At night after the kayaking excursion we hauled blankets onto the patio next to the house for an outdoor movie screening. It was the first really clear night since we’ve arrived and the stars were out in force. We chose to watch Allied, a Brad Pitt movie which I wasn’t a fan of. The stars made up for everything the film lacked.
The next day, the youngin’s piled into two cars to drive to Sarlat to pick up picnic supplies and afterwards onto the start of a short hike. We snacked on sandwiches and hazelnut liquor before starting the walk. Along the trail, we encountered a mama and baby horse combo and a field of small goats. After the recent cloudy days we welcomed the sunshine and I happily showed off my zebra-like sunburns from the kayaking the day before. We descending the side of a small gorge and passed a group of climbers.
Around an hour after our start we got to a waterfall at the bottom of the valley. There, we stretched out amongst the mist at the bottom of the falls. Eventually we walked slightly down river to a sunny, secluded spot to rest. I fell asleep on a rock within moments of laying down. Cyril strung up a hammock, and others jumped in the water while I dozed.
We continued on to an adjacent small town to get ice cream (another theme of the week) and then put up our thumbs to try to get back to the village with our cars. Within a couple minutes, two camper vans stopped to pick up our 6 person convoy. We piled into the “living room” areas of the cars before slinking along the narrow roads back to our cars.
The roads here are narrow and relatively unmarked. Blind corners are the norm, and cars hug the turns tightly. The average space between cars passing each other here would be close enough to provoke swearing outbursts stateside. Here it’s the status quo.
Dinner was sausages, cheese, and bread, and soon after finishing the food we left again to watch the sunset from the nearby town of Donne.
Today there was a mass exodus of people as Mattieu, Cyril, Marine, Martine, and Michel all left to head home this morning. Within a couple hours of the group leaving, Sylvie, another of Louise’s aunts, arrived from the Parisian suburbs. We ate lunch, and soon after I finished my book, Going Clear, about Scientology. I will post some quotes on the blog soon, but in general I greatly enjoyed the book. It’s insane what insane people can accomplish.
After they left I took a walk through the woods and a neighbors dog who resembles Chewbacca joined me.
During the afternoon we broke down a tent that had been erected outside the house and Louise and I trudged through another french lesson. I can feel that my listening and comprehension has improved dramatically since I arrived two weeks ago, but my speaking is still nearly nonexistent. As with learning any language, I’m so focused on listening and trying to follow the conversation that when the ball gets passed to me, I register that I’ve been spoken to, I rack my brain for the translation, and by the time I’ve formulated a response someone has (graciously) answered for me or the conversation has moved on. So it goes.
Laura Louise and I drove to a small lake nearby and I started a new book, Water for Elephants. Louise and I took a walk around the lake where we experimented with some somewhat goofy workout equipment strategically placed periodically around the trail.
The sound of the house is a grandfather clock that sits proudly in the kitchen. Someone in the family dutifully winds it every two days or so, and it’s bells ensure we constantly know approximately what time it is. I think it’s ironic to have such an in your face time keeper in a place where timing is largely an afterthought.
I recently decided that I’m going to try to reframe anything that appears as difficult as simply another means of making myself more capable in the future.
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