The Storm

What a difference a day makes!   A scant few hours after I had finished the last blog entry we had what meteorologists call a Derecho, which consists of straight-line winds.  In our case these winds were in excess of 80 mph.  This particular front was 300 miles wide and we knew it was going to be a humdinger because we could hear the sirens from fire and police right as the storm hit us.  We stood in the front doorway and watched as these strong winds bent the trees over sideways. The rain seemed to be blowing in all directions at the same time and it was coming down hard.  The storm lasted only about fifteen minutes and we were thankful that we hadn’t had any damage or lost the electricity.  Our thanks were premature and misplaced! 

Upon waking in the night I realized that it was very, very quiet; very, very dark; and very, very warm.  Being a bit of an accomplished detective it took me only a matter of minutes to realize we had no electricity and therefore no AC.   I felt it was only prudent to get up and check to see if it was just a problem with the circuit breakers or a general blackout.  It was not the circuit breakers.  I tried to get back to sleep but it was too hot and I wanted to walk around the house to see what the damage was.  I tiptoed out of the room, got dressed and headed out to pick up the papers.  I noticed that a Bradford Pear in the neighbor’s yard had lost a large branch but that seemed to be all the damage, which I felt was pretty lucky for us.  My elation lasted until I stepped out onto the back deck. The backyard looked like a tornado had ripped through it, and in some ways it had.

We have a fence that encloses our backyard and along the street side there were six Bradford Pear trees that the previous owners had planted. These are beautiful fast growing trees that have lovely white flowers in the spring, turn red and orange in the fall, and provide tons of shade and privacy in the summer. What they don’t do well is weather strong storms. One of these Bradford Pears was literally snapped off about four feet from the base of the tree, breaking into four huge branches that each looked like its own tree when on the ground … so spread out on the back lawn was thirty-five feet of leafy green.  As the tree came down it took a large branch from another tree with it.  The winds must have been cyclonic since one of the branches somehow got turned around 180º in the air and flew right into the deck railing where it was wedged so tightly that I couldn’t move it.  Under all of this mess were various deck chairs and decorations that had been blown off the deck.  The day before I had cleaned the entire back yard and now it looked like a train wreck.

Aside from losing the tree, we have lost a lot of shade and privacy.  No one could see into our backyard before the storm:  These trees were so large and intertwined that, coupled with the fence, provided a green wall of solitude.  Now it looks more like a Mike Tyson smile!  The loss of the tree made more than a few catbirds, mocking birds, robins and wrens homeless.  They were flying all around the downed tree, mostly looking for their young.  Several of the chicks died but there are three or four hopping around being fed on the ground by their parents.  There is a link below to some photos, if it works, you can see that we tried to make the best of our misplaced cocktail area. 

I got out my trusty ten-year-old chain saw but there was no way I could get that little thing to work.  I tried changing the spark plug and filled it with fresh gas but even after I got it to start, it just wouldn’t continue to cut wood.  Therefore I went out at 8 am to get some water, coffee and a new chain saw.  There was exactly one left at Home Depot and it wasn’t one of the cheap ones.  I ended up getting an Echo 18” and two cases of half-liter bottles of water from Home Depot along with two coffees and a cobblestone pastry at Panera’s.  Refreshed by coffee and calories, I tackled the mess in the yard.  (First he drove home, and one coffee and half the pastry were for me, of course!  CCE) Meanwhile Cindy filled a very large trash bag with hundreds of small sticks that were all over the yard.  After about thirty minutes of massaging wood with the Echo, I was bushed and so was Cindy.  It was already 90° and humid and we had to call it quits.  There was really no place to cool off except down in the basement, which is really a finished mini house with a bedroom, living room, Bavarian corner with table and chairs for eating, full bathroom, theater room and fireplace.  It was still 74° there and that felt like air conditioning. We made plans to sleep there if the juice wasn’t on by bedtime.

