Ramblings

The rain has been replaced with blue skies. It felt good to be walking through the village without being pelted with water which had been much like consecutive buckets being thrown within nano seconds of each other from a second story window.

My first stop was to take a photo of the river. Yesterday the water was to the trees. Why I found it so intriguing, is that for the first 18 or so years that I've been coming to this village, I never saw water in the river. In the summer when the circus comes to town, camels, zebras, buffalos and horses are put into the river bed to graze. Dog owners use it as a runway for their pets because they don't have to worry about cars.

An elderly man stopped to talk with me as I took my photo. He pointed to his house along the bank and said he had about six inches of water on the his ground floor.

Next errand: bank and the ATM followed by a stop at the butchers to pick up as close as I can get to salt pork for the Boston Baked Beans I'll make for my daughter. I still use the bean pot of my great grandmother. This pot is in its third century of use.

Then I took my Elizabeth George novel while I drank tea at La Noisette. My daughter had a phone interview and I wanted to give her privacy so I was looking for things to do rather than go home. There were short chats with a number of the regulars at the tea room.

Up the street apiece is the gift shop where I bought my niece's wedding present. Stephanie from Barteveille, my favourite restaurant, also in walking distance came in. She looked tired and told of how they had a flood but on an upper floor through the area around the windows. Prior to the storm, they never knew that they had a problem because in ordinary storms nothing ever dripped or leeked.

At the green grocers (we are still on the same street), I ran into my writing pal who is looking for boxes for her upcoming move. Also chatted with Babette, the owner, as I bought onions to make a close imitation of Bill's onion soup. It would be impossible to make it as good as he did. My daughter on her first trip to Paris when she was ten ordered onion soup only to say Bill's was better. She was right.

Heading down my street, one of the neighbours was patting a cat that resembled Spike, the kitten I adopted for a day during another storm two years ago when his pitiful meowlings were beyond bearable. Spike had grown into a red tiger angora fluff ball, and had been the official greeter of anyone who walked down the street. "Two bad he disappeared," I said.

"He's living two streets away. He demanded to be adopted and the two boys took him in," the neighbour said.

What good news. I thought Spike had died and headed home after my village ramble.