Timpe's in France

Late post! I've been meaning to get around to this but getting set back up in Olympia took precedence. I now have some time on my hands to write about Dublin and hopefully give this blog a sense of completion - not only for my readers but for myself to be able to look back on one day when I'm too old and crippled to even think about visiting France and Ireland again. As my previous post mentioned, we got into Dublin very late at night and there was only one other walk on passenger on the ferry. Once to our hostel we got checked in and after stowing our bags in the smelly basement lockers, made our way to our room to sleep. Some words on the hostel: We stayed in a place called Isaac's Hostel. The main doorway was through an alley, and entered into a large common room with big long tables with bench type seating. When Tawnie and I arrived the common room was packed with mostly young people, but also a smattering of older folks. The majority were European I would assum...

From Bayeux we caught a BlaBlaCar. This one was a packed car with 3 other people who were actually deckhands on one of the Brittany ferries. They were friendly and talkative (in French) and they dropped us at the ferry terminal after just an hour or so drive. From there we had a long walk to our hotel with all our stuff. We asked a yellow vest protester for directions and he produced perfect directions in very solid English. Upon making the 40 minute walk to the hotel we set out to explore Cherbourg. I had never heard of it before I came, but learned that Cherbourg is one of the places that the U.S. was tasked with taking over from the Germans in WWII. Cherbourg was also the Titanic's 2nd to last stop before going to Ireland, then ultimately capsizing. So anyway, so pretty neat recent history surrounding the port city. We really didn't do much on our stay here, but some takaways: - I really loved the scenery. We hadn't seen the ocean or many bodies of water for awhi...

We return home in just 1 week! I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, but it is what it is. I'll use this post to try to catch y'all up and let you know what's been happening. After Tawnie and I killed that last cockerel we enjoyed a nice quiet weekend alone. We hiked up a hillside that I had previously hiked solo. Then we enjoyed dinner in our apartment and watched Les Miserables. Later that week Suzanne and Simon returned and on Thanksgiving Tawnie made a huge feast. She roasted her first duck which came out perfectly! She also made yam balls, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy, cranberry sauce, a pumpkin pie from scratch, and whip cream. Everything tasted great, and aside from the yam balls going flat, everything had a great esthetic. Suzanne set the table with her fancy plates and silverware. Simon got out the champagne flutes and popped open a bottle. I ate a ton and enjoyed every bit of it. Finally though, our time with Suzanne and Simon came to an end. Ove...

One cockerel left. Over the past few weeks we've been knocking off the 5 cockerels. Suzanne killed the first two, then entrusted us with the last three. The first one we did went fine. I picked out the large one with the green tail, leaving the small green tail and the grey tail. I brought him to the neck breaker and Tawnie did the honors as I hung onto the chicken with two hands showing my inexperience. The rest of the process went fine aside from Tawnie needing a bit of assistance with the size of the hole to cut before gutting. Overall, a success. The next chicken went fine as well. This time I grabbed the little green tail as we had decided the grey tail was our favorite. This time I killed and plucked on my own, while Tawnie did the gutting. May I just add - props to Tawnie. Gutting is gross. I don't like it at all, so she agreed to be full time gutter. Anyways, the only hiccup on this bird was the water I submerged him in to loosen the feathers up may have been a bi...

We're coming home soon! December 4th to be exact. On November 25th we'll be flying from Toulouse to Caen, then staying 4 nights in Bayeux. Then we'll stay 1 night in Cherbourg, take the ferry to Dublin the next day, and after 3 nights in Dublin take a direct flight back to Seattle. Bayeux should be a fun - if not sobering - place to stay for 4 days. Nearby are the beaches at Normandy where the famous D-Day landing occured. There is also a museum covering that history as well as William the Conquerer, who also had significance in that region. Bayeux is also famous for a gigantic tapestry. I'm having trouble getting excited for that. I think I'll simply not think about it, and when I see it hopefully be amazed or at least moved in some way. Tawnie is itching to come back and continue her studies at Evergreen. It will be an adventure in and of itself because we'll need to secure a place to stay (perhaps our first house?!) and a job or two. I've put some fee...

Hi all. Not much has been going on. We've been working most days which hardly feels like work. Tawnie has mostly been doing homework and watching Pride and Prejudice in her free time. I've been reading, applying for jobs back home, and surfing the internet more than I would like, seeing as I'm in France and all. The rentals are all filled. Everyone came Thursday and they all leave Sunday except for one family leaving Saturday. They were all quiet last night and I've hardly noticed them during the day. Suzanne and Simon are going to be out of town from Saturday night until Monday, so Tawnie and I will be left to run the place and see the guests off. Other than that, we're just enjoying the chickens, the beautiful views, and not having much to worry about. Even Tawnie's homework got less stressful after an hour or so long chat with her professor on Skype. Things are good. On the horizon we've booked a ferry from Cherbourg, France to Dublin, Ireland! We l...

As many of you know, this past summer I got really into hiking. I didn't have many things I felt I needed to do while in France, (we may not even see Paris!) but one thing I knew I wanted to do was hike. On one side of France are the Alps, which conjure up images of tall snow-capped peaks and winter sports. On the other side of France are the Pyrenees, which is currently where I find myself. Before coming here, the Pyrenees didn't conjure up anything in my head because I'm not so sure I'd ever heard of it. That has forever changed. Now I'll think of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage - a walk that has been travelled since 812 AD, the Tour de France - the course goes by the house we're staying at, our lovely stay here, and the amazing landscape. Let's talk more about the landscape shall we? Over the span of 6 days I went on 4 hikes and now I'm pooped, but I have my next hike planned unless snow screws it up. I'll talk you through each hike. ...