It is amazing how much we have come to rely on electricity. One of the selling points of this house was the fact that all cables, electric lines and other services are underground.  In truth we have had little trouble with the loss of electricity, but we know that the storm went on to wipe out relay stations and transmission lines all around the DC area, well into Virginia, Maryland, and our end of WV.  We were reasonably sure that if we kept the freezer and fridge door closed, things would stay cool for a while.  I did go out to try to get ice but all of the ice in Jefferson County had been sold hours before I got around to thinking about it.  Cindy took the perishable things we knew we really would need from the fridge and assembled them in a cooler.  We had plenty of ice in the icemaker to fill the cooler - setting aside a few Ziplocs bags of cubes for cocktails, of course.

We managed to take navy showers with the remaining water and dressed in light cool clothes, but the heat had already gone past 100° and it was muggy and breezeless, so we just stayed in the basement for as long as possible to keep cool.  We assembled leftovers, drank some pineapple juice with Myers’s rum and lime, and generally decided that sweating at a picnic was normal.  Along about 9:00 pm the lights came on and you could hear a loud cheer from all the neighbors.  We ran around closing windows, turned on the AC, and checked emails while the house cooled down.  By 9:30 everything was cool enough for us to stop sweating and we were now confident that the juice would stay on for the long run. 

In the grand scheme of things all of this was just a minor inconvenience; no one was hurt nor was the house damaged.  It did give us a much better appreciation for modern conveniences as well as reinforcing my firm belief that roughing it should only refer to high quality hotels without 24-hour room service.

Ciao, Wm

The Storm

Charles Town Update

We have had three uninterrupted weeks in Charles Town, perhaps our longest stretch in three years without a trip somewhere.  It has afforded us the opportunity to do a lot of work in the yard since the weather for the most part has been quite temperate. I’m indoors now because it is 98°, muggy and bug nasty outside and will stay that way for five days, but there is plenty to do inside as well.

Italics here and there are added by Cindy!

The new garden has occupied almost all of Cindy’s time and far too much of my time.  I’m a firm believer in taking the hundreds and hundreds of dollars (he exaggerates) that go into the garden and using it to purchase fresh produce from roadside stands, which are as plentiful as fresh air around here.  Cindy on the other hand was raised around farms and still thinks that the only good vegetable is the one you handpicked in your own garden that day.  So we divide the labor, I do the grunt work while she does the hard work.  As of today, we have two Japanese eggplants and three grape tomatoes ready for picking, and we ate a nice serving of fresh peas the other night.  The beans are just days away from initial harvest and the million or so tomatoes, large, small and smaller should start coming in soon.  We have tons of herbs that we have been using almost daily and all of the flowers are in full bloom making the place look glorious.

For Cindy’s birthday I gave her two ultra romantic gifts: a self-winding hose box and a 271-liter rain barrel.  She was thrilled, really she was thrilled. (It helped that I took her to San Francisco for a week of fun and frolic, but I think I could have gotten away with just the garden toys.) I loved SF but he’s right, those gifts were perfect! I set up the hose for her and it really is kind of cool how it works.  Once extended you just flip a lever and the water is redirected to the gears that rewind the hose, like a water wheel and that water is then diverted to the herb garden via a long hose. No fuss, no muss and no wasted water.  The rain barrel was a different story. I could tell from looking at it that it was going to be a bit more work to install than the water hose, so being a well-educated man, I called up my grandson and told him I had a job for him!  Patrick is almost fifteen and quite sharp so I just presented him with the barrel and instructions and told him that I would do the grunt work and he was the supervisor/engineer/foreman/boss and that if it didn’t work, he would get the blame.  I like being able to instill real life challenges on my grandkids.

He was more than up to the challenge and I like to think it was a real educational experience for him.  The job entailed lots of thinking, measuring, leveling and plumbing and he did it all.  We had a rainstorm about three days after the job was completed and the barrel filled in forty minutes.  Cindy loves being able to get free, fresh water to sprinkle on her fruits, vegetables and flowers. She even uses it to fill the birdbath.  Since we have a need for a lot of water, I purchased another rain barrel, this one is 325 liters, called Patrick, and bingo we are all up and running and waiting for the next rain.

