Two strikeouts today

This is the house we were to see this morning. No such luck, as it turned out. When we got to the agency, the woman there knew nothing of our appointment, and told us that many of her agents had not appeared because although there was no problem with major roads, the small back roads had not been plowed and were now impassable. So - an hour's drive and no house to see. We decided not to try again for this one since who wants to live in a house that's inaccessible when there's a few inches of snow. This area of Lot-et-Garonne, although just south of the Dordogne border, is far enough east to be up into the hills. So scratch this area in general.

So we drove back to the Bergerac area, and had lunch at a restaurant in Plaisance, the place where we were to meet the agent to show us the afternoon's house. The restaurant was fun - it's obviously the French version of a truck stop. All the other diners had come either in large trucks or in the ubiquitous white vans driven by virtually all French tradesmen. One of the large trucks was even carrying two small prefab houses. But, back to the restaurant. As soon as we were seated, a big tureen of delicious vegetable soup appeared. What a great welcome on a cold winter day. We were encouraged to take more but we declined, since one can eat only so much. Next there was a salads buffet, with a better assortment of offerings than we usually see on this sort of thing. The specials for the day were tripes (yuk) or boudin noir (not today, thanks) or boulets de boeuf. We both chose the meatballs, which were delicious and were served with a huge helping of boiled potatoes. A hearty, warming lunch.



This second house is in a much better area, about 20 minutes south of Bergerac, and about 2 minutes from the restaurant. But it turned out to be soooooo not what we want! In the first place, even though the agent had told us there were no neighbors, there were in fact two neighbors, both very close to the house. And one of these houses was a horrible little box-like thing that I would certainly not want to look at for the rest of my life. Of course, as John pointed out, this would not be a problem since the house we were looking at had virtually no windows. It also had no floors, no walls that were worth talking about in the interior, and no ceilings. Habitable??? Perhaps there are different interpretations of just what ' habitable' might mean. So, another house crossed off the list.

On the other hand, we had a rewarding trip to the supermarket near our hotel, a LeClerc. We saw fresh bean sprouts!!! I've never seen such a thing in the supermarkets we have access to in the Aude. And Asiago cheese! And four different kinds of cheddar cheese. And provelone! I know, you folks in the US find this quite ordinary, but food offerings in France are not anywhere near as cosmopolitan as those in the supermarkets we're used to. Maybe we'll have more luck tomorrow with houses.