Wednesday 10.20.2010


Striking Out


The French general strikes are growing in intensity today and to get with the program we throw a couple rocks at each other and light a tire on fire. Our plan was to spend the day in Bordeaux, the area's major city, but since the most active protests are in the larger cities we opt to stay rural. It's a lovely cool sunny morning and Mary produces a collection of wrapped cookies and cakes and an apple for breakfast. Nutrition at its finest. We check with Monique, GPS chick, for our ETA at our next destination and it will be less than an hour from our departure so we decide to hang out in St. Emilion until after lunch.

We explore all of the town's back streets that we haven't seen before and wind up with some pretty cool views and places to poke our noses into. We stop at the Maison du Vin and pick out a couple bargains that we think will be good for us. We can't taste anything here so we look for the bins with the most bottles missing thinking that somebody must have like these choices. Very scientific.


Since we liked lunch yesterday we go back to the same place again today and find a similar table outside in the sun. Mary has the Galette today with chicken, tomatoes, basil and cheese and John picks the ham, cheese and mushroom omelet. Both are good again so we don't mind repeating.


We still have time to kill since our checkin for tonight is 3:00 PM so we do the slow back road drive looking for some reason to stop. When we get to La Reole we are only ten minutes from our destination with two hours to kill. We walk the town from bottom to top, check out the big church and try to find a different way back to our car. Fortunately we get lost on the twisty riverside streets and it takes forever to find the car and we arrive at our B&B, Le Tuillerie, at ten-to-three. Voila.


This is an unusual stop for us. First of all, we're out in the country miles from anything and surrounded by sheep and goats. Secondly, we are immediately absorbed into the family of Mom Alison, Dad Johnny, Son Ben, Daughter Georgie, and dogs Tom, Scooby and Fudge. John gets a kiss on both cheeks from 15 year-old Georgie and Mary gets the same welcome from 16 year-old Ben. They are all transplanted Brits and all naturally bilingual. Alison tends the B&B, kids and dogs, and Johnny flies an ambulance helicopter in London with a few days on - few days off commute. The property is exactly what you would hope to find with a couple outbuildings, plenty of garden and a pool through an arbor off the kitchen. We take a long walk up the local road stirring up a bunch of neighbor dogs twice, once going and again coming back, and then it's down for a long nap.

Alison prepares dinner tonight (pumpkin soup, Moroccan chicken, cheese plate, chocolate gateau) and joins us and French guest Claude (who we keep calling Gordon (?) at the table. We have a raucous evening of slurping multiple pitchers of wine with Alison translating for us to and from Claude until Claude goes to bed, and then we are joined by Johnny which gets the political discussion rolling well into the evening. We tend to agree mostly, hopefully dispel some misconceptions (why is everyone in America over-religious, gun-toting homophobes? Hmmm!) and will forget it all tomorrow. International relations are hard work.


An easy blog on an easy day. The crisp country air and pitchers of wine makes for a coma like sleep.

Today's weather: Sunny and cool. Low 38, high 60.