One of our projects was to build a mailbox garden to help beautify the neighborhood.  We live in an area that has a Home Owners Association (HOA), which is code for Dirty Rotten Nasty Nazi Dictators (DRNND) so we had to submit a request for approval to build this garden to the Architectural Review Committee (ARC) of the HOA. This request had to include a written description, diagram, measurements and building materials to be used. Cindy did all of that and we submitted the request on March 22^nd.  In late April one of the members of the ARC saw Cindy in the yard and told her that since this only involved landscaping, no permission was required from the HOA and that she could go ahead with the project.  Yesterday we received a formal letter from the DRNND, complete with a picture of our mailbox garden, telling us that we need to remove it since it is not compliant with HOA policy.  Geez, these folks have no idea with whom they are dealing!!  We’ll keep you posted.  Meanwhile here is a photo of the offensive garden.  Ciao, William

My goodness, what an eyesore!

Céret Food Report

The following is from Cindy's Guide to Fine French Food

The dining was fabulous in the many restaurants we tried and also in our apartment, compliments of Chef William (aka Guillaume).  Near our apartment was a square called “Place de Neuf Jets” (jets meaning fountain jets, and Neuf meaning nine) that had 3 lovely restaurants around – you guessed it – a large beautiful fountain.  It was the very first of April but unusually mild and we were able to sit outside in that plaza on 3 separate nights (we had to sample all 3 restaurants, bien sûr).   We also ventured forth to a few other places in town and while we didn’t take photos I always wrote about them afterwards in my little old-fashioned Filofax journal.  We didn’t take photos because we wanted to fool them into thinking we weren’t tourists.  Right.

The first evening we dined in the lovely plaza at La Fontaine (you know where it got its name) and I started with bloc de foie gras with fig jam while Wm enjoyed a lovely layered “verrine” (jar – a term loosely used here) of chevre and tomatoes.  We shared tastes of both with each other – we always do that and never order the same thing the other orders.  Anyone reading this who feels sorry for the geese that donated their livers to our dinner should know that we have watched them being force-fed in the Perigord area of France and there is no forcing – they line up! Those geese just love getting that corn pushed down their throats.  I get so weary of the bleeding hearts who put a stop to so-called force feeding geese while looking the other way at “factory” chickens, calves, cows, and other animals that are truly mistreated their whole lives.  Keep in mind that when the geese aren’t enjoying their corn they are roaming free in the farmyard. 

Oops, did I digress????  We moved on to lamb chops with frites for Wm and cod for me, both delicious – and then finished the meal with a cold Grand Marnier soufflé and a Tarte Tatin.  The service was friendly and the whole evening was divine. (Wm: we had two carafes of wine, one rosé and the other a brilliantly dry white. I drink rosé whenever and wherever I can, and the south of France is a good place to like rosé. You can assume that every meal we had out included carafes of great wines.)

Back to the fountain area the next evening where we ate at a restaurant called Le Pied dans la Plat.  [Another aside – I almost had this journal for the week in Céret finished and reported to Wm that I was missing our 2^nd night at the Place de Neuf Jets and had to recheck my journal. He didn’t remember the name of the restaurant but he immediately told me that we started with salads that were huge and then I had duck and he had scallops.  Does this guy like food, or what?]  So that takes care of that dinner report!  Once again everything was delicious, but we were outdone by the big salads, didn’t have dessert, and the duck ended up in the cassoulet that is described later in this blog.  We took the duck surreptitiously because the French are not into doggie bags – and my dearly departed father, Vern, taught me long ago to always be prepared with a plastic bag handy, preferably a Ziploc, when dining out!

