back in france

two years between posts; I suppose that's about right. We're back in France at our cottage in the Dordogne. It's been a wild year, what with major surgery on my neck and daughter Sarah getting married, at our house in Kentucky, to boot. Thanks to our next door neighbor, the house was in fairly decent shape when we arrived, albeit dusty and cob-webby. The fridge smells. I can't seem to clean everything at once, but I'll probably get it in good shape by the end of the week. We've evidently had plumbing problems and some of the plumbing needs to be re-done, but hey, that's minor.

It's cute, the view across the valley cut by the Dordogne Rive is still beautiful, the wonderful house across on the top of the hill is still wonderful, the old paper mills are still (mostly) the way they were last year...the tiny garden needs weed-whacking which will be about a 10 minute job for Phil. Jeannette next door tidied up the flower beds. It's now Wednesday, so the Lalinde big market is tomorrow. I'll get some plants for the planters, another thyme plant perhaps (that tiny rosemary plant I stuck in the ground last year is now a bush).

And a miracle occurred yesterday morning. After messing around for FOUR WEEKS last year trying to get the telephone and internet back up and running, I was worried. When we walked in on Monday afternoon I noticed that the telephone light on the LiveBox was lit, so I picked up the phone, got a dial tone, phoned home to Kentucky, and wonder of wonders, Martin (my son) answered the phone. Then yesterday morning I decided to tackle the internet setup, which in the past has been a real ordeal. I have this new laptop that I bought as insurance for $400 (last year my tablet PC's hard drive was zapped in a thunderstorm as I hadn't managed to unplug it, so I decided to bring a spare--anything we bought over here would have a French keyboard on it), and it of course has built-in wireless, so on a lark I decided to try to install the LiveBox on it wireless. Lo and behold, IT WORKED. The first time. So I'm online. It's fast, and I've decided to start a blog...

lillie