On a brighter note...

Some of our haul a week ago...yum! 

After the gloom of the last two posts, it feels like high time to hit on something a little more colorful. Yes?

We're in a rural region, and our town holds a wonderful farmer's market on Tuesday and Friday mornings. At home in the US, our family has been spoiled by the many lovely markets in and around Lancaster, and we feel lucky that we've been able to maintain those kinds of shopping habits here. Local cheeses, meats, fish, honey, eggs, and bread can be found in abundance at the Thouars market, and it's so nice to have it all just up the street. Of course we've find shopping at the market a little tricky at times since we're not always efficient in communicating our needs or questions. I'm happier shopping on Tuesday, which is the "little market" day, when the stalls are slow and only food stuff is for sale. I don't feel so bad requiring the patience of vendors when no one else is in line!

On Fridays, the place is teeming with people and there are dozens and dozens of additional stalls. I'll note that while some of the additions feel in keeping with the historic market (e.g., live hens, flowers and plants, ready-to-eat-food), many others surprised us. At home, non-food stands at a farmer's market would probably consist of artisan items, vintage wares, handmade products, etc.  Here, there's some of that, but overall it's more like a huge Dollar Store sidewalk sale. There must be 25 stalls selling clothes and shoes, with most displaying nearly the same items. Multiple vendors sell nothing but rainbow loom bands. There are some nice kitchen wares, but most are aluminum and plastic items that don't look like they'd last long. A lot of the linens consist of piles of (garish) polyester tablecloths. Obviously I carried a romanticized notion of what wares "should" go alongside a lovely French farmer's market!   :)   But regardless, we *love* the market and won't be stopping our biweekly visits anytime soon.

P.S. - Two little details that I love (and ought to photograph): first, how all the price signs are penned in pretty cursive, and second, how shop owners and boulangers close paper sacs by twirling the corners rather than just folding over.

Update

Bathroom ceiling

Thanks for the kind messages being sent our way post-flood. We're doing well, and I thought I should put up a newsy update for those who've been emailing for details.

Water coming in through locked, sealed door (ice dammed).

We didn't leave the soggy house on Sunday. We woke to find that pieces of the plaster ceiling in the bathroom had flaked down overnight, and I think we were too overwhelmed and messy and just plain weary—with too much work before us—to manage getting ourselves psychological or physically together for church or any other outing. There also was a 50% chance of more thunderstorms on Sunday, and we were worried that if any rain began to fall, it would be all hands on deck once more (although in the end, no more rain came). In hindsight, leaving the premises would have helped, I'm sure, but we didn't want to face it at the time!

You can sort of make out the staining — attic bedroom

Because Sunday was a heavy, warm, humid, darkish day, nothing aired at all. I put through a few loads of nasty wet towels and such, since I couldn't bear to ignore the mountains of wash, but given the weather they were still basically as wet by bedtime as they'd been when I hung them out to dry hours earlier. Life felt damp and stinky.

Lots of water damage to wood stairs.

But then: The weather turned that night. Monday dawned clear and breezy, chilly even, with no humidity at all. Perfect for throwing open every window and kicking the clean-it-up, air-it-out, wash-it-all, dry-it-through efforts into high gear, hallelujah! I think the washer ran non-stop for the day (well, except for an hour or two in the morning when Jesse and I had our first language class at the local community center and an hour or two in the afternoon when William and I had a brief playdate with a mom and daughter from his class).

Upon walking through town, we could see clearly just how badly the area was devastated by the storm. Gorgeous flower gardens have been reduced to mashed vegetation (our own courtyard has been a mess to begin clearing, and still had pockets of ice up to 48 hours later!). Countless homes, businesses, and buildings were discernibly damaged and/or flooded. The beautiful, 1000-year old church behind us has piles of sand at its feet where the hail blasted the facade for half an hour and chipped away at the ancient, soft stone, doing irreparable harm. So sad. We've learned that the hail was concentrated in a tiny path; our little part of town was at the very heart of the worst of it. People barely 10 minutes away knew nothing of it!