The next night we ate market vegetables that Wm grilled on the not-really-that-hot electric grill on our balcony. The night after that we somehow happened upon the nearby Place de Neuf Jets again and this time ate at Pizza Quattrocento.  It looked like it might be quite ordinary but the food was wonderful – first a baked round of 

Camembert and a salade Niçoise, and then I had a pizza and Wm the Lamb Lover had lamb chops again.  Half of the Camembert and half of the pizza came home with us.  We shared Iles Flottante for dessert and toasted our friend Brent because that is his favorite dessert.

The next night Wm cooked and even though this part of the blog is meant to be a restaurant report, I must share verbatim what I wrote in my journal that night, with the title Dinner to Die For

“Wm created a cassoulet for the record books:

White beans, oui

Sausage, bien sûr

Duck, certainement

Chicken, pourquoi pas?

AND prunes – oh my.

Breadcrumbs on top – onions, potatoes, garlic too (in the casserole) – with healthy splashes of red wine and Armagnac ... must remember this for the future.”

It goes on – we had a small cheese course to finish the Fitou and Terres Anges red wines and then a strawberry tartelette.  It’s a good thing that Céret is a great area for walking and running and we were getting plenty of exercise!

The following night we walked a few blocks beyond our favorite square of fountain fame and ate at Pizza Rimini … delicious lamb fricassee for Wm (did I mention that he loves lamb?) and a pizza for me with sweet red peppers and crème fraîche.

Another night at home and then our penultimate meal in Céret, which turned out to be the best of all.  One of the truly nicer/ fancier restaurants in town was called El Bisbe – how could we not go?  We had a nice table in the corner where we could observe the other diners – we were seated next to a fun-loving extended family with grandpa and presumably the parents of a couple of granddaughters and perhaps an uncle (we didn’t ask how they were related; ha) - and they were having the best time laughing and teasing each other, and of course dining well.

So what did we order?  Calamari and bloc de foie gras to start and then our main courses were lamb shanks and duck with cherry sauce.   I can still savor that duck if I close my eyes for a moment; it was fabulous (are you surprised about Wm’s order?).  For dessert Wm had his favorite:  fromage blanc with honey, and I had Tarte Tatin.  Our waiter was truly charming and took such good care of us.  A fine end to a fine week in Céret.

Have a lovely 4^th of July weekend,  Cindy

Céret, France

Céret, France

Quillan lies in a river valley and is surrounded by large cliffs and peaks; therefore things seemed to always be in shadows, especially in the early spring.  After our experience in Quillan we wanted something open, sunny and clean, so after deciding to leave our waterlogged lodging in Quillan, Cindy did some fancy footwork via Internet to find something else in the general area.  The town of Céret is open and filled with light (more below on that) and suited us perfectly.  The drive back towards the ocean was easy and beautiful and in less than two hours we had pulled up to the front door of our new home in Céret.

The manager came as soon as we called her and she ushered us into a very modern apartment that was filled with light and a marvelous balcony.  We grabbed our stuff, unpacked and set out to explore our new city.  All my life I’ve heard about artists who go here or there because of the wondrous light and I kept thinking, “Why don’t they have electricity?”  Now I get it!  Words like luminescent never meant much to me when used to describe the outdoor light but it took only minutes for me to realize I was someplace very special.  I don’t know if it is the proximity to the ocean, the perfectly pure mountain air, the altitude or the openness of the city, but it was bathed in a light that I had never seen before and it changed at least five times during our stay.

Because of the light and the open nature of Céret, it has always been a magnet for artists. Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, and a host of others have all stayed and worked in Céret and all over the town are large plaques that have pictures that famous artists did while in Céret, but the cool thing is when you look up, you are looking at the very house, or copse of trees, or riverbank that they painted.  The Musé d’Art Moderne de Céret in town is filled with the originals of these painters, or so we are told.  It cost far too much to enter so we used the money for other purposes including postcards of the Museum.

