This past week in Languedoc was a bit different. We were invited to two lovely French homes, and enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of our guests, old friends and new ones.

On Tuesday, we were very surprised to receive a phone call from the lovely man we met the Saturday before at the Romeo and Juliet production. He called to invite us to "prendre un verre" at his vineyard estate on Wednesday night. Of course we accepted "volontiers" (willingly). This estate has been in his family for over 200 years, and his mother and father remodeled it extensively when they took it over in 1988. It's out in the country between our new town, Laurens, and Magalas, one of many old "Bastide" towns (medieval towns built on a hill) in the region.

We arrived at 6:30 Wednesday evening, and were re-introduced to all the family (Mom, Dad, Hubert and his wife, his brother and his wife, and a sister, plus all their children). We were seated on a terrace overlooking their "parc", a maze-like arrangement of plantings. We chatted for about an hour when it started to rain (only the second time this whole summer!), and they invited us inside to what we would call a family room, and we continued to get acquainted. Hubert and his wife live in Paris. He works for Rothschild and she works for a large company who owns several electric companies. The other brother works in the wine industry and they live in Nice. The parents live full-time in Montpellier, and spend 5 months of the year in this lovely house, quite near our new house in Laurens in Languedoc. They were most gracious, and seemed to be interested in our choice of regions in which to live. Hubert mentioned several times that we are not ordinary Americans. We're not sure what he meant by that!

Our next invitation "en famille" was to the summer home of our old friends Benedicte and Michel. Benedicte lived with us when our children were 2 and 5. She and her husband Michel live most the year in a small village near Montpellier. He was the former marketing director for"Le Petit Marseillais", a large company dealing with soap and lotion products, now acquired by Johnson and Johnson (for whom he still consults). She is an accomplished artist (abstract), and sells her paintings (see several in the album) in Paris and other places. Over the years, we have exchanged children for summer stays. Each summer we're in France, we see them at least twice, and it's always an adventure. We drove up to their house on Saturday.

Their summer home is as lovely as their full-time home, but has a totally different atmostphere. It's located in "L'Aveyron", a province to the north and west of us, on a high plateau. This house was originally a school run by nuns, where, due to the harsh winters, children boarded. So the upstairs rooms, which they've just renovated into bedrooms, were dormitories. I don't know how many people they can sleep there (at least 7 bedrooms), but I do know they are always full to the brim with houseguests.

They bought this house 26 years ago, and have added to it and improved it considerably. The wonderful thing about it is that you can't tell what's been added! It all goes together so well. I've included a series of pictures, outside and inside, on our album called "Chez Benedicte et Michel". We had a lovely lunch on their newly finished terrace with Michel's sister and 2 of their 3 children, and after a stroll, were introduced to some of their neighbors who live in a chateau nearby. He's French and she's from upstate NY. Their full-time residence is in Tahiti. Not a bad life!

The rest of the weekend was devoted to the usual "ballade", this time quite near Lunas (see our album Lunas if you're interested) and 2 movies, both in theaters whose air conditioning (we're in the middle of a heat wave here) is not exactly super. Sunday evening we had the Mediterranean Sea as our backdrop in a small town called Balaruc-les-Bains.

This week we're packing up the house! Our Swedish couple have returned the signed contract and the deposit for our house in Campagnan, and we're proceeding with the purchase of our new home in Laurens. It's been quite a summer! We are thrilled with the idea of exploring the view from yet another terrace next summer!

We head to Aachen, Germany next Tuesday, to check out Charlemagne's chapel. Then on to Paris to meet our Swiss friends Ruth and Hans.

Aug. 31, we head back to the good old US, stopping in Chicago to see our families. We hope you are all healthy and enjoying a great summer.Thanks for checking in with us on this silly blog.

Love, Elise & Les