CATCH-UP TIME IN PHOTOS

I can hardly believe that so much time has passed since my previous post!

Here are a few photos to show some of what we've been up to.

For years we always intended to go to the restaurant "Agnès Sorel" in Genillé.

We never did, then it closed for a few years.

Agnès Sorel was a "favourite" of the French king Charles 7th in the 1400's.

This year it has re-opened so we have eaten there three times already.

It seems to have had a very smart makeover.

The food is very good, very affordable and nicely served.

This is an Henri 2nd buffet.

A buffet is French for a sideboard and this one is a monster!

Henri 2nd was on the throne of France in the 1500's and clearly this piece of furniture is not quite that old but is definitely old.  It was left behind in a house that a friend has bought and she was keen to find a new home for it.  I offered to sell it for her on Facebook Marketplace until someone pointed out exactly what it was.  I looked it up and certainly in the UK they can sell for a great deal of money, in some cases thousands.  Oops!  We needed to think again.

She tried an antique place in the village where they took one look at the picture and said a resounding "non!".  I showed its picture to another antique place where I was told it was "unsaleable".  Oh dear.  

It looked like it was destined for the wood skip in the déchetterie after all, or at best, the bottom half as storage for tins of paint and plant pots in her barn.  It seemed such a shame for such a grand piece of furniture that clearly has some history to come to an unglamorous end so I sent its picture to a friend who has a friend who has a château.  The lady said "oui" only to change her mind a couple of hours later when she said "non".  It seems her husband wasn't keen.  I sent its picture to another friend who has a friend who knows someone who has another château and she said "oui!"  It's gone to one of those châteaux featured in a popular TV series about doing up châteaux so we might yet get to see it again on the telly!  Apparently they have four Henri 2nd buffets already but it's a big château with lots of big rooms to fill!

While Nick has been back in the UK we have had some very hot weather I've been walking Hugo in the cool of the early morning along the voie verte.

The voie verte is a reclaimed old railway track and many of the little signal houses are now renovated and lived in full time or as holiday homes.

At another of our favourite restaurants, Le George in Loches, a friend was served this glass of beer.

The hotel was originally named Le George Sand after the famous French novelist who lived in Loches in the 1800's.

Keeping cool in the very hot weather has been a challenge.

Yvonne spends most of the day on a chair in the small barn.

I painted this picture of another friend's house for her birthday.

This is the actual house.  It's was previously a sweet shop.

We finally got round to renovating an old metal coffee table.

It was missing its glass top when we bought it at a brocante a few years ago.

We used it outside to stand pots of plants on and it got rustier and rustier.

With its new tiled top it looks very smart and we're rather pleased with it.

The mug on the right is another brocante find for 1€.

This little "Wee Willie Winky" candlestick was waiting to be claimed on the "help yourself" table at the local tip.

Its rustic/rusty charm was impossible to resist.

We had a lovely afternoon at the rose festival at Chédigny.

We didn't go on the festival weekend but just before and again just afterwards, when there are no crowds of people so you can actually move around and see the roses.

We've had our own rose festival going on at home.

For a few days early in June we had several of these tiger moths clustered around our front door.  The caterpillar is known as the woolly bear.