Céret is certainly in France but everyone there considers himself or herself Catalan and you can hear the language, see the dress and note the red and yellow flags everywhere.  There is a very cute little bullring that gets a workout in the summer but otherwise just sits there. The event however that is the most popular in Céret is the Saturday Market. “Céret's Saturday market is a high point of the week and is as much a social event as anything else. It is a bustling, busy market selling mostly local produce. Fresh fruit and vegetable stalls are alongside the man who makes boudins blanc and noir (white sausage and blood sausage). The olive stall is a "must see" where you can choose from a large range of plain, marinated and dried olives. The local cheese makers sell everything from the delicious fresh cheeses to aged hard cheese cut from large wheels. The local wines are red, cheap and very drinkable.”

Our apartment had a lovely balcony, which you can see in the photos, and I spent lots and lots of time sitting there looking out over the hills, observing the life in the ’hood, and on Saturday, watching the market and the people.  The market on Saturday takes over the entire town and every street is filled with stalls selling everything you can imagine.  We bought hats the first day, and boy did we need them since the sun was rather intense for early April.  We had a fine time shopping for food items, wine and prepared foods like roasted chicken with potatoes. That is one of the many joys of living in an apartment - you can do as much or as little cooking as you wish, but with a market this good, we did a lot of cooking.

Our days were filled with small routines that we loved.  First thing, Cindy would run and I would investigate the town for future explorations.  We would then meet at the Central Bar, where the owner warmed up to us quickly and would always have our coffees ready the minute we walked in.  On the way home we would select a bakery and get fresh pastries, bread, croissants and anything else that tickled our fancy.  I would make coffee and we would sit on the balcony and just watch the world turn.  After cleaning up, we would hike or wander around town until about one when it was time to decide which bar to grace with our presence for an aperitif.  We would then either select a place for a sandwich or go home where I would make a little something from whatever we had, plus fresh bread and wine.  Most days we took naps to gather our strength for afternoon walks and the late dinners. The day would end with us sitting on the balcony with Cognacs and reviewing our day and planning the next.

One of the things that we realized is that we need to have outdoor space in a rental.  In Quillan we had nothing, not even large windows. Having the balcony in Céret was just a heavenly experience and we have now made it a requirement for future rentals, as well as cruises.

Our time in Céret flew by and all too soon it was time to head back to Barcelona where we were going to enjoy an afternoon and evening with our friends Bob and Mary who were on a beach vacation from their jobs in Milan.  We had two pre-paid rooms at the Alfa Best Western right next to the airport due to our 8 am departure for Frankfurt the next day, connecting to Dulles.  Since we had two rooms we convinced Bob and Mary to come and stay with us so we could have a lovely dinner and not worry about driving.  The hotel itself was what you would expect at an airport, except the staff was really friendly and helpful.   We had low expectations for dinner, but wow were we surprised. It was some of the best food we had had on the trip and my oven-roasted haunch of lamb was melt-in-your-mouth perfect, as were the interesting appetizers and fish dishes. Luckily my portion of lamb was huge so everyone was able to enjoy it.  We had several bottles of wine and we shared it with the waiter, the chef, and some others who we think worked there, but it really didn’t matter. We had some fun!

Cindy is working on the good eats portion of our trip and will be reporting soon. Until then,  a bientot.  Wm

Quillan Trip

Quillan, France

You have to really want to go to Quillan to get there.  Sounds like Yogi Berra, doesn’t it?  While Quillan has always been a crossroads, it has been a crossroads to places that not many people want to visit any more.  It is about half way between Carcassonne and Perpignan and is situated on the banks of the Aude River.  Before the new highways, this was the only way to get from the Canal du Midi to the seaport of Perpignan and thus it was a well-traveled route for the early Cathars. They established many of castles, fortifications and lookout points all along the route, most of which are still standing and open to the pubic.

