A Little Weekday Outing

While Theo is in the States for the next two weeks, my friends have been taking pity on me so that I won’t be too lonely!!! Heehee! This week, my friend Nathalie allowed me to ride shotgun on a short visit to see her mum. And what a delightful day it turned out to be.

I wanted to see the just-finished wood pool surround. Since we need to start thinking about materials, I wanted to see this in person, and I must say, it looks very nice.

Special wood for poolside.

For lunch, we heated up an absolutely mouth-watering cassoulet, prepared and canned by a neighboring farm. [Note to self: Buy some for our pantry next time I’m in the area—€12 for a huge can with hearty servings for 6!] Of course, we started with an aperitif, the Pousse Rapiére, a new one for me. This is a delightfully refreshing cocktail made with a splash of an Armagnac-based orange-flavored liqueur topped with a brut sparkling wine. So good, I had two! Finished up lunchtime with an assortment of the fanciest little cake slices imaginable. Yum!

It’s so interesting to see the materials and architecture change as you drive as little as an hour from our house. Nathalie pointed out the ancient stone roofs in the Sarlat area, called ‘lauze.’ They are flat stones that farmers would have collected when clearing their fields, then made into a cheap, durable roofing material. They are dry stacked and require steep pitches and huge timber frames to distribute the weight of the roof, which averages 165 lbs/ft2. Today, few can afford them, as they cost over €1000/m2 to install (but they do last up to 300 years!!!)

Amazing lauze roofing of the Sarlat area.

I was so inspired by the garden. I’ll leave you with a little walk around…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.