José el Bloggo!

Tuesday

We’re all off to Ampus this afternoon. Probably no updates for at least a week.

Keep your comments coming tho’. Ciao.

Monday

Anne-Marie & Christian and their daughter, Jean over for lunch … joined by Sylvia.

After the mandatory late-afternoon nap we headed to Colias to do the "crepe thang" again … joined by Bébert and Caroline.

Sunday

Post-party fuzziness countered with two Alka-seltzer’s and a visit to the local café (the only café … the Black Cat). Noticed Carmen was up before us, but with darker sunglasses than me. Goodbyes to Nicole with a promise to come back for her housewarming in October or thereabouts.

Blasted back to Uzès with Jean-Yves outdoing himself by passing 3 Swiss slow-pokes on a curvy road. That sort of thing gets your appetite up!

By noon we were back at his scrublands place where I set to making the pizzas. Benj and J-Y handled the wood-fire oven and by mid-afternoon we were in pizza heaven! I’ve DREAMED of making home-made pizzas in an authetic oven like here … they were delicious and it’s a great convivial feast (pics to come).

Evening found us for dinner at Nicolas’s gare - 9 cats, 1 dog and a 12 humans. We had a super chicken tandoori and molto vino.

Saturday

Have redecided to go to l’Ardèche after all. Only an hour away and a chance to see Nicole and a bunch of friends who will all be at Olivier’s 40th birthday party.

Mid-afternoon after a short hour of twisty country roads we arrived at the village of Saint-André-de-Cruzières - we immediatley went to see Nicole at her tabac/poste/presse and extracted her to the bar across the street: the infamous Black Cat Café (now run by Tati Lo - the irascible former owner having returned to Spain).

The party was great - a small group of 150 close friends of Olivier and Laurent - we ate well, drank better, danced and listend to super musicians - there was even a sort of floor show. Since we have to be up early Sunday we turned in around 4am (just us, the others kept going to dawn - to judge by the music we could still hear 4 kilometers away).

Friday

Part of the morning spent stacking firewood with J-Y and Sylvia’s father (who only speaks German). Neither J-Y or I are very Deutschophone; all I picked up was that he kept grumbling "arbeit, arbeit".

Afterwards I retested the "free" (for now) telephone calling software (hi Rob, hi Reginald). See my comments on voipbuster below.

Benj arrived here from Paris (by train, bus and foot) around noon. We’re now ready to rumble! First an open-air lunch of Provençal specialties then perhaps a siesta and the party begins (come back for details).

Well, the afternoon was actually quite tame. I went with F. and Odile to the local friperie … somewhere between "Muddling Toward Frugality" and "Small Is Beautiful" … with the added Gallic touch of that killer escargot (click on the photo and look on the left) ! As usual we found some great buys.

Dinner turned out to be not only Nina and Zat but also René & his tribe of 5 at coffee. The gang is getting bigger!

Thursday

Today, at the break of noon (we tried to get up at dawn, no go) we find ourselves at Jean-Yves’ smack dab in the middle of the garrigue just outside Uzès.

Anne-Marie and Christian (perhaps not getting enough of us at their crêperie last night) had us all over for lunch at their home in Sanilhac Sagries. I can tell it is finally the real vacation now because I’ve switched to rosé wine!

Apéro near the town center where, as chance would have it (and chance would) we ran into Nicolas (of la Gare fame, more later - see this coming Sunday’s entry mayhaps).

Wednesday

636 kilometers later we have safely arrived at Uzès … or almost. Before even getting to Uzès we stopped for dinner at the "world-famous" (or should be) Crêperie Les Caves de Collias (until 1am, ay ay ay). A final snooter of Roumanian schnapps at Jean-Yves’ place and gooooooooood night!

Tuesday

Rushing about madly with last-minute packing. Off to Montigny this afternoon and even further south in days to follow. I’ll try to add news - just perhaps not every day in "real-time" (whatever that is).

Having lunch at Geneviève’s (Odile’s godmother) in Vosves, then driving down to Montigny-sur-Loing for the night. Excellent Swedish cheese (go figure, IKEA is nearby)

Monday

Have totally squared-away my PC data (for the first time in years, it seems) and, having a bit of free cyber-time, I decided to look into a few new tools (see the comments for a list).

The one that I most enjoyed using was http://maps.a9.com/. It’s a bit like the French vesion - you visit a city at street-level via photos. The US navigation is easier, but the photos are not "full-front height" like the Paris site.

I tried two addresses (that I’ve never actually visited) of friends in Chicago and Denver (hola & salut to Cindy and Rob & Nina). It’s a funny  feeling - almost like visiting friends (when they’re not home) and then walking up and down the streets sightseeing. 

Well, that’s the mapping part. The squid part is last week’s recipe which makes a return appearance tonight. Drop by for an update in a few hours …

OK, technically it’s Tuesday … but we just wrapped up dinner. The Dirty Half-Dozen: Marc (Marco pour les intimes), who’s sleeping over here tonight on her way from Saintes, France to Olso, Norway … plus Fanchette, Benj, Denis, Odile and yours truly. In case you’re wondering the squid won (never make the same recipe in the same month) - besides we were 7 bottles of wine to the wind (while discussing the origins of Mezcal, Pisco, Aquavit and Cognac). Hic!

Nooner depart mañana … wish us luck!

Sunday

Well, we’ve finally decided we will extend our vacation a bit; besides driving down to Uzès (click on panorama for a superb view) we will also spend some time at a small village called Ampus. It looks appropriately bucolic, restful and, ohlala, SO pagnolesque … we may also pop over to the slightly larger town of Gassin to see some friends. However, the idea of zig-zagging all over the map (we’d considered hitting, so to speak, Toulouse, Agen and l’Ardèche … apologies to all those friends we won’t see this time) = just too much car-time! Mid-week departure planned …