Joined planks splitting

I should be clear there's been lots of good news. First, the clear, dry, breezy weather is forecast for at least a week. Next, I didn't say it in my previous post, but Jesse's and my bedroom was pretty much untouched by water, so we've had an oasis there (just a little staining appeared on the ceiling). Third, the kitchen and living room also have remained fine for living in; there's damage to the living room carpet and to the ceilings, but we've totally been able to work and play in the areas, prepare meals, etc. Fourth, we have a full bathroom in with the laundry off the kitchen, and that area too has been fine to keep using. So...given that hundreds of gallons of water (yes, really) entered the living areas of the house, we feel uncommonly lucky. It's also bizarre that despite the fact that it was like a massive sprinkler system went off in the attic, water pouring everywhere, by some inexplicable miracle the boys' twin beds were two little islands of dry. Baffling, but we're so thankful. Of course we've not had the boys sleeping up there since the storm. We've unplugged everything in the attic except for a single large fan that hasn't been turned off yet. Unfortunately, most of the white paneling is buckled, swollen, stained, and smelly, as are the floorboards. Likely a lot of it will need to be ripped out and redone...

Always nice to see your
electrical has been
bathed in dirty water...

On the point of repairs, our landlord has been great. A roofer who'd been out to quote on a very small existing roof leak a few weeks ago got her S.O.S. on Saturday evening and has moved up work to this week, tomorrow in fact. The area of the pre-existing leak barely dripped during the storm so does not appear to have been the culprit, by the way!  Interestingly, Jesse was up on the roof last week patching some of those small existing gaps, and he popped back up again yesterday (through a narrow skylight on the third floor) to look around. He reports that the roof looks a-okay in general!? Our house is attached to the neighbors', whose roofline is higher than ours and slopes/dumps 100% onto ours. It seems the entire square footage of roof drain-off from next door was coming in along the full join between the two. Roofs are different here; they leave space for air circulation, and we wonder whether that space—which ordinarily couldn't be breeched—was damaged...or lifted...or something...by ice damming perhaps?

As for other repairs, what will happen remains to be seen. Some issues are cosmetic, others are much more important. Nothing moves fast, so we're setting expectations accordingly. It's also the case that many buildings were damaged, so I imagine trades folk will be booked out for months. But for now, we're totally fine, basically dry, very thankful, and back to characteristically optimistic spirits about life in general.  :)

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Here's a little video posted by the local news; you can see just how the water and ice was flowing! (Grêle is hail, by the way.)

One for the record books

Josiah was keen to invite some of his new friends for a birthday party. When your child—in a new country, who's doing his darnedest to make friends with children he can barely communicate with—asks to invite kids over for his birthday, you put aside your own concerns about the million little practicalities and Make It Happen. My wonderful grad school friend Evie came to the rescue once again and talked me through the expectations surrounding kids' birthday parties here. For example: they're almost exclusively held on Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. or Saturdays at that same sort of time, they're low-key affairs, parents rarely stay, one serves cake but never ice cream, favor bags are expected to be small bags of candy...the list of little expectations that go unnoticed in one's own culture but are so interesting and important (and potentially stressful) when you're in another culture just goes on and on!

Galvanized by the call with Evie, I Googled up some general wording, and Josiah brought invitations to five school friends the following day. This was a week ago. We set the time for today, Saturday, in the afternoon, and we were delighted that three of the children were able to attend (one girl, two boys). And yes, I put a little comment at the bottom of each invitation saying that we were newly arrived, spoke very little French, but would do our best!

The children all arrived at the appointed hour. We had friendly if a bit awkward "conversations" with the parents at drop off. I put quotes around the word because of course our communicating relies heavily on gesture, simple sentences, and lots of hopeful smiles. 

We told each parent they were welcome to stay if they wanted, but each politely declined. And perhaps that was for the best, because, well, I'll let the photos do most of the talking from here:

Everything started off great. The sun was shining, and the kids played and ran around together. After a short while they folded paper airplanes and spent a while tossing them around, giggling (usually at me butchering words), and generally having fun.   :)

We knew that thunderstorms were forecast, and sure enough, an ominous rumbling began in the heavens. Despite still having blue sky above, it became one of those non-stop thunder rolls that goes on and on. I kid you not: It thundered without ceasing for over 30 minutes while we played outdoors. When the clouds eventually moved in, we headed inside to make some little parachuting Lego Minifigures. (We decided to flout the "candy for favor" tradition and do the little Lego guys instead. I mean, we're foreigners...we get to break a few rules!)