Hi all. Life has been good. I’ve gone on 3 hikes in the past 4 days, totaling about 18 miles and a bunch of elevation gain. As soon as I move all the photos I took from our camera to our iPad I’ll try to get a picture filled post of my hiking adventures. Unfortunately, Tawnie hasn’t been able to join me on any hikes yet because she’s been catching up on homework, or, like today, she is trying to fight off a migraine that has kind of taken her down today. Luckily, she was good enough to make it to the weekly market in town today. Simon bought us breakfast at a nice little cafe/bakery. Then this afternoon we were tasked with making ourselves invisible because a prospective buyer is visiting the house and our hosts don’t want anyone to know they need extra help to keep the place looking the way it is. I’m unsure why we can’t just pretend we’re vacationing, but whatever. Anyways, I’d like to use this post to discuss the work we do here. I typically do outdoor work. The first few day...

Well, on the last post I said that the next day I would write about my hosts. As usual I didn't keep my promise and waited about 3 days before writing. In this case that is a good thing though, because my first impressions have changed over the last couple days. First things first, I'm no longer sick. I took lots of decongestant, drank lots of hot honey water, and made tons of disgusting noises to expel the mucus out of my face. Sorry, Tawnie. Anyways, our hosts. I'll begin with Suzanne. She is around 60 years old but is always go, go, going and is in great shape. She is a competitive dog agility handler, and competes with her border collies, Quinn and Tilley. Her and Quinn have even competed in Nationals, yet she says Tilley is younger and shows more potential. Outside of dog agility competitions, Suzanne keeps 31 other animals: 2 cats, 2 ducks, 1 goose, and 26 chickens. Aside from taking care of the animals she also runs most of the communication side of their accommo...

Bonjour ! With heavy hearts Denis dropped us off in  downtown Saint Antonin Noble Val. His buddy Pierre met us and drove us to Toulouse. I was sad, but excited to see Toulouse and the pink bricks that are often talked about among the French. Unfortunately, to us the bricks looked pretty standard. The city felt a bit dirty and on the way to being broken down and dilapidated looking. However, only once did we feel a little unsafe, and that mostly had to do with the fact that we had our packs with all our stuff with us. But, we were fine. After 4 hours of walking around and eating at a bakery we met a blablacar that took us to Lourdes. The driver was an 18 year old that was in school to be a chef. He wasn't a great driver, but managed to get us to Lourdes where the views were beginning to become magnificent. In the Carrefour grocery store parking lot he dropped us off in, we had a view of this cliff face very nearby: Shortly afterwards, our host Simon came and picked us up, ...

Sorry it has been so long since my last post! We fell into a routine and blogging just wasn't a part of it. The first few days of our trip were so crazy that writing content was easy to come by. Lately things have calmed down - which we enjoy, but isn't as entertaining as running away from hosts and all that madness. Work has been enjoyable. I finished mudding and sanding the walls in one room. After that Tawnie and I have been chipping paint off a door frame in the mornings for a couple hours, then lunch, then chainsawing and chopping wood in the afternoons for a couple hours. Denis and Perrine are appreciative of the work, but really they're more excited about the cultural exchange that takes place over meals. Lunch and dinner typically lasts about 2 hours. All topics under the sun are discussed and even though I don't speak French, Tawnie does a great job translating things quickly, and I've enjoyed the conversations with Denis through Tawnie. One night two...

Hi all. Over the next 2 weeks I’ll probably blog a bit less as things are finally settling down and there aren’t crazy things happening from day to day. A routine feels great after a couple weeks of always being on the move and not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I hope you enjoy this post, detailing what a typical day looks like for us while we stay here at Moulin Saleth. Tawnie and I wake up to my phone alarm at 7:45. We throw on our work clothes and stumble downstairs to make coffee and breakfast which usually consists of some combination of apples, bananas, bread, jam, cake, and grapes. We enjoy our meal outside overlooking the river to the tune of songbirds. We usually eat pretty slow and have a nice conversation - anything other than that would be very un-french of us. After eating we chuck the last little bit of coffee into the river, and drop off any compostables in the compost. We rinse our dishes and set them out to dry to reuse the next day. Then we head up to work. I ...

The property we are staying at is called Moulin Saleth. Saleth I believe is just a name, Moulin is French for mill. The popular Moulin rouge is a windmill. In this case however, Moulin Saleth is named for a water mill, as we are on the Aveyron River and on the property is indeed an old water wheel. I don’t know a ton about the property as the language barrier with my hosts is tough, but I can still relay a few things. Denis and Perrine have only lived here about a year and a half, and are in the process of renovating basically all of it. In total there are 3 buildings. The smallest building is the water mill. I’m guessing that’s the oldest thing built on the property, dating back to around 1792. I’m unsure if it’s still operational, but water is still diverted through it, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. There are a number of moulin’s on the river and at each of them you have little dam like structures in the river, which I covered in my kayak blog post. Through the water mi...

This weekend was a disappointment. I wanted to write a post about the house I’m staying in, but life had other plans. Denis and Perrine had their theatre group over all weekend, so the house was full of people which made things difficult for us as none of them really spoke English. We also wanted to take a time lapse video of all the rooms, but there are people staying in them. To top it off, the WiFi has been down all weekend. We have felt slightly like prisoners, as we’re both a bit shy and opted to stay in our room, rather than sit amongst conversations we can’t understand. Well, I can’t understand, Tawnie can if she tries hard, but that requires a lot of effort and she was feeling some language fatigue. Even in the US I prefer small groups of people to large groups, and here there were probably 30 or so people. There were also many kids who ran wild and were up late making a ton of noise. The walls were literally shaking and this house is so old that I was worried about the damage...