Saturday.  It was market day so the vendors setting up woke us up a little earlier than we like.  We walked to the patisserie and bought a baguette and breakfast pastries.  I'm still hooked on chausson aux pomme but David tried a different one this time -- some kind of raisin pastry.  I spoke to the cashier and ordered everything but she kept looking behind me and talking to David.  I guess she's used to him doing all of the shopping.

We didn't need anything at the market but we still walked around -- just in case.  It's fun now because we see and greet people we know.  We saw Claude this week, and recognized others.

Nathalie and Yves were leaving for their vacation today and Yves was lending us his car, so we waited at home until we found out how that was going to work out.  Their daughter, Thesse, was going to take them to the train station when Nathalie closed her shop, around 12:45, and then she would bring the car back to us.  Sorry I don't know how to spell Thesse's name.  We knew it would be a bit of a goat rope (one of David's favorite sayings) because she would be coming back to drop off the car just as the market was disbanding.  And that's exactly what happened.  She pulled up outside and we ran out and hopped in the car to get out of the way of a huge truck that wanted to drive the wrong way down our street to get out of the market.  But it all worked out OK.  We drove to the Super U to fill the car up with petrol and, of course, the pump wouldn't take our credit card!!!  In France it is a crap shoot with our credit card; at some businesses our credit card works and at others it does not.  We haven't been able to figure out why it is rejected at times.  We cannot wait until the United States catches up with the rest of the world and issues credit cards with chips instead of magnetic strips.  They are much more secure and they are widely accepted around the world.  Anyway, I digress.  Thesse drove by and saw us at the petrol station and stopped in to be sure we knew what we were doing.  Great timing.  We could have paid cash but the cashier was out for lunch.  We were just going to return later but Thesse offered to charge the gas to her credit card and let us give her cash.  So that's what we did and it all worked out nicely.  We parked the car in one of the public parking lots and walked home.

On the way home we walked by the beer garden and it was another gorgeous day so we stopped for a beer.  We are going to take advantage of every minute of sunshine!

Saturday evening we were invited to Douglas and Claire's home again for dinner.  They also invited friends, David and Leslie, from Chester, England, who  have a home here.  We stopped by Douglas and Claire's late afternoon to see what we could bring for dinner and they assured us they had everything . . . but baguettes.  No problem -- something I could handle.  They also told us that before dinner they and David and Leslie were going to a home across the square where new people were fixing up a gorgeous, huge building as a guest house and gite.  They said we were invited too.  

At 7:00 we went across the square to see the new place and we met about 10 new people.  The owner's are a couple from Paris.  Somehow we learned that the man, Mark, is a designer in Paris and his wife, whose name might be Sheila, owns or owned an organic restaurant outside of Paris.  It sounds like they are planning a family-oriented vacation rental.  David spent a long time talking to Mark who spoke excellent English.  The other people spoke some English so we had many good conversations.  What we saw of the place looks very nice but it doesn't have the charm or character of La Boulangerie!

Douglas cooked our dinner and he seriously needs to open a vegetarian restaurant!  Even Claire is impressed with the dishes he has made us!!!  He prepared a fabulous red and green tomato tart and a big pot of beans with olives.  Both delicious!  He also made a tomato dish that was similar to a ratatouille and baked lentils which also had olives in them.  For the cheese course we had a heavenly baked cheese which he said had onions and white wine in it.  He served it very hot with brown bread and baguette.  I believe David could have eaten the entire thing!!!  For dessert we had Clemtines that had been soaked in some kind of alcohol for two years!  Seriously delicious dinner and the company was very good too!

David and Leslie were not feeling great but they were still good company.  They were both social workers and David was then the Chief Executive of a very large city in England.  It seems like they spend 4 or 5 months here and the rest in Chester.  They are leaving on Tuesday to return home.

I wish, wish, wish I had taken pictures of the dishes Douglas has prepared for us.  I did get some cooking advice for him which I will use when I return home.  He pretty much roasts everything very slowly at a low temperature.  That is quite different from how I cook which is very quickly on a high heat.  David says I "shock" the food!  I'll give the "Douglas method" a try!

We didn't drink as much nor stay as long as we did last Monday night when we had dinner with them because we are going out and about again on Sunday . . . in a car!!!