Over the course of just a few minutes, the sky went from dark to darker to black...to white? Hail descended. It was wild. We understood from the kids that hail is very uncommon, and of course we all watched with that mixture of excitement and fear that you get during really wild, powerful weather events!

Obviously we got a LOT of hail, often with heavy rain mixed in. Here's the level at the door when we opened it after the precipitation ceased:

If only that were the end of the story. Alas, no. 

In the midst of the storm—which went on long enough that we'd returned to our paratroopers long before it ended—I was bent over the kitchen table helping somebody do something when Noé blurted out, "Il pleut dans la cuisine!!"  

Did he just say it's raining in the kitchen?

I whipped around. Yes, yes he did. It's raining in the kitchen. This photo doesn't begin to do it justice. It was coursing down the walls and there was a steady, faucet-like stream falling from the middle. Mind you, this is what I could see on the bottom floor of a three-level house...a looooong way from the roof. 

Jesse kicked into high gear upstairs, where it really was indeed basically raining inside. There was water coming waterfall style down the stairs from the boys' room to the middle level. Unbelievably, inconceivably bad.

What could I do? Serve cake and sing "joyeux anniversaire," that's what. Couldn't exactly abandon the kids! Plus the floors were dangerously slippery, we didn't want the children to leave the (dry) kitchen table area, and well, it was all pathetically hilarious. You can sort of see the white-out conditions out the door behind Josiah...   Happy birthday, kid!

 Once the storm passed, with Jesse still bailing like a madman upstairs (buckets were filling literally faster than he could make the rounds to empty), the kids begged to go outside and experience the novelty of the hail-covered landscape. With trepidation, worsened by the fact that I don't really know how to caution kids in French, I agreed. 

No, I didn't press them into hard labor (below). They asked for the brooms and were excited to sweep a path through the 3-4 inches of hail, clearing the way to the door and moving enough so the door could open when their parents arrived. 

The parents confirmed that this was utterly bizarre weather, one of the worst storms ever to pass through Thouars (some of them have lived here their entire lives). One dad said his house too sustained roof damage and was flooding badly throughout, like ours.

This is my sum-up portrait of the party:

Party post-script:
Once the guests left, the real fun began. Ugh. We've been in touch with our landlord, in Canada, and are documenting areas of worst damage. The entire house feels waterlogged (and regretfully is beginning to smell the part too). Much of the water that came through was black and horrid. Paint is bubbling on most ceilings, areas are still dripping clear to the bottom floor now hours after the rain stopped, walls are wet to the touch, water is everywhere, pretty much every towel has been destroyed in service of protecting bigger and more important items. Unfortunately, most of the boys' books that we brought were ruined, as is their Monopoly game. Jesse's and my toothbrushes got a good dousing in nasty black water too, and I'm trying to decide if scrubbing them in the sink with boiling water (which I intellectually know will clean them) is going to satisfy me psychologically enough to put it in my mouth before bed tonight. Hmm. Shops are closed now until Monday, so I guess I can't wait that long to brush my teeth!

Apparently there were no promises made about our particular house being saved from flood.  :)   (Rainbow seen out our back window an hour or two after the hail storm.)

 

One last note: We were so touched when one of the dads returned to our house a few hours later in the evening. We must have looked so helpless during pick-up time, and he came to see if we needed any help. There really wasn't much more to do at that point but wait for things to start to air out, but we were incredibly grateful...especially considering that he's the one whose own house was likewise wet. We've kept his number and are thankful that we can call him if needed.

Speaking of "au loup!"...

I mentioned in today's earlier post that last week for homework, Josiah worked through the story of the little boy who cried wolf, a.k.a., le garçon qui criait "au loup." [Of course this really means that I worked through the story. Fortunately children's tales like that are lots easier for me to understand than everyday conversations or more technical documents, so it's been among the more enjoyable translation projects!]

