Sunday, September 22, 2002

    This morning is sunny and beautiful, though I think here this is called partly cloudy. The town is quiet and the few people we've met are friendly. The house has its funky aspects, but I already love it. Once we have our bags with clothes and supplies it will be lovely.
    But two calls first: one to Terry to find out what progress he's made in locating our bags (he offered to call, as he can speak much better French and has a phone at home!) and one to Elizabeth to warn her about driving out here from the airport. We are leaning toward leading her back here ourselves. B says, "These directions stink. They don't say anything about the gefoogelties along the way." The first time we drove out, he was making me take notes as we went, so that we could amend Elizabeth's directions. At one point, we were fairly thoroughly flummoxed in a little village, and stopped to ask directions. A very helpful and voluble old man was giving us what seemed like very specific directions in thickly accented French. B was smiling and nodding and repeating the name of a town. As he turned our car around, and headed back the way we had come into town, I asked him how much of that he had understood.
    "Not a word," he said. "Except I think he was telling us to head for Duron Cabree-air." Very luckily for us, we hadn't gone more than two blocks back when we saw a sign for "Lieuran Cabrieres" and just underneath another for Peret!
    "Oh, OK," said B, "LUR-on Cabree-air. I was hearing a dee, not an ell. Or maybe that's just his southern accent. But look, you'd never see these signs coming the way we were." And indeed the signs, on the side of a building, weren't visible until you had passed them, and only would be then if you were looking behind you. So we wanted to make sure E got here without having to go through all that!
    I've showered with the house's lone scrap of soap and finger-combed my hair. B is finishing his shower and it's time to wrestle with the French phone system and call Terry. I hope it's easier to figure out than laundry.

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