Week Four Already! Happy Bastille Day to all of you! We are very happy to say that our "cuisine d'ete" is done and we are using it. The English Plumber (Stefan is his name) arrived on schedule last Monday morning, and did a super job locating the pipes so he could install the "evacuation" drain from the terrace into the shower drain below. He was in and out of here in about 6 hours, and left feeling quite proud of himself. The sink had water running in and OUT o...

Salut, tout le monde! Les and I hope you all had a very happy 4th of July! We certainly did. We let it go right by us, doing our normal things: Les did a few business things and I painted another room. We are getting somewhere with this house. Today, Monday, July 8, our English Plumber is here, working on the evacuation (drain) for the summer kitchen sink, on the terrace on the 4th level. He's draining through the shower. So far, so good. I've taken some "in p...

It's already the first of July! The month of June is a blur, and we're very happy to be done with the move-in process here in Laurens. We turned the corner on Saturday, with a trip to Bezier to return items we bought and couldn't use. Now we feel settled in, and spent Sunday exploring and hiking, one of our favorite pastimes here in Languedoc. But first, a recap of housing adventures. As you all know, we love our terrace (see pictures in our album "Week 2 Settl...

Salut de Laurens and our new "View from the Terrace"! We are so pleased to be back again in Languedoc! We arrived Tuesday, June 18, and dug right into our new house. Roland, our French carpenter, had worked on it intermittently throughout the winter, and now it has a new parquet floor on the first floor, and a new kitchen as well. We still have some organizing to do to feel totally at home, but we are very pleased with our house, our view, and our new village. O...

We are, after a lovely summer "en France", en route for the USA. We are so lucky to have been able to experience another summer in France, but we are also happy to be going home to our "real life" as well. Tuesday was "move out day". It's a little bizarre to move out, while leaving all your stuff there for someone else to manage. This requires boxing up everything, including lamps, mirrors, and art work, which normally in our American moves, I transport myself. ...