If you're coming from Blois or Paris, you'll probably arrive at Saint-Aignan this way. You'll cross the town's bridge. I haven't found any information about how old it is. The town church and the château de Saint-Aignan are built on a promontory on the left bank of the river. The narrow cobblestoned road into town runs southeast diagonally from the bridge before turning south. The population of the town is just less than 3,000. We don't live in town itself but in a neighboring village. Our house is less than two miles from the bridge and from the château. I took these photos in May 2017 ..read more

This year, two public holidays in France have fallen on the 8th and the 9th of May. I don't know how unusual that is. Yesterday was La Fête de la Victoire de 1945, also called Le 8 mai. It's called VE Day in English. It's the celebration of the day in 1945 when Nazi Germany was finally defeated by the Allies. Today is the religious holiday called L'Ascension in French. It's sometimes called the 40th day of Easter. It's the day when Jesus Christ is believed to have ascended to Heaven after having been crucified and then resurrected from the grave on Earth. Ascension day is 40 days after Easter ..read more

These photo show how May can look when we're having a good year in Saint-Aignan. So far, that is not the case in 2024. We're having a lousy year. Maybe things will change soon. That's what the Télématin weather forecaster, Valérie Maurice, is telling us today. The weekend promises to be clear, sunny, and warm. I'll believe it when I see (and feel) it ..read more

bring May flowers showers — at least this year they have. We had less rain than predicted yesterday, but the day was not rain-free. We did see the sun for a few minute over the course of the day. We'll just have to be content with that. For me, both April and May have been times of discontentment. We haven't been able to get the vegetable garden plot ready for plantings because it's just too muddy out there. I've had a hard time getting my private insurance policy sorted out to figure out at what rate the upcoming cataract operations will be reimbursed. I still don't know. The other has ..read more

May (fais ce qu'il te plaît) seems like on of the rainiest months in this part of France. That goes against the conventional wisdom that says May is beautiful compared to, say April (ne te découvre pas d'un fil). It's not raining this morning but rain is forecast to move over us during the afternoon hours. Dew on spring wildflowers around the Renaudière vineyard outside Saint-Aignan Fog down in the Cher river valley on a May morning A little bird standing on the gravel out behind our house one day in May A green lizard that the cat dragged in one May morning ..read more

This is what the weather radar map for France looks like this morning. I've put a red dot on the map showing where Saint-Aignan is located in relation to cities like Tours and Paris. It was raining when I let Tasha out pour faire son pipi at 5 a.m. Then at about 6 a.m. there was a heavy shower that lasted 15 or 20 minutes. Now it has slacked off again, but it's still raining. There will probably be no morning excursion down to the outdoor market in Saint-Aignan today. That's okay though, because yesterday Walt went to the outdoor market in Montrichard and did our shopping there for the weeken ..read more

These are some photos I took in May 2004, just a year after we came to live here. I was using a Kodak DC4800 camera back then. The results were good, I think. Flowers, skies, vineyards, and fruit. When we came here, I of course didn't know how long my retirement would last — in other words how long I would live. Anything could have happened... It didn't rain yesterday, but it was gloomy almost all day. The sun is coming up right now, and I can actually see it! Still, there is a definite chill in the air. Spring has not yet sprung, but things are looking up for next week. As I've always ..read more

Sage in French is la sauge. This plant grows on the edge of our back-yard path. It was growing there when we came to live in Saint-Aignan more than 20 years ago. I wish it was flowering right now the way it was when I took these photos on a day in May 2005. It rained all day yesterday. It wasn't a hard rain, but it was stedy and lasting. We've had above-average rainfall nearly every month since September 2023, according to the weather and climate web site I follow to stay aware of such things. What ever happened to the drought? Accuweather is forecasting a hot dry summer for 2024 in No ..read more

Charles-Henry's nieces came back to Saint-Aignan this past Saturday. They stopped by in the evening (in a frog-strangling downpour of rain) so we could look at some photos together. We ran them as a slideshow on my laptop computer and displayed them on our living room television screen. Here they are. Their father was CHM's brother. He passed a way nearly two years ago at age 101. Thanks to Walt for the photo, taken with his phone ..read more

I won't write much on this post because I've written several long comments on my previous two posts. Go have a look. Here are some more photos of our village that I took when we first arrived here 20 years ago. Things haven't changed much, but several new (small) subdivisions have been built all around the village over the years. Our neighbor the mayor has two years to go on her second six-year term in that post. I wonder whether she will want to continue. She's a year or so older than I am, and her husband is getting close to 80. They have a vacation home on the coast down near Bordeaux ..read more