Update

The problem with not blogging for so long, is that there is way too much to blog about so then it's discouraging and I'll never be able to catch up! 

But, after Sillygirl asked in the comments a few times, I realized that there are some loyal readers who might worry what has happened to me, so I thought I could at least share some pictures with you.

First, we are safely back in France having dodged Covid around the world, well at least in the U.S., Ireland and France, so far. 

We returned a week ago and our friends have been so welcoming and supportive, like they missed us. I know we missed them. 

My first hike back in France, this horse posed with the sunrise between the mountains. 

Our trip to the States, three months long, was too much, but we enjoyed every minute we got to spend with our sons and my parents, plus time with our siblings and nieces and nephews. Then Covid got crazy and we just hunkered down over the holidays, only seeing Tucker, who had Covid the week before we got there, and Spencer and his girlfriend. Earl's sister and her kids and grandkids all had Covid over the holidays, canceling our plans to gather. We ended up skipping out on our flight from Columbus to Florida and renting a car instead to avoid Omicron, which seemed to infect everyone, even those of us triple vaxxed. We couldn't risk taking Covid back to my parents as Dad was preparing to have his pacemaker replaced (all went well). Also, we knew if we tested positive, we wouldn't be able to board the plane back home. After three months  of staying with other people, we were ready to get home. 
But, as always, there's the terrible pull in the pit of my stomach as I say goodbye to my sons or to my parents. Leaving our sons and my parents behind is the hardest part of living in France. When I say that, I hear the scene from Love Actually when Colin Forth tells his Portuguese housekeeper and love interest that dropping her off is the worst part of his day. I find myself reminiscing about the boys' childhoods, the quick patter of their feet on the wooden floors before diving onto our bed in the morning. I see their beautiful chubby cheeks and innocent eyes. 

They're both planning trips to visit us this year with significant others, so fingers crossed that it actually happens. 

Mom and Dad both had birthdays while we visited. They're doing great and staying healthy while avoiding Covid. It's tricky these days. Luckily, their favorite thing, golf, is outdoors. 

We left Florida on a Sunday. Our flights were scheduled Tampa, New York then Dublin. We were spending a few days with Grace and Jack since they hadn't gotten home for Christmas. Jack is still waiting on his visa from the Irish government and doesn't want to leave the country in case there's difficulty returning. Grace is working on her PhD in Archeology, focusing on cultural heritage, especially our area of France. How convenient!

Our Tampa to New York flight got delayed, which meant we wouldn't make our New York to Dublin flight. My knee-jerk reaction was to get to the airport as quickly as possible so we could take an alternative flight. I stayed online with Delta the entire hour and a half drive to the airport and we only got our new flights resolved as we were leaving our rental car. At the airport by 1:30, our flight wouldn't leave til 8:30. Now we were flying Tampa, Atlanta, Paris, Dublin. I know! I couldn't believe I couldn't leave any of our five suitcases in France while we were there. 

But we made it to Dublin the next day and quickly embraced Grace. We enjoyed four nights with her and Jack, making up for our missed Christmas together. 

Daughter/dad hugs. Of course we went for a walk on the beach in Dublin.
We're so lucky to get sun when we're there. 

The countryside is stunning in Ireland, even in January. 

This climb in Bray was a good workout and had beautiful views. 

On Friday we flew back to France and our friend Derrick met us at the airport in Toulouse. It's two hours from home, but flights to the closer airport had been cancelled. 

We arrived home just in time to make it to our visa appointment. 

Since we moved to France in 2018, we have had to renew our visa every year. This is our 5th year, which means next year, we can apply for a 10-year visa or carte de séjour as they're called in France. 

After receiving our visa, we celebrated by walking about La Cité in Carcassonne. As stunning as ever.

The sky and the outer walls of the chateau

And so we're back. We've been enjoying time with friends, drinking inexpensive wine and stocking up on scrumptious pastries, along with walks and runs in the countryside. It's not a bad life.

