d realize The loss of the key could have been a nightmare.
So stitches and lost keys and hopeless thoughts all behind us, I thanked our house one last time for the years of laughter and warmth it had provided, and we drove away.
Then we came back so I could leave the garage door opener for the new owners. And then we really left.
In less than two weeks, we'll be in Florida for Christmas. And in 25 days, I'll be living in France.

Me looking happy because I'm in Frane

The sun rising on a new beginning of my life in France. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Dreaming of France -- Goodbyes

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

The goodbyes have begun and it's only my dream of the upcoming life that keeps me going.

Market day in Pezenas, France

We gathered at my house on Friday night with members of the writing group bringing dishes to share. Tomato bisque soup, macaroni and cheese, chicken salad croissants, taco salad, cabbage salad, buffalo chicken dip. Wine and some more wine. And at the end of the evening, hugs and goodbyes.

Writer's Group -- one last hurrah. 

I'll see them again, most of them in the coming weeks. 

Then yesterday, a gathering at my sister-in-law's house with the nieces and nephews. I hugged Ben goodbye. He lives in Dayton finishing his PhD. "I won't see you again," I said. "Not until you come to France."

The great nieces and nephews treat Tucker like a climbing apparatus. 

Benjamin is 2. He won't remember me, except as the aunt who lives in France. 

My boys spending some time outside with their Aunt Shelley --
she may be a bad influence, but they enjoy spending time with her. 

It's all becoming very real.
Then Sunday, after working this weekend to move Spencer out of the house and into his new place,  we took a break from packing to go to a gathering of homeschool friends. It seems silly to say homeschool friends since none of us teach our kids at home any more. Most of our children are in college or graduated from college or working on graduate degrees. Maybe we did something right after all.

Laughs and love with long-time friends.

And for a few hours, we caught up on each other's lives and laughed at memories. I won't see many of these friends again until we revisit the U.S. or they journey to France.

The hugs goodbye were long and accompanied by a few tears.
It's only going to get worse, building toward a crescendo where I must say goodbye to my children and my parents in order to make my dream of living in France come true.

View of Mont Sainte Victoire from Aix en Provence.

I hope I've chosen wisely.

Dreaming of France -- Visa Adventure

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Well, I'm not going to try to build up any suspense. We traveled to Chicago this week and applied for our Visa.
Chicago is about five hours away from us, but it is where we needed to travel for our in-person interview to request a long-stay visa. In general, Americans don't need visas to visit France for three months or less, so we've never had to do this before.
We spent the night with some old friends who live about 20 minutes outside of the city. We took the train in early Thursday morning. Our appointments were not until 11 and 11:10 (we both had to have appointments), but we just commuted when our friend went to work at 8 a.m.

That gave us time to find a place for breakfast.
We were lured into a place that had a chalkboard sign that read "Homemade pastries" but when we got inside, I asked where the pastries were and they had none. What they had instead, was a breakfast buffet that you paid for by weight. Weird, huh?
Once we'd finished, we pulled out our red folder with our documents. I had put mine in order according to the list:
*an application
*a passport-sized photo (no smiling, no glasses)
*a questionaire
*my passport and a photo copy of the identity page
*a letter explaining what I intend to do in France (eat pastries, drink wine, write books)
*a notarized letter promising I won't work in France (at least not a French job)
*a letter explaining my work and showing my paystubs
*proof of means of income -- Earl's retirement savings and the income from the sale of our house
*our marriage license
*proof of accommodation (we included the hotel in Paris where we'll stay along with the two housesits in France and our friend's address in Aix en Provence where we'll go to file our paperwork)
*a processing fee ($115 cash)
*a residence form (since we plan to stay in France for more than 12 months)
*a self-addressed, pre-paid Express envelope from the post office only -- not UPS or FED EX

I also  had a birth certificate, just in case.
After breakfast, we decided to walk to the consulate, which is on Michigan Avenue, down toward the Magnificent Mile. Even though we arrived at the building nearly an hour early, I wanted to go ahead and check in. I felt nervous, jittery.
Earl suggested we get something to drink at the Starbucks on the second floor, but I wanted to head to the 37th floor to the French consulate. So he acquiesced.
The information desk gave us a pass to get through the gates to the elevators. We were supposed to scan the pass and glass doors slid open to let us through. But I scanned my pass and the doors turned red, but I pushed on them anyway. Suddenly, a loud blaring noise rang out and a man with a walkie talkie came rushing toward us calling, "Step back."
They'll never let me into France now, I thought as the man took my pass and scanned it before allowing me through the gates.
A few seconds in the elevator, which made my ears pop as it zipped up to the 37th floor, and we stepped off into France.

Proof that we were in the right place.

Here's me in those same chairs.

