Neighbours

Mme Lucie (another Lucie), and our neighbour invited us in for an apero at lunchtime and had opened a bottle of white and rose, as well as trying to make Malcolm have a whiskey. It was interesting to see her house as I think it was built at around the same time as ours. She has also promised to speak only French to Malcolm when he is here on his own (she only speaks French anyway). Her husband was a racing driver and they moved from Paris with her daughter in 2000. She knew the previous owners and used to help them every day. We also had a chat to Jerome who owns the mill under us by the river and the land at the front of us. He was very charming and seems fine, despite the fact we know he tried to gazzump us on the house but thankfully the owners stuck to their side of the deal. Lucie says he speaks good English and I think he has an English girlfriend but he didn't let on and it's good practise for us anyway. He's got an old black lab called Paco, who staggers around the hamlet saying hello and hoping for biscuits. We seem to have been lucky with our neighbours so far!

There was good news and semi good news on the "stuff" from the house. The good news was that an old dirty picture we bought for 10 euros turns out to be by quite a well known artist from the turn of the century so it deserves a bit of a dust down. The semi good news is that we still don't know what to do with, or how to move the "range" the owners kindly left us (as they couldn't get it out of the kitchen).  Any ideas on what we can do with it gratefully received.

Bourdeilles is coming to life. May 1st is a holiday when they give lily of the valley and Mme Lucie had left us a bunch when we were in the barn, which was sweet. We went to a really remote restaurant and new hotel with Lucie and Etienne, near St Jean de Cole, where they make their own goats cheese and had a very gourmand menu, and really tasty. The proprietor showed us some designer bedrooms he's spent a fortune on and we hope it works for him, so will make an excuse to go again later in the season.