And Bill and Sue arrived!!

And we had such a glorious time.

We did a fair bit of this sort of thing

Quite a lot of this sort of thing

Heaps of this (la saison des mures!)

And this

And a frankly outrageous amount of this. 

Such lovely company: so much fun, so much laughter and far too much good food. 

Laura has arrived :)

That means there'll be

this:

and lots of love

and little acts of kindness.


 We all got up terribly early and went to the markets... so now all that's left is waiting for Sue and Bill.

This is us, waiting...

Bruce Has Arrived

I'm almost sure there's going to be cooking....

Cats and Dogs (and France and Spain)

France

France

France

Spain

That pretty much sums up the difference between the two countries.

France does the quirk much more quietly.

PS: Yes, the dog's by Jeff Koons and he's not even Spanish and neither is Puppy - but still. Where else would it fit so perfectly?

Ooohh! Look!

Scaffolding's going up in the village!

That's always a good sign.

More tomorrow...

They don't call it camping here. They call it tenting.

On another topic, though - do you know what works really well?

 Frank Gehry's design for the Bilbao Guggenheim. Yes, yes, I know we said we were spending the week in Italy - but it was raining there, so we thought we'd go tenting in sunny Spain instead.

                                                                                                                                                                                   


Spain - just while I've got your attention - doesn't do tenting as it turns out. It's all about the campervanning, in Spain - which is something it might have been helpful to know before we changed our plans, but live and learn...

What Spain does do, and do quite boisterously, is quirky, iconic buildings. Barcelona's Gaudi takes the quirk to a level that I find slightly disturbing - there is, after all, (or I feel there should be at any rate) only so much fun one can have with a wall. Or a door. But perhaps it's just me? Still, I wasn't all that a-froth with delight when Paul said if we just drive another ten hours or so we could  see the building he's wanted to see since he read about it in, I dunno, the middish 1990s - the Bilbao Guggenheim.

So we drove. And drove. All day - and then had another overnight in a field with a tent that we pitched in the dark so as not to alert any irate farmers or drunken hunters, or bears; and the further we went, the less sunny Spain was, and the more kindly my memories of Home. And then we arrived. And I have to say it - the B. G. is glorious. It really, really is. One of those buildings that captures your heart, even when you weren't expecting it, even when you didn't much want it to. Just the right size, just the perfect shape, and in just the very spot. It's something to love from every angle, in bits and grabs and glimpses - even when the light is dreadful, even when the city is full of gloom  and grey.

Even in the rain. Especially in the rain.

I heart you, Frank Gehry. Can't wait to see what you do in Sydney. Go for broke and don't hold back - that darling old town of mine could do with a bit of a cheer-up.

It's time for another post.

No - I haven't written one. I'm just saying it's time...

Here's a photo instead.

My mother-in-law

Really, I suspect that there is no more adorable belle-mere in the world...

*sigh*

The thing about living in France is that sometimes you miss people.