19 July 2025

Busy!

This was not my normal kind of week! Summers in Sète are usually pretty laid back, with a punctuation of festivities here and there. This week...

Monday - La Fête Nationale (aka Bastille Day) 🇫🇷

Yes, it's a reused photo 😉

Tuesday - my 4th anniversary of Becoming French 🇫🇷

Wednesday - chores! Picked up my "SAM Pass" Sète city card, sent off my passport renewal at La Poste (line was out the door), through the Marché for green beans (unsuccessful) and cheese (found 3-years-aged goat cheese 😋😋😋), bought tielles for dinner, added bus tickets to my new SAM Pass, then home! 

Thursday - our 7 year old air conditioner finally gave up the ghost; we shopped for a replacement, finding one at the second place we tried. We had to wait 24 hours to test it out 🥵🔥🥵, and had to rearrange the room some more. It's awfully crowded until we can confirm it works and can get rid of the boxes and the old A/C.

Friday - fortunately, this was a somewhat cooler day, marking the end of the latest heatwave; sleeping without the A/C was bearable! And! The A/C works! But! It has that "new appliance" smell, so we ran it with the windows open for a while, and slept again without it. We also tried to book tickets for my next California trip - got right to the end of paying, when the site blew up! Without knowing whether the payment went through, or whether the flight is booked, we're in wait-mode for a few days 🙄

Saturday - woke up after a miserable night; humidity at 90%, fog shrouding the étang... More A/C, less and less smell - YAY!

~~~

Yes, this was the A/C that I had fussed so much with 😕. My drain-hose work came into play for just a couple of weeks! Luckily, all the window arrangements stayed the same 😜 and the new A/C came with a hose... 


14 July 2025

Fireworks!

I'm surrounded by fireworks! Today is La Fête Nationale (Bastille Day) in France, and all our surrounding towns have fireworks going on!

There's a video here




On top of that, I got to see the 4th of July fireworks in California! Also from a convenient window 🤣🤣🤣


11 July 2025

California Family

I had a great visit with family in California! Two weeks (well, almost), full of ...

Catching up

Empty chair for me and others 🙂 

Cooking
Duck à l'Orange

Potatoes Fondantes (sooo good!)

Making friends with the new dog



Checking out the flowers



More catching up (they demanded a selfie...)


Special times with Mom and Dad!


Photo-browsing - 1954; this is when they got Engaged!


Playing cards...


We had 4th of July Fireworks! 🎇🧨🇺🇸 But no pictures 😔

I did some of the usual shopping, then to the library's book sale (which included jigsaw puzzles 😜)
I left them with this beast 🤣🤣🤣