The Little Words Mean the Most

Saturday morning marché followed closely by Saturday noonday lunch. Dinner with "poverty chicken"? Not so good so far

 

OK!

 

We have this 19th-century house in the Occitanie, south of France.

 

It has a fancy-pants self-cleaning oven of some French make.

Or Belgian. Or Venusian.

 

The oven door locks while incinerating interior spills. We were hoping to reheat our roasted chicken purchased at the outdoor marché in that oven. So I took charge of the inscrutable controls. And now the oven door is firmly locked. Incinerating. On the 2nd hottest day of the century in France. And no setting will release it.

We have the microwave as back up. And air conditioning.

Nobody likes me anymore.

All things finally hung and done

 

 

 

That old trope?! Doors of Pézenas

 

A last day's winter's walk through neighboring Pézenas

 

 

 

Today's cutification attempts

 

 

 

It took some online learnin', but we now know how to hang stuff on our old French brick walls (the material that came before drywall). It requires a special kind of screw (deep thread, with a hanging cuff at one end). Two masonry drills (pilot with the smaller, then expand with the larger; this prevents wholesale plaster cracking). A plug-it-in heavy-duty hammer drill instead of a rechargeable polite-society drill. A level. Pencil. Measuring tape. And an attentive assistant (the hard part).

 

And for dessert tonight from the Red Door Bread Store

 

Made some progress in the kitchen

 

 

Celebrating the liberation of Paris 1944 on an armoire

 

In the Blue Room, the second bedroom; pegged down using red, white and blue thumbtacks

 

What, your town doesn't have a gilder?

 

Neighboring Pézenas is a treasure trove of artisans, including the German who gilds everything and anything. For example: natural objects, gilded, bronzed, coppered and silvered, to re-emerge as holiday ornaments. We bought out the rest of her stock.

Just hanging

 

This morning's trial by nail and level (guess who just spilled a box of formerly sorted screws on the floor)....