Anyway...Jesse and I keep cracking up at it. I'm sure you know the general tale. Well, when the wolf arrives on the scene and the boy—Louis, in this version—cries out at the end, the adults eventually see his plight and tell him it serves him right ("That'll teach you not to tell lies!"). Hearing this, the wolf decides to eat the adults instead, and it looks as though Louis is off the hook. But no, the wolf ends up deciding to "savor" Louis for dessert. No American-style happy endings here! And what totally gets us every time? The final line: "Que voulez-vous, c'est la vie!" What do you want? That's life!

Our happy-ending kids found this to be a bit...puzzling, to say the least. "You mean, the wolf really ate him?" Yep. "The adults didn't want to save him?" Nope, although don't worry, they died too. Listen kids, we aren't going to sugar coat it for you. And seriously, what do you want? Wolves devour people, got it? The end.

It just struck us as so quintessentially French. You can bet Jesse and I have been getting all sorts of mileage out of that line between ourselves!

Mouche!

William is one of those kiddos who's successively obsessive about various hobbies, sports, and interests. Each one lasts anywhere from a month to, oh, perhaps half a year. Some previous (a few still ongoing) obsessions have included basketball, running water, baseball, butterflies, and the Hallelujah Chorus. If you've known William, then you've known these crazes!

Currently? He's hilariously intent on capturing and/or swatting flies. Upon arriving home after the first day of school a few weeks ago, he proudly produced a very large fly from his pocket that he'd caught by hand on the playground. Atta boy!

Josiah's homework last week involved going through the story of the little boy who cried 'wolf,' and in French, the "Wolf!" bit is translated "Au loup!"  Well, William has adopted this as his own and is now the little boy who cried 'fly.' He can be heard crying "au mouche!" off and on throughout the day as he dashes through the kitchen or living room, swatter in hand. (Yes, I know the grammar is wrong since "mouche" is feminine, but I'm not bothering him with that.) 

He'll stay on the chase of a particular fly for ages. Once he's gotten or killed it, he marches straight outdoors with it (I've mandated the outdoors part) along with a bug zapper thing that is easily The Best Item Found In This House, as far as William is concerned. It's shaped like a tennis racket and, with the press of a button, becomes electrified. Thus the fly is duly zapped to make sure it's well and truly dead—ugh, it stinks—and then the little body is carefully flicked under the rosebush. 

I've said it time and time again through the years...but how did I end up with boys? I guess I shouldn't complain, as William is my first call upon finding any creepy-crawly thing I don't want to deal with in the house. He's very matter-of-fact and efficient in his exterminating, so that's a win in my book!

Post script: 

While talking about William's crazes, I should mention that William is also enraptured with playing Monopoly right now. He's at it for hours per day! The crazy 4-year-old has the math skills of a child much older; he can be the banker, make complicated change with ease, etc.  Now if only he had the impulse control to match it, my life would be made in the shade...  

Eight.

Josiah turned eight today. Eight.

    

   Eight?

- As in: too old to be called "Josiah Papaya" any longer, really.

- As in: two years shy of double digits.

- As in: seriously??! the baby we brought home from the hospital barely a blink ago? 

Goodness, he's growing up so fast. Just because practically every parent has said it before doesn't make the passage of time feel any less remarkable. 

I miss the little munchkin who would put both hands on the pantry door and demand " 'nack!" when he was hungry (which is to say: all the time). I miss the cheeky toddler peeking through his great big glasses, which made those ginormous chocolate drop eyes look even bigger. I miss the train-loving preschooler, the kindergartener climbing bus stairs that came to his knees, the little boy scampering around the house. 

But...

Goodness, I love having the privilege of a front-row seat as he grows. 

I love the big brother who is so patient with his younger sibling. I love the happy kid who laughs at the drop of a hat. I love the confident second-grader who has skipped (literally skipped!) off to school each morning these last two weeks in a foreign country with unfamiliar kids speaking an unknown language doing unfamiliar activities. 

And goodness, I still melt at those chocolate drop eyes (with eye lashes so paintbrusherly long that they sweep the inside of his glasses). 

So today we celebrated Josiah's birthday in style. Thouars was good to us and had a "Fête de la Gare" this morning—that is, a party/festival at the train station. It involved a big community yard sale, a couple of bouncy houses, a painting exhibit, and a free kiddie quad course. Fun!

 

From there, we came home and had a birthday lunch. 

