For breakfast, as you can probably guess, we had french bread and croissants with butter and homemade apricot jam. That tired me out, so I went back to bed to rest up for lunch. After a short nap, I came down and this was the lunch spread:
I can't say I was very hungry at that point, but I wasn't going to let that stand in the way!
What we didn't eat was this local making his way across the door sill:
I contemplated another nap after lunch, but felt I needed to pace myself.
Mid-afternoon, Teresa took Vicki and me into the nearby town of Cholet, population around 60K. We did a bit of shopping and visited the l'Eglise Notre Dame, which is under restoration like so many others in France.
These make my knees hurt:
The cobblestones in front of the church:
We also stopped in a store or two. In doing so, I not only acquire whatever I came to purchase, but also a little confidence in my French. Last night I was not feeling very confident. I was tired, had partaken of a little of the wonderful wine, and the three guys that were here were all talking fast and using a lot of slang and very casual language - none of which was in the French textbook I used some 16 years ago. Today, I felt a lot better discussing my camera or groceries - these are topics I can handle.
One other item of note: over 95% of the milk consumed in France is UHT milk - ultra pasteurized. That means it has a shelf-life of 6-9 months unopened. So you don't typically look for the dairy case; milk is on the shelf with everything else.
Hmmm. It's almost 7. About time for aperitifs and mental and physical preparations for dinner.
It's a tough job, but I am holding up my end.
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