Welcome to France, Tuesday, April 12

 Yes, we made it!

Wednesday, April 6 about 3:30 pm we began winging our way across North America and the Atlantic to Paris via Air France. It was a very nice flight; the staff was very attentive (back to their pre-Covid ways) and the food was the best we’ve ever had on a flight; well prepared lamb chops with a fine Burgundy with armanac for digestif. 

We landed at 11 am local time on Thursday just in time to be greeted by Storm Diego. They all have to have names now, you know. Heavy showers and strong winds were the order for the next couple of days. The drive to Briare in the rental car was exciting! By Friday afternoon the temperature dropped and we gave the radiators and wood stove a good workout. 

Rain is coming!

Luckily, by Sunday, reasonable weather had returned with high temps in the 60’s and lows in the 40’s, perfect conditions for outside boat cleaning. We’ve only been away from Oldtimer six months this time so the boat was in pretty good shape. We did have to clean off a bunch a Sahara dust, though. We’d always wondered why the boat was covered in red dirt (mud) after the winter.

We’re also earlier to the boat than we have been in the past. The trees are just starting to leaf out although is seems like we can see them growing.

This is the grove on the island viewed from our back deck.

 In their usual fashion, the city has been very attentive to their spring gardens, especially this bed in the port, although the flowers on the bridges are not in place yet.

We’ve made our first trip to the garden store for flowers and herbs and this afternoon we’ll be driving down to the area around Sancerre for a supply of our favorite pouilly fumé.

We do have a couple of major tasks to complete before we head south (more details later) but our hope is to be underway sometime around the beginning of May.

And in a new tradition inspired by the Family Midge (Fading Memories) we found this at the neighborhood Lidl.