The setting

The house that Ken rented was in the middle of large corn fields. The corn surrounded us like a green wall. But this is not flat corn country, no sir. The land rolls up and down, and the rows of corn twist and turn with the land. It was very pretty.

You can see our rental house up top. The place was called La Bouée, and it was nicely isolated in the countryside.

The house was a typical longère, a style of farmhouse very common in France. The building is one room thick, and each room is connected to the other; there are no hallways. Originally, the people lived in one or two rooms of the building and the livestock lived in the rest. These days, of course, longères have been converted into beautiful country homes. Many include renovated lofts with bedrooms and baths upstairs.

Here's the house seen from the courtyard. There's Callie, too! Our room was behind the little window above the door on the right.

Ours had two large bedrooms on either end of the house and a third, smaller bedroom upstairs. The upstairs bedroom had a bath and shower. That's where Ken and I stayed. It was very comfortable. The house had been nicely renovated, but with its thick stone walls and dark wood, it felt a little cave-like. Still, it was comfortable and nice and I thought it was very cool.

We built a fire in the fireplace on Tuesday evening and that made things very cozy. Normandy is not as warm as our part of France toward the end of summer. And, speaking of the end of summer, the whole of France is entering its back to school/work funk. Summer vacations are over this weekend. School starts again next week.

Of course, if you're retired, life just goes on. Thank goodness.