Sunday, July 4, 2004

Jet-lagged and in orientation mode, we woke on the second floor of our gite, made the first of two weeks' classic French breakfasts (coffee, baguette-butter-jam, croissants), then in driving rain bought more groceries in the village before lunch at the Hotel Rohan (pork with cider sauce for Darrell, grilled duck for F).

In the afternoon I took a long walk around the property of our rental---across fields to the Brest-Nantes canal that cuts through the corner of the property. A green and gold landscape with a million birds unfolded, and the sun came out to enhance the bucolic imagery. We had carried six CDs and a roll of fiberglass screening across the Atlantic--among many other useful and useless artifacts--and so the early evening provided my chance to put up screening against the mosquitos (an architectural element seemingly unknown to the French) on our bedroom and living room windows, and to play Miles Davis while F prepared the accompaniments to the chicken that I barbecued on the gas grill down by the hedge. F spent the late afternoon reading David Sedaris in the garden.

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