House Update

 In less than a week, we will have nine people staying in our little house in the south of France. Yep, it's going to be close quarters, but we're trying to make sure everything is as comfortable as possible. The only guest from outside France we've had come to stay with us was Tucker who arrived in October 2019 when the house was still a construction area. And Grace and Jack who stayed for five months last year during Covid as we continued to work on the house. 

Now, most of the rooms are not just livable, but comfortable. 

The kitchen has been our favorite room since it was initially finished. We gather here with guests most of the time, the scene of much delicious food and camaraderie. One thing that changes in the kitchen is the artwork as it gets updated based on items we find in France or in the States. 

Our homey kitchen

From the other corner, looking into the living room, with Louis Catorze featured in the center

The living room is getting more comfortable with two leather couches, a bookshelf, and the television attached to the wall now. 

View from beyond the stair case. Louis again!

Our downstairs half bath, that's what we call a bathroom that has a toilet and sink, but no shower or bathtub, is completed. There's no getting around the electrical box in there, but it looks 100 percent better than it did now that it has shiny gray and white tiles on the floor, a corner sink and a niche for decorative items. 

Don't put on too much weight to fit in this toilet!

The tiny sink and the table with hand towels. The electrical box in the way. 

The bedrooms and guest bathroom have been finished for quite awhile, but they both were missing artwork. As we moved art around in the kitchen, we relegated some items to the upstairs bedrooms. We also found some French-type art in the Troc in Carcassonne. One painting reminded me of the book Madeline "In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines...”

The guest bedroom ready for our guests, now with artwork. 

The guest bathroom from the vantage point of the shower!

Looking the opposite direction. That's not Louis rolled up by the shower, that's a rug. 

Our bedroom with French doors that lead to the office

The office where I teach and the French doors that lead out to the terrace. 

The terrace is perfect for breakfast for two. 

With the artwork hung in the bedrooms, Earl spent a few days cleaning the room at the end of the house that we call the cozy room. It ended up with a lot of the construction debris, myriad paint cans, tools, copper pipe, frames for dry wall and one unused radiator. He emptied it out and we plan to put a curtain over the fireplace so the things we're storing inside won't be so obvious.  

The cozy room has a futon, but it also houses our washer, dryer and water heater. 

So two bedrooms and a futon, that's 2, 4, 6 places to sleep, a double mattress on the floor in the office, there's 8 and someone can sleep on the infinitely comfortable couch in the living room. 

The stays only overlap by three nights as Tucker and a friend arrive July 6 and leave July 11. Grace, Jack and friends arrive July 8 and leave in shifts in the coming weeks. But they'll all be here for the Tour de France as it ends in Quillan on July 10. 

I try not to picture people uncomfortable sleeping on mattresses on the floor, but instead think of us gathered in the garden around the table with raucous conversation as we introduce our kids and their friends to our life in France. 

The garden

The gladiolas are blooming in coral, orange, purple and white. 

The wisteria has begun its second bloom

I must remember to breath and enjoy it all. 

French Vienoisseries

 One thing that people love about France are the pastries. As Americans, we probably use that word to cover everything from croissants to Napoleons to little fruit tarts. 

Here in France, those breakfast staples like croissants or pain au chocolat are called vienoisseries. It's made using yeast or puff pastry. When we first arrived, we were so grateful for any croissant or pain au raisin, but our tastes have gotten more refined. 

The bakery up the hill has a pain au chocolat (called a chocolatine in this part of France) made in the ancient tradition -- à la ancienne -- and the chocolate is wrapped inside layers and layers of flaky puff pastry. I have a favorite bakery for pain au raisin when I go to the Esperaza market on Sundays. 

But luckily, our local bakery has some vienoisseries that you don't find everywhere. I'm sure I've written about the chausson framboises, a kind of raspberry turnover, that the baker's wife reminds me should be chausson à la framboise. I've never seen them anywhere else. 

Recently, the bakery has started making croissant chocolat. You might think this is the same as a pain au chocolat, but it isn't.

Instead, it is shaped like a croissant. It has chocolate drizzled over the top, and it has melty chocolate in the middle -- totally different from a pain au chocolat. 