Then it was time to open the cards that have been arriving all week...  

to read (scrutinize?) cards....

...and to be excited about cards (and about the Euros some of them enclosed!).

From there we moved on to opening presents

and showing 

(a) affection for presents:

(b) affirmation of presents:

and (c) utter delight with presents.

There was also plenty of laughing...and a bit of "cool dude" posing. As always.

In the afternoon Josiah went straight off with Daddy to spend the birthday money at a nearby shop, then returned to play with his new treasures. 

Soon enough it was dinner, outdoors again.

Josiah's meal request for the second (third?) year running? A big meat pie.  :) 

Then cake time. William was adamant that instead of getting Josiah a traditional gift, he wanted his gift to be the birthday cake. A "very, very, very, very sugary cake, with lots of chocolate." In addition to dictating the sugar content, William helped with the decorating. It was the fudgiest, richest cake ever, layers of buttery frosting, a thick ganache top. Mama Caz and Pop Pop joined us by Skype for the candle blowing and happy birthday singing (we could have used their help eating, too!).

There was just time at the end of the day to read the newly-arrived chapter of Nannan's amazing adventure book. And then it was bedtime for one happy, happy little big, 8-year-old boy.

---

Post-script:

I was just poking through photos of birthdays past, and I thought I'd include them here for fun:

The original birthday, moments after Mr. Wedged In Breech Baby emerged.

Ummm...I'm wearing the same shirt here on Josiah's first birthday that I wore today for his 8th...

A hot and humid birthday #2.

Still loving trains at 3.
(I remember this day for the endless Braxton Hicks contractions it brought,
with William's birth just a couple of weeks away).

Hooray for 4! We had celebrated outdoors with family but moved inside for cake as darkness fell.

Turning 5...

Apparently zero family pictures at 6. (Recognize the crown from today?)

Last year, turning 7, wearing the crown his teacher gave him at school that day. 

Home base: Part II

Last week I promised to show the upstairs area of our home here. Et...voilà!

Both sets of stairs in the house are steep, narrow, slippery, and creaky. We're constantly reminding the boys not to rush on them, since once sock weather settles in, the steps could be lethal! (Slippers will help.) In any case, at the top of the stairs, you look in on this:

The guest room, at the front of the house. If you come for a visit, this will be your lovely spot. :)  

Next is the main bathroom, which is spacious and pretty.

Last, at the end of the hall is our bedroom. Here you see a typical sight (looking from the guest room): All the covers and pillows flung off and piled up, after Josiah and William had a big, bouncing, wrestle-fest on the bed! 

And here it is made up again. Such a lovely, comfortable, calm bedroom—we couldn't be happier with it. 

Actually, the best vantage point from our bedroom at the time I was taking these photos was the view out the window:

The ivy all over the side of the house has turned from green to red in the past month, and now the leaves are falling down by the bushel load. They flutter in the windows and doors all day. While I took a few pictures, the boys were sweeping and bagging them...tempted by the promise of a treasure hunt that I'd promised in exchange!

Don't judge the feeble rhyming; these were the dashed off work product of
barely 20 minutes while Jesse did the midday school pick-ups that day!

Anyway, on with the tour. From our room, you go up the next set of stairs and arrive in the finished attic area. The boys share the room at the top of the stairs. 

You can see just how low the ceiling slopes. Both Jesse and I have whacked our heads on the center beam more than once...but the space is perfect and cozy for the boys. We'll see how it goes in the winter, since the heat isn't run to the top floor. With heavy down comforters and mild winter temps here, we think it might be okay. If not, we'll move beds around and put the kids in the current guest room.

A Josiah lego creation.

We like looking at places on the old map before bed.
(Our plastic bag parachute friends hanging on the side aren't particularly photogenic...but they are fun!)

Can you spy Thouars?

I didn't take a picture of the little half bath that's up here, nor did I photograph the small fourth bedroom (slightly higher ceilings, double bed). The fourth bedroom is very cute but it's a bit of a disaster right now because of a leak in the roof -- so we have the room lined with towels and buckets. It's also a temporary storage / catch-all area. Once the roof is fixed, we'll get the room sorted properly so it can house more guests.

Thanks for visiting!