This is hard work!

Hello, dear readers, and apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of days.  We're in the thick of our workweek, and it is absolutely exhausting.  On Tuesday, we woke up at 8:00 so that we could see Olivier, the son in our workaway host family, off to school at around 8:15.  Our wake up time has been sliding further and further from this ambitious goal, however, as we get more and more tired from the various things we do each day!  The minimum five hours quickly turn into more as you become emotionally invested in a project.  Because this house is ripe with opportunities for DIY, almost everything you do makes a tangible difference.  Over the last couple of days, we have:

Uncle Ben's rice has gone global, go figure! 

• fixed up the bikes so that we can ride into town (if we ever have enough energy, perhaps this weekend)
• fixed up the scooters, on and off road
• raked the pads for the new patio flat and leveled with gravel
• compacted said gravel and re-leveled
• commenced paving activities (that is such slow going because nothing is actually square and we're creating a 3 cm drop to run water away from the house.  Homes built in the 1500s don't have much in the way of water diversion systems)
• washed two cars and a caravan
• vacuumed the house
• gone to the market at Villedieu
• gone to the decheterie (dump)
• spent numerous hours jumping on the trampoline with Olivier
• cooked dinner (thanks for the recipe, Maggie!)

Will holding groceries in Villedieu

Highlights over the last few days:

1. Trip to Villedieu-les-Poeles (literally, God's village of pots and pans).  We did our fresh-food shopping here on Tuesday and Will perfectly applied his knowledge of French: Desolé, je ne parle pas français (I'll let you look that one up).  In all seriousness, though, he's learning really quickly and is picking up tons of vocab each day!  This village really wasn't destroyed by WWII bombings or invasions of Normandy, so it's in its pristine medieval state and covered in copper everything.  During the medieval ages, this town's bell foundry provided bells for newly established churches wherever the crusaders went.  Today, the foundry mostly focuses on more usable copper goods like pots and pans.  Imagine the Blacksburg farmer's market times twenty and sprawling throughout several blocks of a medieval town, and you've captured our morning.

Compacting!  Notice the Surf & Adventure Tshirt

2.  Trip to the dump.  The French are really big on recycling whatever they can, so the dump was divided into more sections than you'd usually see in your average American dump.  Because we were throwing away mostly rotted plywood and other random things, our stuff went into your standard all-purpose bin.  After the dump (and this is the cool part), we went to Mont Robin, a lookout over Percy, Villedieu, and the surrounding countryside.  After admiring the view, Will, Roseanne, and I played on the little workout course winding through the park.

3.  So much chess, trampoline time, and minecraft!  When Olivier comes home from school, we usually wrap up our work for the day and have gouté (the afternoon/early evening snack and cup of tea).  After that, Will and I usually play with him whether we do the things listed above, play outside, or play one of his imaginary games.  He's really quite a sweet nine year old boy, though I've heard he can be quite the demanding overlord when it comes to Minecraft constructions.  I've begged out of Minecraft because the way the characters look and walk gives me motion sickness, but Will plays most every evening.

Paving in the rain

4. Paving!  Who knew this could be so hard.  I think Will and I laid 9 tiles today (to be fair, they're 50 cm each, so larger than your average bathroom tile, we don't have any square things around to base off of, and we're making them tilt 3 cm from house to grass) and we're positively beat.  It was chilly and misting this morning and slightly sunny this afternoon, but we managed to cover ourselves in mortar AND get slight sunburns throughout the course of the day.  Roseanne opened up the lost and found DIY clothes cabinet to us and we picked quite clever outfits which kept us warm as we really did pack for a totally different (read: WARMER) climate.  

Yum!

5.  Strawberry, basil, goat cheese, balsamic open-faced sandwiches!  I borrowed Maggie's pizza recipe and transformed it into its sandwich cousin because our oven doesn't currently work.  With Wills fabulous help as sous-chef, they turned out great and paired surprisingly well with a red wine.  I was a little nervous because we initially tasted the chevre (goat cheese) with the rind on, and it was horrible with strawberries.  Luckily, we were able to trim off the rind and the sandwiches were saved. Thanks for sending me the recipe, Maggie!!!  With each dinner, and sometimes with lunch, we go through one-two bottles of wine (ranging from table white, table red, Normandy bubbly, and the famous cider made from Normandy apples) and linger at the table for at least an hour and a half.  The conversation is always so stimulating and we go into crazy in-depth conversations about everything from religion to politics to comparing and contrasting our different cultures.  If I had to categorize the personalities at dinner, I'd say Ben is the young idealist, Will and I fall somewhere into the category of pragmatic dreamers, Roseanne is a wealth of wisdom (she's done it all from banking consultant to full-time mom), and Mike is always willing to play devil's advocate.  It's safe to say that meal times are never dull!  What's also a wonder is how well Olivier is behaved during dinner, not that you'd expect anything otherwise from a nine-year-old French boy.  He sits politely and contributes when he is spoken to or has something to add for most of it and, when he gets bored after an hour or so, asks to leave the table without any fuss.  It's incredible!

Everyone gathered around the dinner table.  Olivier
approves of dinner!

Overall, we're happily exhausted at the end of each day and loving our time in Normandy.  Our hosts have been living in France for 19 years, so they're really able to explain differences in customs and why the differences exist.  For instance, the number of bisous (kisses of greeting) you give really depends on age.  Will and I went with Roseanne to pick up Olivier from karate, and each of the little kids ran up and greeted her with one bisou.  Later, they came and greeted Will and I, and we were all startled when we (W&I) expected to give two kisses and the children only expected to receive one.  Roseanne later explained that they probably felt quite grown-up by our double kiss and not offended, so all is well on that front.  We try to go on as many little excursions as we can to better explore the surrounding area and meet as many genuine French people as we can.  These French folks are totally different birds than their Parisian cousins, and I'm so glad we decided to take this trip!