Un croissant chocolat for breakfast

I stopped this morning to get a sandwich that Earl and I would share for lunch, and I saw a tray full of croissant chocolat. What could I do? I had to order one. 

The inside has creamy chocolate, unlike the pain au chocolat. 

The woman waiting on me said, "Il n'y en a plus," there aren't any more. I waved my hand toward the tray, and she realized that the baker had refilled the case with a dozen chocolate croissants. 

My lucky day.

Do you have a favorite vienosserie? 

A Near-Perfect Morning

 One thing that I have tried to learn from the time of enforced lockdown the past year is to enjoy the moment where I am.

I may not be with my parents or my kids or my friends from home, but I have some marvelous friends here in Quillan and I live in a place that is beautiful.

This morning, when I woke up and went to the bathroom, I realized that we had a rare snow in Quillan. Even though Earl was still asleep, I threw open the shutters so we could see the snow fall and cover the cars, streets and mountains. In spite of the lovely white stuff, the temperature was barely below freezing, -1 in Celcius, 30.2 in Fahrenheit. 

It wasn't long until we were out of bed and having a lovely walk through the snow and up a nearby mountain (with a gentle slope because of my injured knee). 

Snow on the palm trees too. 

Usually when we climb the mountain, there's a beautiful view of the surrounding peaks, but today the sky was gray, blocking the view and promising more snow. 

I made a snow angel.

The snow was good for packing, but Earl knows better than to pelt me with snowballs. I'm sure he wished that our sons were around for a good snowball fight. 

Snowball threats

An arch of snow-covered trees

The snow was more prevalent up the mountain and heavy enough to cover the branches. Only a few walkers and dogs had been up the path before us. 

We came upon our favorite donkey and Earl felt super guilty about not bringing him a carrot as he stood in the falling snow.

He found some dry grass and offered it to the donkey. 

When we returned home, we noticed that the snow was much more melted, but it continued to fall.

I made myself a mocha and a crumpet (Thanks, Derrick for supplying them) with apricot jam for breakfast. Work was looming, but I stayed a minute more at the table enjoying breakfast and time with Earl before I jumped in the shower to start teaching. 

And I'll take a minute to remind myself, no matter what or who I am missing today, this has been a near-perfect morning.

Compare and Contrast

On Facebook, a memory popped up showing a set of pictures from 4 years ago. The temperature was 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 Celsius), we had snow and our house’s big front window shown with Christmas lights. 

I had been scrolling through Facebook while I lay in bed in the dark with the shutters closed. I hadn't been walking or running lately after another knee injury. So I got out of bed in France and determined to take a walk and some pictures to contrast life then and now. 

Today

Baa bass black sheep

I chose a flat path that I could walk and as I rounded a corner, I heard the tinkling bells of sheep and a baa. I knew where they lived and walked around to the backyard to see two of them standing on an old concrete well. 

That’s something I never saw on my runs in Ohio.

Mountains and a river

I continued my walk and the faint pinks of sunrise still shone over the mountains. 

A closer look at that river, the Aude. 

The river continues to rush to its destination in spite of COVID-19 and confinement and curfews. 

The path not taken

This path looks so welcoming but it leads up a mountain and the path is unsteady with lots of stones, not good for my knee, so I resisted. 

Berries

The orange and yellow berries reminded me of a photo I took 4 years ago, but the berries in Ohio were covered with snow. 

4 years ago

Here's my montage from four years ago. 

The pictures from my Ohio life made me feel homesick.

My life in France is very much changed from that Ohio life. 

But the sun still decorates the sky every morning. And even though the air feels a bit cold when I go out in the morning, the temperature is in the mid-40s Fahrenheit, about 8 Celcius, which is a far cry from 14 (-10). So I may long for those days, but I probably wouldn't get out of bed and go for a run like I did on that morning four years ago. 

In every new life, you gain some things and lose some things. My goal is to be able to see the beauty of whatever life I'm in. 

