English anyone?

Well Howdy!

How are things in paradise? Shining sun? No Tramontana? The Med is warming and softly calling? Fresh baguettes and banettes in the morning? The people are still speaking more than one language and, if English is an option, they actually know how to speak it? Lucky.

I have no doubt that you all are just waiting for my weekly updates - if only to scoff and snort at our adventures, so be it. And rightly so! Life here continues to be a daily eye-opening experience.

For example, (and this may come as a surprise) last week I made tacos and, since there was half a cow worth of taco meat, we invited a couple of new acquaintances to join us, in addition to Henk's friend David. Long story short, one of the invitees doesn't drink alcohol - which is great, for him - but what he does like is iced tea. In fact, he loves iced tea so much that he walks around with a TWO LITER plastic mug (with a handle and emblazoned with a 'Shell Oil' logo, of course) and fills it up whenever he can - which is usually at the gas station and apparently before he goes to someone's house for dinner. That's fine; it's just that he then set that dirty, plastic two liter iced tea idol on the dining room table when we had dinner. Should I have told him to please remove the behemoth from the table and use a civilized glass? I'm not sure. Thoughts, anyone?!

Then there was the 'Snake Shoot'. Did you see the picture of Sjaantje with the gun? Thank you, Diane for the article about the snakes. It seems correct because there were no snakes that night. According to the locals, there should have been hundreds. I know that must mess up the ecosystem and all of that but frankly, I wasn't too keen on Sjaantje being around snakes. And holding a gun.

Speaking of guns, we have our old one back. Well, one of them anyway. When we moved overseas, we left our two guns with David who has now given one back to us. Hey, you never know when someone's going to try to steal your horse. I'm trying to find a safe place for the gun - which is a .25 pistol. I was thinking of hooking it on my belt...

And now speaking of horses, Sjaantje has spent a little time with her horse, named Daisy. Daisy doesn't like to be ridden but Sjaantje, bless her heart, is trying to woo her with carrots and brushing. We'll see. Yesterday however, while we were enjoying a typical Sunday afternoon BBQ at some friends' house, Sjaantje went on a two hour ride with my new friend Delana's husband Dean. She loved it - until they were chased off of private property, no doubt by some guy with a rifle.

Three nights ago, we had a very large storm: lightening, thunder, electricity going out, more thunder, etc... Poor, ridiculous watch dog Wuzzy went crazy. First, he trashed out Sjaantje's room - trying to wake her up and alert her to his perceived danger - and then he ran upstairs and, again, jumped onto the bed. Hyperventilating, heartbeat at about 200 bpm, drooling and whining, he kept us up all night. Merde! What a big baby! I do think with those sounds he is reliving his flight experience. But still. I can't wait until July 4 when Henk will get into his 'I'm a young boy!' mode and play with fireworks for a few hours. Wuzzy's going to freak.

Henk and I went to a wine tasting on Friday afternoon, at the local liquor store of course. We were the only ones there. The 'tasting' consisted of one bottle of Portuguese wine, served in tiny plastic Dixie cups (like those used for urine samples) and served by a man who simply poured the wine, set the cup down and said, 'Here'. The wine had an interesting bouquet of diesel plus a hint of hairspray mixed with grass; and it left my tongue curling into the fetal position. When we gave our aforementioned opinion, the server asked if we'd like some more. Making friends...

Saturday morning we went to Central Market, which is the most amazing grocery store in the world. Beats the aioli out of Auchan. After much discussion about the variety of raspberries, we decided to buy the gold ones. Yes, golden raspberries. Central Market is THE PLACE for exotic food fetishes. I love it so. Soft shell crab? Yep! Veal rib chops? Absolutely, and Frenched at that. Baby courgette - the size of my pinkie -? Duh. For some reason they didn't have a section for Cotes du Roussillon wines. I'm going to talk to them about that. They did have aioli, but it was in a 2 oz. jar and cost $7.99. Coming from Roussillon, that seemed a bit high. Does anyone have an excellent aioli recipe? Please send it!

Oh, and Jill, I'm still having trouble getting the Patak's Lime Pickle. The grocery store in Wimberley supposedly has been trying to get it for me since they have nearly every other condiment from the Patak's line. Nothing so far, and Central Market had everything but as well. I did find a Lime Pickle from a brand called Sukhi's, based in California. It's extremely bitter. And Jill, I forgot to tell you that I met a woman at a different store (World Market which also has a line of Patak's but no LP) who, while perusing the Patak's line told me that she went to school in England with Mr. Patak himself. His first name is something weird (go figure) like Cheetah or something but, in any case, he comes to visit this woman and her husband every year. She told me that the factory used to be in the south of England, somewhere between London and Oxford, but for financial reasons they moved the factory north. Interesting. I should have asked for her phone number since that's the most intriguing conversation I've had so far and I would like to continue along that vein.

I mentioned the BBQ yesterday...I have to say that out of the 10 guests (not including us), I counted a total of about 86 teeth which was nearly the same number as the tattoos I tallied. I, wearing some of my fun pants from L'Escala, was asked by one woman, 'Where'd ya get them there culottes?' After quickly running her question through my Texan to English dictionary microchip I recently had implanted in my brain, I replied 'Spain'. Ten seconds passed while she regarded me with a rather hazy and vacant expression, followed by 'Do what now?'. Microchip dictionary at work again, I repeated my monosyllabic answer (thinking it was less confusing than, for example, a sentence), 'Spain.' 'Where's dat?' Luckily, I had my Atlas with me.

Sounds exactly like our Sunday afternoons in France, does it not?

Henk had a similar, nee identical, experience at the grocery store yesterday. Since he's not a fan of Bud Light, he wanted to buy some Heineken to take to the BBQ. When he went to check out, the cashier said, 'You know you CAINT buy beer now. You gotta wait till 12:00. Where're you from, boy?'' A little law we had forgotten about - no beer or wine sales before noon on Sunday in Texas. That way, you can pick up your hooch on the way home from church. When Henk replied, 'I just moved here from France. I'd forgotten about that law!', the cashier said, 'Where's?'. Henk said, 'France.' Another long blank stare from yet another person - I swear there must be something in the water (we've been buying bottled water, thank God) - and then again, 'Where's?!!' Gentle Henk replied with, 'You know, France. It's a country, where they speak French, wear berets and make baguettes. Just below Belgium and right above Spain, in Europe, across the Atlantic ocean. FRANCE.' Light bulb, 'Oh! FRAYANCE! I thought you said France.' (I'm assuming 'France' sounded more like 'Friends' to her.)

I guess that's it for now. Sending our love and big kisses to all of you. And please, feel free to call and engage us in stimulating conversation from time to time before our brains go irreversibly over to the squishy side.

xoxoxo

Wend, Henk and Sjaantje