Though the weather has maintained a consistently damp and rainy feel, I have been doing slightly better. I was knocked out entirely a couple days ago but was able to get back to work on things yesterday. As what I’ve been doing is mostly in the barn I’ve been safe from the weather anyhow.
Still, this 60s and rainy is far more pleasurable than what I hear the weather is over in Chandler 
Sorry for the lack of photos thus far. I have em, but I haven’t had the energy to upload anything yet, what with the fact that I have a cold! That’s right, I’ve flown halfway around the world only to be infected the day I arrive, and have gotten more and more stuffed up with each passing day.
There is one practical upside: I don’t have to attend any more dinner outings for a while. As wonderful as the french food is, and as friendly as they are, it’s hard enough explaining my eating habits in English. Explaining it in french to a bunch of people who all worship eating takes becomes a whole new challenge.
Anyhow, 8 a.m. here, looking out over the valley and it’s filled with fog. Can’t see the far side at the moment. Wouldn’t a picture be grand at this moment? **edit** oh wait, there’s a picture at the top now. How’d that get there?
Went to dinner (to read in America: lunch) with another set of friends, Pierre and Monique. We own a small building next to Pierre’s house on the river, and had met them as part of the land purchase.
As we have gathered by talking with Pierre and going through his old scrapbooks, Pierre’s father had built up and owned a small stone factory building. He’d first operated it first a wool factory and later a hydroelectric power generator for the nearby town. Pierre had been born in the factory before moving across the road to a new house that his father had built by the side of the river a few years later. It seems that’s as far as he’s got. Anyhow, we have a small house connected to the factory, complete with the single most scary toilet ever made.
As it stands this is about 40 feet up a stone staircase on a small cliff behind the factory. It is on a stone overhang looking out on a much further drop down into a stream below. This stream then fed the tunnel that once housed the hydroelectric generator before feeding off into the main river.
Before you ask, sadly I have no decent pictures of any of the stuff I’m describing, so use your imaginations for now 
I do have one of the river though.
As you can see, the weather seemed to be getting a bit dark. Near the end of the dinner the skies opened up to the most torrential downpour. After an hour though the storm passed by and we were able to hop into our jeep and head back home. It seems though that we chased the storm back here though, and it has stopped above us.
It appears my french class back in america did indeed pay off. I was very able and capable of answering questions asked of me in french at a french class over here. My father has been taking classes on this side of the pond (taught by a french person and done entirely in french) and I sat in on one. Overall it was a lot of fun, though we accidentally mis-scheduled and ended up in an advanced class for the day.
After class we had a nice lunch, did a bit of woodwork (I’ve managed to nick my finger with the old wood planer I’m using), and had a quick nap before dinner with a dutch couple my family knows. My father met them a few months back when he encountered Josi on the side of the road with her car broken down. As it appeared, the steering wheel was locked and wouldn’t disengage. My father, being the general type of standup chap he is… well, to strangers anyway… stopped and offered to help. So the two of them went out and started looking for her husband Mike. They spent hours driving around until they found him, where he promptly told them that to fix it was as simple as locking and unlocking the automatic doors on the car.
Groans over the ludicriously easy solution aside, they turned out to be incredibly nice and friendly. As such they’ve become friends and we went over for dinner and a couple games of “Kubb“. Kubb, also nicknamed “real viking chess” basically is a set of wooden blocks set up along the rear walls of a laid out pitch Players then take it in turns to toss futher wooden poles at the opposing team’s wooden blocks in an attempt to knock them over. They beat us in both games, however they sadly turned down our offer to get our own back by taking them paintballing next weekend.
They also introduced us to Moofy, the most interesting dog in the world. This dog, as it has been pieced together through local legend, is on the order of 15 or 16 years old and doing fine. A tall thin border collie, it started its life chained to a barn under the ownership of a rather nasty farmer. Not content in being unable to run about it somehow orchestrated an escape then proceeded to spend the next 8 years living by itself in the woodlands of France. During this time it learned to hunt down rabbits, mice, and even the occasional fox (using various traps and snares laid about by farmers).
It also befriended a visiting dutch 8 year old girl who came over to vacation every july. She is apparently 22 now, comes back to visit every year, and Moofy disappears during all of july to spend that time with her. Most the rest of the time though it protects Mike and Josis’ house (it has “adopted” them), and when they aren’t in town it seems to double as a literal tour guide for whomever they tell to check up on it. Having lived off the land for years it both knows all the trails and is happy taking people around them, even going so far as to stop and watch whenever the silly “humans” take wrong turns and go the wrong way. Despite its time alone though it somehow understands commands in at least 3 languages as well.
I was more than a little convinced that this dog will be appearing in the next Dos Equis beer commercial.
So I managed to get through french customs with my paintball marker. Wasn’t too hard surprisingly. Customs consisted of walking off the plane, through a set of one-way doors, and into France. Of course, getting my bag took a little more work. I had to go back *into* a customs area, pick up my bag, then walk past an unmanned xray machine and back out into France. Somehow I almost feel cheated because I didn’t get my passport stamped or my cavities searched. Not that I was hoping for the latter…..
Aaaanyhow, got my first chance to play against the french yesterday. And I feel this is truly the way to have a holiday. If I could tour the world playing paintball everywhere I went then I’d never go back to work. It was so much fun shouting in broken french where people were, coordinating with my team, and generally being regarded as the most scary thing the locals had ever seen.
And that I was. Armed with little more than that pistol I laid waste to the general newbies of the french resistance here. To be fair most had never played before, though some had. I did feel a fair bit conspicuous though, what with my james-bond like pistol, green jersey, and vibram 5-finger chaussures.
As one can tell, life in France seems to be nice so far. My first few days thus far have been spent building a large wooden table (pics soon) out of reclaimed wood from an old barn. Weather has been too hot-so much for escaping from Arizona-though it should be cooling off soon.
Right now I’m just shaking off a few beers had in the local town centre. it’s almost 10 p.m. and the sun has only *just* gone behind the horizon. If it’s light this late in May, imagine how light it is in july. It is lovely having this many extra hours in the day with which to do things.
But with the hours now out, time for bed. More updates and some pics soon as I hook up the camera we had with us for paintball
It’s been a short few hops, only 3 different airplanes, to get from Phoenix to Toulouse. I do have to say though, I like Lufthansa’s style the best. Where US airways was content to just give me problems getting all my tickets in order, Lufthansa happily gave me newspapers and refreshments as I waited for my next flight. How can the american public be so sheep moded into becoming literally a “cattle class” of mainstream transport?
And the wonderful view out of the Toulouse airport parking lot. See the next post above for why I was rushing to get out of that airport
We lost Cuddles in the office last week. He found a better job elsewhere (42k a year is not bad when you’re 19). Do feel bad though. I seem to be saying goodbye to a lot of friends again this year.