Four Weeks of Confinement - So Far

I imagine that life in France isn't that different from life in the States right now. 

I go out for walks or to the grocery store. 

I huddle around the coffee truck during the twice weekly market, "accidentally" running into friends as we surreptitiously lower our masks and sip café crème in the crisp fall air. 

France has been under quarantine since October 30th. Here, it's called confinement -- con-feen-mahn. 

Our area of France, the Aude department, has had low numbers of the virus throughout, but we're surrounded by cities that have high numbers and full hospitals.

What does confinement mean? It means that every time I leave the house, I fill out a form that says why I am going out. Americans might scoff at this idea, but it does make you think twice about why you're going out and where. You also have to "certify" that you are telling the truth when you generate the form. 

So why can I go out? For 1 hour a day within 1 kilometer, I can go for a walk or exercise. I'm also allowed to go shopping -- only for essential things. The big groceries have blocked off sales of socks and underwear and books and candles -- anything the government deems non-essential, because it isn't fair to the small shops which sell those things that have had to close. Of course, people just order them from Amazon, so they've really made more business for Amazon. 

Today's package from Amazon should have a stuffed panda bear in it for Louis Catorze, our overgrown kitten, to attack

My morning walk today, frost on the ground and the sun moving toward the mountains

Today as I started my walk, I imagined sitting at the café in the main square and sipping coffee with friends. What a luxury that is. First, to gather with friends most mornings just to chat. Second, to have the time to linger over coffee and maybe a second one. To cross the square to the bakery and bring back a pain au raisin or a croissant abricot and break it apart, scattering the crumbs onto the sidewalk then shooing away the pigeons that eye the crumbs. How many mornings have I spent savoring coffee with friends?  The pocket of my trench coat still holds three little chocolate squares that come with our morning coffees - just in case of emergency. 

Another morning walk, this one along the river on flat ground. 

The last confinement, Grace and Jack were here with us. We were very careful because several people in our town had Coronavirus. We were keeping each other safe. 

This time, we aren't as careful. We see people a couple at a time, maybe coffee in our kitchen or a glass of wine in their salon. If the weather's nice, of course, we stay outside, to limit exposure even more. 

People have rebelled against this lockdown more so than the spring. 

"The numbers haven't come down," one friend lamented when we met at the grocery store to talk and shop while wearing masks. 

"But it hasn't been two weeks yet," I pointed out. It takes two weeks for the virus to stop spreading. And sure enough, on the following Friday, the numbers began to creep down. 

We had an 8-week lockdown in the spring and we had a pretty normal summer. The quarantine was worth it for the lives it saved and the feeling of normalcy throughout the summer. People in the States have been in a perpetual quarantine since March if they're being careful. 

Our area may not have needed to lockdown based on the cases, but if the whole country doesn't quarantine, the virus continues to spread and grow. 

In our "normal" summer, we skipped meals with the entire town, but we did enjoy concerts and dancing. We drank outside in bars. 

We visited castles with Grace and Jack, along with Jim and Theresa.

Stone built on stone

We traveled to Nice and Aix en Provence,

A glorious fountain

I went on a hike with my friend Claudine

 and Earl went on a hike in Spain. 

Along El Camino de Santiago

So if this lockdown of four weeks or six weeks helps us have a "normal" Christmas. Then I'm willing to stay in my house and go our for gorgeous walks, watching the fall days pass. 

And I'll also be counting my blessings. 

Another day, another view of the mountains

Literally, In My Head

 While Earl was away hiking in Spain a few weeks ago,

Cows and rolling hills in the lush Spanish countryside

I decided to do a juice cleanse -- only fruits and vegetables in juice form. Our social life revolves so strongly around food that it's hard to do most of the time in France. 

A few days in, I started to notice a dizzy, swooping feeling when I lay down in bed or when I sat up in the morning. I would pause for a few moments, get my balance, and continue on with my day.

But when the juice cleanse ended and Earl returned home, that feeling -- like I had gone airborne over a hill on a narrow road-- continued whenever I would lie down or sit up. I had a check up with the doctor planned and asked her about. As long as she could rule out brain tumor, I could live with it.