A young man, who was returning to the office, told us we should put our passes in a deposit window, like a bank. The two women behind the windows lined up the passes, probably in order of people's appointments.
The office was very small with a television mounted in the corner. It played French food shows the whole time we were there.
A man and two children were there when we arrived, and another man, French, jumped ahead of the line to get his passport, but almost everyone else there was a student getting a visa to study abroad. And the majority of those students were Asian. Perhaps they were studying in the U.S. and wanted to do a study abroad, or maybe they came from countries that needed a visa to visit France.
At a little after 11, the younger woman motioned me up. She didn't try to pronounce my name, but her microphone wasn't working so we hadn't been able to hear her all morning anyway.
I pulled out the packet of papers and asked whether she wanted all of them.
Yes, she nodded. So I slide the inch-thick stack through the window and she slowly went through each one.
She handed me back the extra passport photo and my birth certificate, and the envelope that my $115 cash was in.

Earl took a picture of me standing at the window as I supplied my papers. 

Then she asked to get my fingerprints. They had a machine that didn't require ink or black-tipped fingers, but it was quite contrary. It took several times and kept beeping at me as I tried to get the machine to light up for all four fingers, and then the other hand and then both thumbs.
While we were there, no one else had to do the fingerprint machine. It must only be for people planning to move to France.
The woman then nodded and said I could send my husband up. So Earl replaced me and supplied all of his papers. After his wrangling with the fingerprint machine, we were free to go.
Some of the students applying didn't have what they needed, so the workers had sent them out to get things like cash for the fee or envelopes for mailing the visa. We had all our documentation, so that's a plus.
Earl picked up my coat and held it for me. As I slipped my arms in, I saw the French woman behind the window smile at us.
She thinks we're cute, I thought. Then I wondered if she thought there was no way we were getting a visa to move to France.  
Just because we had all the right forms does not mean that they'll let us move to France. I think our odds would have been much better if we had closed on our house and could show them a bank statement with $150,000 in it. But the closing is not until December and the visa can take a month to arrive. We couldn't risk waiting.
So now we'll check the mailbox starting next week, hoping our visas arrive.
I didn't think about it until recently, but we left our passports there, along with our marriage licenses. I hope we get them both back.

We left the building after pausing for pictures in front of the French flag and their new president 

Happy

Earl and Emmanuel

before we walked to the Nutella cafe across the street. I'm sure it was strategically placed close to the French consulate.

Nutella oveerload

Earl had a Nutella and banana crepe while I had a berry pastry that I didn't realize would be drizzled in Nutella. I think I'd have preferred it without Nutella, but we celebrated because we were a step closer to making our dream come true, where we can eat really pastries without Nutella on them.
Vive la France!
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Dreaming of France -- Two Months and Counting

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Everything is back on track for our move to France.
We're scheduled to sell our house in early December, live with friends for a few weeks until we finish work, and then head down to Florida for Christmas.
From there, we'll fly to Paris.
Of course, things could fall through, but I have to be hopeful that things will workout and soon I'll see Paris again.

This is the Pont Alexandre III, a bridge over the Seine.
We stayed on the bridge until these lamps were lit. 

Here I am in the Jardins du Luxembourg soaking up the sun. 

Even the clouds are romantic in Paris.  How dramatic.

I've never been in Paris during January, so that will be a new experience. It might be cold, but I have a beautiful gray wool coat with a full skirt and a black faux-fur collar. Plus, if we get cold walking, we can stop inside Laduree for a cup of tea and a pastry,

or even Angelina's for some of their famous hot chocolate.
And the best thing about our move will be that we won't be rushed. We'll have days and weeks and months to explore France.
Thanks for cheering me on as I continue this uphill journey to uproot our lives and settle in France.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Dreaming of France: That Part of the Novel Where the Heroine Sees Her Dreams Going Up in Smoke

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Was it less than two weeks ago that I joyously made our plane reservations for THE TRIP to France? The trip that would change our lives? The one where we packed all of our belongings in a few bags and moved to start a new life?
I carefully picked out a 4-star hotel in Paris where we would spend a few nights before journeying into the countryside to begin our first housesitting job.
And in the span of a fortnight, those plans have crumbled like so much blue cheese.
Our house fell out of contract on Friday because the buyers could not get their financing.
We urged the real estate agent to get the house back on the market, even though she had told us before that people plan their weekend house viewing on Thursdays. We were a day behind, but we needed to get out there.
I had run six miles that morning, reaching my daily step goal by 8 in the morning, but after work, I never sat down. I came home and headed straight into the backyard to pull dying plants from the dirt and to rip the morning glories from the trellis where they had flourished all summer before beginning to wither. I knew how they felt.
I swept walkways and cut back ivy that had grown toward the sidewalk. My steps reached over 30,000 that day as I madly tried to outrace my worries.
Would we be able to move to France? What about our appointment in Chicago to meet with the French consulate? Would Earl have to continue working rather than retire so we could pay our mortgage?
When he came home, we began to talk of a shorter trip to France where Earl would return home after three weeks while I stayed in France to meet our housesitting commitments.
The concerns whirred in my brain as I made a family dinner that night, drowning my sorrows in a few glasses of port and sharing the stories of how we first came to drink "porto" as they call it in France when my friend Delana and her then-boyfriend Patrick recommended it as an aperitif. I loved the sweet tanginess of it.