The city itself used to be a bustling trade center where logs from the surrounding woods would be gathered and rafted down the Aude to Carcassonne. After that it was the center for making hats and belts and other things from the hides of animals that thrived there.  In the fifties it was home to the largest Formica factory in Europe. All of these industries made Quillan a rich city and there are some beautiful large houses along the river where the burghers of the city made their home.  Sadly, there is no longer any industry that brings in lots of money and many of the houses have been left to decay, although foreigners who love the deep valleys and high mountains of Quillan have restored some of these homes.  The area provides opportunities for competitive kayaking and offers a host of hiking opportunities for all levels of fitness, but tourism is struggling due to a lack of infrastructure.  There are few quality hotels, restaurants or services in this remote area of southern France.

We were drawn by the opportunity to rent a two bedroom, two bathroom home with a fireplace right in the center of Quillan. The price was right and we thought it would be a wonderful place to use as a base for exploring the entire area.  The pictures looked great, the kitchen seemed fine for our needs, and the village hosted a market twice a week, so we booked it for two weeks at the end of March until Easter.  As I mentioned, the other couple was unable to go but we wanted to get away and so we left Spain, headed into France, and by two in the afternoon we were in Quillan.

The owner had told us that there had been a small water pipe break and he didn’t know how bad it was but his agent had fixed everything up.  He offered us the option to cancel the entire two weeks, but our minds were already there so we continued with our plans.  We finally got into the house - they had changed the code on the lockbox but hadn’t told us the new code but ever-resourceful Cindy had the owners’ Wifi password and was able to log on from the parking area and get the new code via email. Upon entering the house we were overwhelmed with the combined fragrances of old chimney smoke and fresh mold and mildew. It was horrible, and that was just the first impression. We tried to open things up but almost all of the windows had been damaged by the water and had swollen up and couldn’t be opened.  It took us two hours to force the big kitchen window open so as to allow dry air into that area of the house.  For the next several days we did a lot of heavy lifting to dry out the house.  We were able to take a few breaks for day trips and market runs but it was getting to the point that we felt like we were working for Habitat for Humanity as opposed to being on vacation. For those of you contemplating purchasing a home in a foreign country that you are not going to occupy until you retire, take a look at these photos before closing!

One of our two-day trips took us to Rennes le Chateau. This is a cool castle that since the publication of The Da Vinci Code has drawn thousands of visitors who want to see a part of the history - and some say conspiracy - associated with Saint Mary Magdalene.  We just wanted to get out of Quillan and we enjoyed the lovely day and lovely ride along the river.  After viewing Rennes le Chateau, we headed down the river to a little town called Esperaza.  This is a town that was made famous by its hat making, producing hats for generations of people around the world.  We wanted to go to the Hat Making Museum, which is right next to the Dinosaur Museum - who knew there would be so much culture in one day?  The hat museum was really cool. First you sit and watch a movie about the history of hat making, and despite the fact that it was all in French we found it fascinating and a great way for us to understand the rest of the displays in the museum.  On the way out of the museum we shopped at the sale bins and I found a perfect hat, as did Cindy, for a fraction of what it would have cost in a store.  You have to see these photos. 

On another day we drove to the Chateau de Puivert, which is an old Cathar castle that is now in private hands.  It takes forever to walk up the hill to get there and then you have to pay to go in and walk up narrow, dark and dangerous steps to see all the rooms and galleries.  The exercise was good, the castle not so much.  Here are some photos of the castle and some of the fine examples of building in Quillan.  One of the coolest is the Tourist Center, which is an old Turkish Bath that has been fixed up and converted.  Of the two markets that take place on Quillan, only one of them has food; the other is just a flea market. Very disappointing, but we did get some good ingredients from which I created a lovely lunch on our last day in Quillan. After only five days there we couldn’t stand it any longer and took off for a new and exciting city that Cindy had discovered for us to explore.  The owners of the house were very pleased with all we did to help them and they returned all of our money, which was very nice of them.  Prepare yourselves for the joys of Céret, which we’ll visit tomorrow. 

Best to all, William