On St Patrick's Day, 17th March, there was a celebration in the village bar, the PreHisto.
The PreHisto gets its name from the château in the village, which is the French National Museum of pre-history.
The local musicians were there to play Irish music and everyone had a good time.
On the Thursday of that week I went on a girls' shopping trip to Tours.
We went on the bus, which takes an hour and costs 3.40€ each way.
(Less than the cost of the petrol and car parking for the same trip.)
I bought a set of lovely coffee spoons, small enough to be used with the daintiest of espresso cups.
I celebrated my purchase with a nice cup of coffee when I got home.
On Friday 20th we were invited to a cocktail party in the local garage.
This was a first for us.
It was to celebrate the end of the first year of trading for the new garage in the village.
As one of their earliest customers we received an invitation.
It was a very nice thing to do and very convivial.
After the cocktails we repaired to the PreHisto again to continue the celebrations.
Ayo, the bar owner's cat was there to greet us.
He was an abandoned stray kitten, adopted by the proprietor more than ten years ago.
He's turned into a beautiful cat, very friendly with the customers.
While we were in the bar the newly elected Maire arrived with her team.
In France you vote for the whole team and for the first time (I think) the village now has a lady Mayor.
There was a good deal more celebrating still going on when we slid away and headed home.
In "other news" we still have no idea what was going on at the neighbour's house a week ago. He turned up as usual on Friday teatime, with a friend. A camper van with two more people arrived soon afterwards. They stayed the whole weekend then left as normal. There was no sign of the Mayor or gendarmes this time.
In more "other news" we are still waiting for the SMS summoning us to collect our cartes de séjour from the Préfecture. It's more than three weeks since we were told our application had been approved. My mum used to say "don't count your chickens before they hatch" so we're not celebrating just yet.