I don't recommend turning to alcohol to drown sorrows, but felt I had definitely earned it with my 30,000 steps and the view of my France dreams in a downward spiral.

We'd have to cancel Christmas plans in Florida with my parents if Earl didn't retire. He'd need to work the days between Christmas and New Year. How would Earl get to Florida for our flight? Should we change it? 

Should we cancel our appointment for a long-stay visa if we weren't going to be able to move?

I ran six miles again the next morning before my final Saturday morning class --  or was it? Would I be teaching in Columbus again in 2018 if we didn't move to France?

When I returned from class, I found Spencer sitting on the couch holding a heating pad to his ear. A sore throat and blossomed into an ear infection. 

A notification arrived on my phone. A showing on Sunday at 1 p.m. Ok, 24 hours to get the place shipshape.

Then at 2, another notification - approval requested for a 4:15 showing.

4:15? Two hours away. 

Spencer thrashed on the couch, fever making his eyes glaze. "Please tell them I'm sick. Just let me sleep?" he begged. 

I pointed out that he needed to do nothing but stumble over to the neighbors where he could continue to lie on the couch -- she's a good neighbor. 

Earl and I work feverishly to get the house in showing shape. 

A second showing that afternoon, at 4:30, flashed onto our phones. Glad we hadn't turned down the earlier appoint, we hung white towels, shook out a white comforter, straightened fresh flowers, and lit a candle in a freshly carved jack o' lantern on the front porch. With a sprinkle of peppermint and rosemary essential oils on the light bulbs, we abandoned the house and crossed our fingers. 

Two more showings loomed on Sunday.  

I raced to the garden store and bought some purple and orange pansies. Earl carved two more jack o' lanterns. I mowed the backyard and meticulously staged the house again before we deserted the house for the afternoon. 

We visited my brother about an hour and a half away, forgetting about our troubles and hoping for the best. Around 7, we returned home, and just minutes ago got an email with an offer on the house. 

So, this is that part of the novel where the heroine sees the sun rising and realizes she can't give up on her dream. That's me tonight, and by tomorrow, I could be in contract again. 

Thanks for your well wishes, your good karma, your prayers. 

I'm not giving up. Here's the song I've been singing all day:

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Dreaming of France -- Packing

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Today on Facebook, I posted a picture of the three suitcases I'll be taking to France.
That's all I plan to take to begin my new life.

One of my Facebook friends asked why we didn't simply ship boxes overseas. We will have some boxes stored in my brother's basement and another friend's basement, but I've read enough horror stories about shipping items to France that never arrive, that I wasn't even tempted to pay for boxes that I might never see again.
Face it, anything that I am keeping, I'm not willing to risk mailing in a questionable system.

Another issue about mailing boxes is that we don't have a permanent address yet. Where would I mail them to?
Most shipping services don't give upfront prices for mailing overseas, but the one that does would charge $169 for a 66-pound box or suitcase, and it makes no guarantee that anything breakable would arrive in one piece.
I've been looking at the China cabinet today trying to decide what we might want to keep. We plan to move the China cabinet to my sister-in-law's house next weekend. She says she'll hold onto it until Grace wants it.

The cabinet is full of highly breakable things.
Our gold-rimmed China that we received for our wedding has been used so rarely, that I feel no compunction about getting rid of it. 

Grace has chastised me, but she didn't offer to keep it. So I'll find some place to donate it.
I have so many wine glasses and liquor glasses. Many of them are from Mom and Dad's wedding, so I want to keep those, although I'm not sure how I'll ever get them to France.
I also have a lovely Laura Ashley tea set I'd like to take along.


A friend gave us a Limoges tea (coffee?) set as well for a wedding present that I would love to have in France.

But is it silly to take a French tea set back to France? Could I just as easily find ones I like that at an inexpensive price?

Once the China cabinet is cleaned out, I have things like quilts that would help me start a new life in France. Mom has made quilts for nearly every occasion, and I hate to be parted from any of them.
I may look for some of those compression bags that squeeze down items in hopes of taking a quilt or two along.
Other than clothes, toiletries and my computer, I don't anticipate needing a lot. We'll be housesitting so the houses will be outfitted. And when we buy a new house, hopefully it will be furnished. If not, we'll have to furnish it by visiting the local flea markets.
I know many people ship boxes of books to France, and I hate to be parted from books I love, but luckily, we live in a world where I can download books onto my phone and read them. I love always having a book with me on my phone.
So for now, before I actually begin packing, I think I'll have plenty of room in my three suitcases. We'll see if I still think that three weeks from now as we prepare to begin our vagabond lifestyle.
And when people from Ohio come to visit us in France, I fully expect them to pack a wine glass or two to bring along as we slowly fill up our cabinets in France. 

