October 22, 2010
We wake up to ice again. Our friends from the night before have all stayed over. That must be a nice bit of business for Madam. We have the usual wonderful breakfast except that we have fresh croissants. As the other people check-out I see that the last jar of melon jam has been purchased! Oh no! But Madam assures me that there is more and I then have my jar of melon confiture to enjoy at home and remember the farm in France.
We decide to forego the planned visit to Grotte Cougnac on our way back home; we’ll save that visit for another time. We visit the beautiful village of Sarlat on our way back. We arrive just before 10am and it is COLD. We find a knife shop and indulge our love of knives—kitchen and pocket-wise. We buy a nice Nontron kitchen knife (made in the nearby village of Nontron) in a size we don’t yet have. Our knife-urges are not completely satisfied so we return later to buy H a small pocketknife. He chooses a lovely one with a handle made of horn. Surprisingly it turns out to be a child’s knife—with a blunt end and a blunt edge. It is an interesting addition to his pocketknife collection.
We stop at a café for coffee and try to warm up. The café advertises that it is in Rick Steves’ 2010 guide. That guy really gets around!! We take a walking tour of the village. We find the hotel that we stayed at on our 1st trip to France in 1992. We also find the restaurant where we had lunch in 2003 with our Leo, who died earlier in the year—the picture of Leo on H’s lap at this restaurant is a bitter-sweet remembrance.
We come upon a lovely shop with a huge variety of jewelry (Andrea Creations, 6 rue Tourny) and H finds a beautiful shell ring for me—one more birthday gift! I’m so lucky! I think the lady says it’s called Shell of Lucy. She shows us that it is actually the “plug” to the end of large turban snail shell. We buy some gifts too. As I think back on it, we should have looked for more treasures to buy.
We would have loved to have lunch in Sarlat but it’s too early and too cold to wait around. We decide to take the scenic route home so that we can stop for lunch in a village along the way. An hour into the scenic drive we decide we’d rather get home as soon as possible; it’s been a long but great trip. So onto the auto-route we go (the fast way).
The drive back is longer than I first planned. Four and a half hours later we arrive home. We sneak in without disturbing Catherine and Stephen. They have a soirée to attend that evening. We snuggle in at the apartment, drink wine and have a cheese, pate and bread dinner. What could be better?!