Work Day

We try to keep the house neat here but some things pile up so today is our work day.


Monique is here. Monique cleans the house for Joan. I'm working hard to improve my French conversation by talking to Monique. She can't just give in and break out in English so we have to keep at it until we understand each other.

We have coffee and tea together. So far we've mostly talked about the weather, but today we talk about our families. She has two grown sons and one grandchild who is 18 months old. I tell her about our family and then remember I've brought pictures, so I get those to show her.

I believe she told me she was a little later than usual this morning because she was cleaning the school. I ask when school starts. It's next week.

She asks me how I like it here in the village. We love it and I tell her so. She lives in the campagne (country) and likes it because it's peaceful. Yes, it is. I don't think I have the capacity to convey what it's like to be here. Perhaps someone who grew up in rural American at least 50 years ago might have some inkling, but that's still not quite it. People here in the country have all modern conveniences, internet, phones, etc. Every village has a recycling center. So it's quite modern.

Yet they often live in houses that are hundreds of years old, and just as we have a wheat field beside the library and a cow pasture behind the house two doors down, the villages and countryside have the imprint of rural life of past centuries. Pigeon cotes and stone farm buildings abound, roadside shrines for travelers appear every ten kilometers. Nearly every village has an old church, one-lane farm roads lead from one tiny village to another.

I would love for everyone to experience this, but I fear it will be swept away before long. I hope not.

Now I'm making the blackberry pie I've been planning. It's a shame I can't share these berries.