Dreaming of France -- Like Dominoes

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Aargh! My life is too crazy. Every week I forget about my Dreaming of France meme until I see that Sim has already posted hers and is waiting for me.
I wonder what could be distracting me?
This weekend, I started to feel some anxiety as I realized everything that has to be accomplished for us to move to France in about 86 days.
So the house is in contract. The final hurdle is Tuesday when the appraiser comes. If that all goes well, we close on the sale of our house in early November, and I have already scheduled our appointment with the French consulate to apply for a long-stay visa.
So my mind whirrs with the thoughts of:
Whipping the house back into staged shape before the appraiser arrives
Cleaning out the house once the sale is final
Helping Spencer find an apartment
Moving ourselves out and in with friends for a temporary stay
Collecting all the necessary paperwork for our French Visa
Finding affordable plane tickets and places to stay during our first days in France
Leaving the kids behind

That's all. Nothing much else going on in my brain, except beautiful dreams of how lovely our life will be in France if we can get everything else under control.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Dreaming of France - Cooking in France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

I haven't cooked very much in France because I enjoy visiting restaurants while we travel, but once we live there, that will have to change.

Like many people my age and older, I have amassed a number of cookbooks but I can't imagine moving them to France. 

My friend Sheila pointed out that I probably rely on recipes on the web more than cookbooks anymore. And she's right, but there are some favorite recipes that I want to take along. 

That's why I came up with my solution of taking pictures of recipes and bringing them along in my computer. 

Last week, I started the process. 

This recipe has seen a lot of use. It's in a cookie cookbook that belonged to Earl's sister. 

My Southern Living cookbook is also well loved. 

The muffin recipe is hardly legible anymore, and it isn't even my favorite muffin recipe any more.

This apple cider and soy sauce turkey breast is surprisingly tasty. 

Even as I choose which recipes to capture, I'm wondering what I'll do with the cookbooks once I'm finished. I just can't picture throwing them out even though I'll have all the information I need.
I can't really expect one of my kids to take on these mottled cookbooks, can I?
It's another dilemma I didn't expect to face as we prepare for our move to France.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Dreaming of France -- Sunny Montpellier

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

There are updates on our plans to move, but I've had a trying weekend, so I'm going to soothe my frustration by just sharing a few photos of France.

We spent just a morning in Montepellier, but look how beautiful and swept clean it is. 

We found a cafe for coffee and tea. The waiters were preparing for lunch, so they were herding
the coffee drinkers into the tables without umbrellas. Luckily,  we got there in time to find some shade. 

This was an unusual building that we saw in the center of Montpellier,. The librarie sauramps is a bookstore and then the tiered building above it is an Ibis hotel, which is a chain in France. 

 You can see that it was a beautiful sunny day. I can't wait to return and have more days like this.
Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your link below and visit each other's blogs to share your love for France.

Dreaming of France -- Something Beautiful on the Horizon

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

You all know that I have had quite a week, but that doesn't mean I'm not still dreaming of France. 

It's getting closer, our dreams, and pieces are still falling into place. I'll fill you in when I can, but for now, here's a sunset out of our B&B window in Mireval, France, close to Montepellier. 

And here's a sunrise from our B&B in Quillan.

The days keep passing; the sun rises and the sun sets, and as each day passes, we get closer to making our dreams come true.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your link below and visit each other's blogs to share your love for France.

Dreaming of France -- Roses

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

When Earl and I were traveling in May, we drove through a charming town that was wreathed in roses.
We stopped and took some pictures in Camon, France.

 A sign as we drove into town let us know that it celebrated a rose festival, and we soon saw why.

 Nearly every building had a waterfall of roses cascading along its front wall.
I didn't know anything about Camon, but when I looked it up, I learned that it is known as Little Carcassone, which is a famous walled city that we also visited. Apparently Camon first began in 923, growing up around an abbey. It was destroyed by a flood in 1289 and then rebuilt.

 But the things that caught our eyes were the roses. This used to be a big wine growing area, and the roses were planted as an early warning sign. If the roses began to show disease, then the vintners could try to protect the vines, according to Francethisway.com.

The area doesn't have a lot of vineyards anymore, but the roses remain, like a woman adorned in her finest jewels, they drape the city.
Next time we drive through, we're definitely stopping to explore a bit more.
And how long will it be until we are in Camon, France again. Maybe not as long as you think.
Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your link below and visit each other's blogs to share your love for France.