9th July, Saturday

Saturday.
I cut out a page from yesterday’s newspaper about food growing in the wild, including recipes. Such as nettles, plaintain and others. I needed to find out more. As a result I thought it would be good to go next door and talk to Madame Laforet, Jacqueline and Alain, about ancient recipes and habits with food.
We had a great session, and it got Madame Laforet (96 this year) talking about life in the past and families in the village, fascinating stuff. She started to tell us about a neighbour who was always singing, and she remembered a song he used to sing. Whereupon she burst into song – wonderful. By this time Alain thought is was time to have a glass of wine (11.15am) on a Saturday morning. What fun and great old stories. The postman came in to shake hands and say he was off on holidays for a few weeks. The bread van came past and we all rushed out to buy bread. What a way to spend a Saturday morning, serious research with pleasure. Will continue another time.
They are such a wonderful source of information and history, our neighbours, how fortunate we are.
Other neighbours are coming to dinner this evening, so I will use some of my gooseberry ice cream and sorbet. The freezer is stuffed, and some of it needs to be used.
Better get my notes down about this morning’s conversation.
The gendarmes are still enquiring about the wireless pylon....