In our area there was a 30 kilometer walk to raise money. Our friend's Robert and Rosie were going along, so we said we would join in too. This involved getting up at 6am on a Saturday morning ! I think the last time I was up that early on a Saturday was an away trip to Barnsley.
The walk was very well organised, starting in Chirac and going all the way round to Chabanais, stopping in every village along the way for coffee and cakes, and including a lunch of French Onion Soup ( or Onion soup as it is known over here) and home made pates at St Quentin, the village not the US prison.
All we had to do for all this hospitality, was make a donation of some euros and 30km of shoe leather. It was hard work, and we were a bit achy by the end of it, but it was nice to do something for the local community. Also, Saints won 4.0 that day, so I told Robert and Rosie that we would have to walk 30 K's every Saturday from now on, for superstitious reasons. Strangely, they weren't up for it next week, and Saints were held to a draw at Coventry.
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After treating ourselves to Indian ( 2 curries ), Asian (Wagamamma's) , Spanish (Morro's), German ( Birmingham Xmas Market), KFC and Italian while we were back in the UK, we thought we would try a French take-away. Living out in the sticks, there is only one take-away near us, the Pizza and Kebab shop in Roumazieres, but for Christmas and New year the charcuterie counters at the supermarkets all produce brochures full of fancy stews, little starters, bigger starters and all sorts of goodies.
With so much to choose from it took us days to make our mind up, eventually settling for the Super-U's selection, including foie-gras bruille, red mullet kebabs, langoustine cassollet, goose in perigord sauce all finished of with a chocolate pyramid. 5 courses for 40 Euros. You have to order it all in advance and go back and collect it on the day you want it.We chose Christmas Eve, which looked like a mistake when we arrived at the supermarket to find the car park packed. All the normal French good manners go out the window in situations like this. I was doing the polite thing of spotting someone about to pull out and waiting patiently until the had left the space to park up. I did this twice, and each time a French driver shot into the space from the other direction. I was on the point of driving pack home to get tooled up and sort it out the British way when we spotted a space before any of the locals. Hurrah, although technically still 2.1 to France.
Inside the shop was busy, but no worse than Waitrose on a Friday night. I waited patiently at the charcuterie counter to pick up our order, while Tina did a bit of last minute shopping. It took less than half an hour to get it sorted, waiting in line and then checking through the box of goodies to make sure it was all there. When it was all ready, we were whisked off to the main desk and passed all the queues at the check-outs. The sort of first class treatment Louis Hamilton used to get at Asda.It was all very efficient, and even had heating instructions for each dish, and it tasted lovely.
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Now onto work. We have finally got the back room ready to tile, cleaning and re-cleaning the floor and then Uni-Bonding it ready to lay.
We have now been hard at it for two weeks, and this is how it looks so far.