She confirmed that it was an inner-ear thing, that the fluid sometimes gets out of whack. It would go away eventually, but she printed out some exercises I could do to help it along. I took the paper and didn't examine them until the next morning when I began to do them. 

I'm good at exercises, it's kind of my thing,

New running shoes regularly

but I read through the paper in disbelief. I should do these exercises 3 times a day with 5 repetitions each time. And, I should continue for two weeks.

How long does this usually last? Wouldn't I be over it naturally in two weeks? 

I began. Sit on the bed, turn my head to the right, tilt over onto my left side and lay on that side for 30 seconds. Sit up, turn my head to the left, tilt over onto my right side and lay on that side for 30 seconds. Each time as I lay down or sat up, that swoopy feeling swamped my brain until the world righted itself. 

I managed to do it morning and evening on the first day, forgetting in the middle of the day. Then yesterday, I didn't even think about it until I lay down in bed at night and the earth took a spin around my head. 

When I sat up this morning, I thought about turning my head and tilting 30 times a day for the next two weeks. I did some feeble math in my head and got the  number 420. 420 times I would turn and tilt as the fluid in my ear reset. Wasn't this exacerbating the problem if I only normally faced it twice a day -- when I get up and when I go to sleep at night. That's 210 days to cure itself. 

Cheers after belly dancing

Oh, well, I'll probably follow the doctor's orders. I just need some kind of phone reminder to get me into the groove. And probably should cut down on social outings so I have time for all those exerciseexps.

 

Hope everything is upright in your head as we continue to go through the roller coaster that is 2020. 

Wandering Around in My Head

Fall is creeping down from the mountains into town. Here are a few shots:

The leaves are changing in front of the church tower

Everyone knows you should paint your shutters to match the fall leaves on the tree. 

Yesterday at the Esperaza market, after enjoying coffee with Jim and Theresa, Earl and I meandered toward the parking lot. A youngish woman stopped in front of me tilted her head forward and said something about "lunettes," which means glasses. She was looking down, so I looked down, wondering if she had dropped a screw to the glasses on the street below. I started to help her search when she stopped me and pointed to the glasses propped on her head. The glasses had gotten tangled in her hair. For a minute, I stood in the middle of the market  helping her free the sunglasses from her hair. It's happened to me before, so I understood the need. Sunglasses freed, we moved on toward the car. "That was weird," Earl said. "Yeah." But maybe I have a pleasant, I can help you look on my face.

This morning, I woke up early thinking of the time change. The clocks get turned back next Saturday in Europe. They don't turn back until the following Saturday in the U.S. Why should I care? Well, my schedule for teaching at VIPKids is in Eastern Time, so although the time may say 6 a.m Eastern, which would be noon for me, now the time will be 11 a.m. for at least one week. 

My schedule is in US Eastern Time, so I'm always converting it in my head. 

For week days, it doesn't matter so much, but on Saturday and Sunday I usually teach a few classes from 7-9 a.m. I was trying to figure out if I had scheduled it at 7 a.m. or 6 a.m. Translating time from France to the U.S., which is 6 hours different, can be challenging, and then I throw in Chinese time, which is 6 hours before us. My mind cannot think linearly about this. I just about get it figured out when I'm thrown into confusion again. 

The past few weeks have been unseasonably cold and rainy here in Quillan, but this week, we're having more days in the 60s and 70s, (16-22 celcius) so I'm not missing the opportunity to get out and enjoy it. I had a bad reaction to seeing myself this morning in my running clothes. I didn't want to go running. I know it's ridiculous to feel like I'm too fat to go running. Shouldn't that be a reason to go running? So I took off my jacket, put on a long sweater and went for a walk in the mountains. It's beautiful there. 

Sometimes it isn't the mountains, it's the clouds between the mountains

More clouds filling in the gaps as I crested the top of this hill. 

I hope you're finding beauty wherever you are today, rainy or clear, warm or cold.