Settling in and a late lunch

We arrived at our destination – B. and J.L.’s holiday home – around 2.45 p.m. The house looked as good as it had done on the photos I had seen. In fact, it looked even better. No photos here though, as I want to respect my friends privacy. Moreover, my semi-local blogger friends have seen the real thing by now and know just how inviting and perfect the house is. B. opened the shutters while J.L. and I started to unload the car. Our ‘cargo’ contained a few low wooden crates supporting some twenty tomato plants, which J.L. had grown from seeds to knee-high shoots ready to be planted in the vegetable plot at the back of the garden.

Not a tomato plant,

 but a delicate pink flower from the poppy family

 (not the 70-ties French boy's choir!),

seen in the square at Amboise  the next day.

The house had been closed for several days and the cold and damp weather that has been so typical for this year’s spring, had seeped through the walls (no damp, don’t worry). In fact, it was warmer outside than it was inside. B. showed me around, ending with ‘my’ very comfortable room, with a private toilet and bathroom with a shower just across the hall. It almost felt like a B&B, with all the modern commodities close at hand.

While I unpacked, J.L. took their luggage up to their bedroom and put the tomato plants in the cool garage … on hold until they went into the ground, and B. cooked the spaghetti and warmed up the bolognaise sauce. We opened a very nice bottle of Saint Nicolas de Bourgeuil and sat down for a late, simple, yet very delicious lunch. We also discussed our plans for the evening. As there was no food in house, except the spaghetti which we finished because it was soooooo good, we decided to ‘hit’ the town of Saint Aignan to get a taste of the local night-life and a meal of garlic sautéed frog legs at the famous ‘Mange Grenouille’ restaurant.

Proudly I took out my newly acquired smart-phone in an attempt to show off its ‘smart’ features: click your location and find the address and telephone number of a nearby restaurant. It had worked beautifullyat home. However, here in the country, the phone searched, and searched and searched … in vain. So we had to come up with another solution if we wanted to book a table for 8 p.m.

When all attempts failed, we decided to give up and drive into town to find the required information and do some shopping for next Monday’s blogger BBQ. While B. and I did the washing up, J.L. started mowing the front lawn … five minutes later it started to rain (the last rain we would see that week) and he had to stop after ten minutes. The time it took to change … and we were off on our (first, there were many more to come) shopping spree …