Thanksgiving Weekend

Papa and I prepped the house and I shopped for groceries for three days.  Audrey’s family arrived at our house on Wednesday morning, Claire and Whitney’s families (minus Corey and Toby), and my Mom arrived on Wednesday by lunchtime.  The kids have played outside, set up a tent with Papa, formed a “rock company” after collecting rocks from our yard.  We ran and walked in the Tucson Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning.  We’ve played games, hiked, eaten a lot, made s’mores, and talked nonstop.  We’ve had a wonderful weekend.

Clean House

We returned home to a water leak in Tucson, so it took us a few days to repair the leak and get the house cleaned.  We’re happier with a tidy house.  A few photos taken yesterday.

Return to Tucson

Papa and I spent left Lectoure after lunch on Monday and drove to Toulouse. We stayed in a hotel at the airport. We got up early Tuesday morning to return our leased Peugeot to Auto Europe. We flew from Toulouse to London Heathrow, then on to Phoenix. We stayed overnight with Claire’s family, and couldn’t believe how much Emerson and Colby have grown! We drove to Tucson, arriving before noon.

We’ve been busy every day since we got back to Tucson, cleaning inside the house, blowing off the patios and driveway, Papa repairing an exterior water leak, shopping for groceries, getting our Hummer inspected, signing up for a Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving morning and picking up race packets. We have a bit of jet lag and aren’t sleeping on “Arizona time” just yet. It takes a bit of time!

The sky was cloudy today. This was the view as I turned into our neighborhood when returning from the grocery.

As I turned onto our street….

From the back of our property, 45 minutes later….

And from my walk through the neighborhood this afternoon, with the slightest shadow of a double rainbow. It was beautiful! A nice “welcome back” after a busy week!

Last Days in Lectoure in 2023

The past two weeks have been quite full.  We're preparing to leave Lectoure tomorrow, so we've been cleaning and preparing the house to be empty for the winter months.  We've seen so many friends over the past couple of weeks.  It has been a whirlwind and quite joyful for us.  

We watched the World Cup Rugby Finals with Deirdre and Vladimir on October 28.  We had dinner with Gerard and Alice on the 29th.  We had lunch at Deirdre and Vladimir's on the 30th and I had Bea over for coffee in the afternoon.  On November 1, we had Caroline and Glyn and Lesley and Andy for a chicken soup dinner in our kitchen.  The next day, we went for lunch in Condom with Judy, to Citrus.  Aline came for coffee that afternoon.  I had coffee with Ariane the morning of November 3, and we went to Auberge du Rantaures in Lussan, for dinner with Caroline and Glyn that evening.  We went to a vide grenier in Lectoure on the 5th and found a table for our "granddaughter's bedroom." We hosted a party for 25+ Lectoure friends and neighbors, with the Mayor, a ville conseillère, and a ville department head attending to meet people and answer questions.  It was a lively evening!  

On November 9, we met our friend Rebecca in Auch for lunch at Bistro 3eme, and we went to Musee des Ameriques.  The following day was her birthday, so we celebrated with her.  November 10 was very busy for us.  Deirdre and Vladimir came to our house for lunch.  Our insurance agent, Romain, came by at 2, and we went to Caroline and Glyn's for dinner with them plus Lesley and Andy.  On November 11, our friend Coralie came by with her aunt in the morning, to say goodbye until spring, and in the afternoon, Ingrid, a friend and neighbor of our Belgian friends in Saint-Clar, Hilde and Filiep, came by to meet us.  

Today, we had lunch with Caroline and Glyn at Atelier D'Auria.  We walked to the Saint Martin Foire in Lectoure - a big country fair with antique tractors, farmers with samples of their crops - mushrooms, apples, wine, all sorts of associations - our favorite is our friend Francois-Xavier's Association of Antique Vespas.  The Fair is in Bastion Parc, carnival rides are across the street in the La Poste parking lot, and there are food and crafts tents all the way down Rue Nationale.  It is a grande evenement!  We went to Gerard and Alice's house for wine and goodbye at 6:30 this evening.

We will do last minute tidying up tomorrow morning, and leave after lunch for Toulouse.  We've been busy!  Unfortunately, I didn't take photos of everything everyday, but here's a few.