A Room with a view

We drove from Cassis to our first cottage in Puy l”Eveque without incident. Karen told us that it would take about 5 hours and 5 minutes, but it took more like 7 hours 30 minutes. Karen did a good job and took all the stress of navigation away from Fran. However, she took us on the scenic route through the back roads between Cahors and Puy l’Eveque. At places the roads were so narrow that we had to get down to second gear and we wondered what sort of backwater we were heading for. But we eventually arrived and it was a pleasant drive!

On arrival, the owners of our cottage were hanging out of the window and welcomed us warmly. They are an English couple, probably in their late 50’s and our house used to belong to his parents. The original parts of the house are 15th Century and our building was originally a number of separate houses that have been joined together. We have a cellar, then a lounge room/sitting room/ dining room, a mezzanine kitchen, through to our large bedroom with bathroom, then up to the guest bedroom, bathroom and a glassed-in sun room or au vent. Outside, we have a small courtyard garden with outdoor furniture and umbrella, adjacent to which is a vacant enclosed area with weeds and stone walls where the washing line is.

There are views from every room, but the one we enjoy the most is the view from the sitting room which looks both over the river and back towards the stone buildings on the hill behind us. Here is Adrian enjoying the river view and a glass of wine. It was taken at about 9 p.m. as the sun here doesn’t set until late.


And here are some more of the views.

The conversion to Francoise and the Pink Panther continues. Francoise bought some classy sunglasses in Canberra (with bling) and the Panther has discarded his sensible Australian Cancer Council sunglasses for more a streamlined pair that he can wear on the top of his head whenever he isn’t wearing his hat. However we must not forget that surveillance of style happens everywhere in France. It seems that, like the people of Cassis, the people in the tiny village of monitor the style of the people entering their village, and have installed a camera to take a picture of people who do not meet their standards. This camera took our picture as we drove past it yesterday. However, today we wore our stylish sunglasses (with bling) and drove slowly past the camera again (so that it could get a good look at us). It didn’t take our picture this time so we must meet their standards of style now.

We have had enormous difficulty connecting to the WiFi that has been provided in our cottage. Despite all attempts at linking to the Net we have not yet been successful and the owner is not very helpful. However we found an internet café in Cahors that enabled us to send our blogs and, yesterday, discovered a library (or Mediatheque) in Prayssac (about 5km away) that has free WiFi which we were able to use to connect to the internet and check our email.
Fran is coping very well with the language, but still has her moments! Her French faux pas so far have included the following. On stumbling across the shop where she had bought her (stylish) red leather jacket 4 years ago, she informed the owner that she had sold her jacket there, not bought it. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow at this but proceeded to try to sell a (stylish) leather jacket to Adrian. On another occasion, on checking out of a hotel, Fran spoke in French informing the lady at the desk that we were leaving. The lady asked in French whether we would be paying by cash or credit card, to which Fran replied Non. She had guessed that we were being asked whether we had used anything from the mini bar. Of course, the lady was quite surprised by this very odd response and switched to English. The Panther, too, has had his moments. On ordering an espresso, the waiter brought a beer. It seems that the name of beer is pression, which sounds similar. But the Panther said Je suis Australien, which seemed to be explanation enough, as the w