Mike & Judy's Visit

My sister Judy and her husband Mike arrived on Wednesday night - Sharon & Mel left in the morning. We had a wonderful visit. Our favorite activity was going to the beach.

The beach is a little less than 30 minutes away by car. There a lots of more picturesqe areas along the French Mediterreaneum but not any that are better for beaching. Here there are long sand beaches, only a few shells to hurt your feet when you are getting into the water, very hot bright sun, comfortable chaise lounges and umbrellas for rent, and restaurants and snack shops that are really pretty good. The water is calm, chrystal clear, and a bit cold which is really refreshing when the air temperature is in the 90s as it is during the day. Swimming is just the most wonderful activity. Judy and I love to just go out a ways and tread water for a half an hour and then come back in and nap on the beach. Mike is more into walking up and down the beach and, I suspect, grabbing a cold beer. There are lots of French families enjoying the beach.

The town that we drove through to get to the beach is Adge which I haven't explored yet but it looks pretty interesting. The river runs through it and there are lots of boats tied up along the banks.

Other things we did while they were here:

1. Walked the three dogs in a team. Thanks Mike and Judy. Three at a time is pretty challenging.
2. Became proficient with my TomTom GPS. It is a God send for driving through all the villages.
3. Learned where all the nearby super markets are and a good bourcherie (butcherFig) in Pezenas.
4. Learned how to take out the trash and seperate it carefully including driving down the street to the used glass recepta cle.
5. Figured out how everything worked in the kitchen - including the fridge (a challenge), stove, oven, dishwasher (a challenge), BBQ grill (the biggest challenge) and had our first "company" for dinner.
6. Tried to attend an afternoon classical music concert but unfortunately I thought the street address of the e-mail sender was the location of the event, which it wasn't.
5. Checked out the little nook and crannies of the historic center of Pezenas.
6. Had dinner at a nice little restaurant in Pezenas.

Best of all:
7. Our French neighbors, Suzette and Roger, invited us form "appertifs" yesterday afternoon. Suzette's family has been here literally hundreds of years. They owned a large piece of land right in the village which included a winery and multiple buildings. The winery is no longer but many of the buildings are but some are now separate houses which have been sold to others. Roger still farms and grows lots of grapes and other things. Suzette is the nicest and warmest person I think I've ever met. She also is pretty easy to talk with as she is quite fluent in English and Spanish. Roger on the other hand is not but he is immensely expressive with sign language and he has a "killer" sense of humor. Example: he showed us the "companion" he was taking for a ride to the mountains later in the day - it was a very dead, very stiff rabbit.