American visitors

 Ryan cooked a seriously delicious meal last night - pork with prunes and apricots, pain perdu pud with caramel sauce - for us and his family who are visiting. So Bob and I had the pleasure of renewing our friendship with Shirley and meeting Brad and Paul, Ryans brothers, plus Shannon. And naturally Ryan invited Andree -  and she came :)
The conversations were rich and varied - the Americans wanted to know about the war in Esperaza and as Andree was 14 years old when it ended she was able to talk frankly about it.  On our side we wanted to know about their lives in America.
More questions remain but at 6.00am this morning they left for a few days in Paris so everything will have to wait.

Etienne now finds he's the centre of a large family and is cheerful enough about it as long as his mother  is close by. He's reached the age of clinging, just as his grandmother gets here; classic:)

Went to Carcassonne with Max yesterday to visit Jim Hankinson in hospital. He was being attended to and we were told to come back in an hour. We did and he was still having tubes rearranged, poor chap - and was in any case unconcious, so we gave up. Heres a bit of a view of Le Cite, taken when we were hanging about.
Heres wishing Jim a thorough and rapid recovery. Think I might go to the church and light a candle if only because it might annoy him, as a professional philosopher -

The scopes owl is back. When he shut up the nightingale started. Not yet full-throated but just lovely.