France Blog Two

Another week has passed here in France so it is time for a new blog posting. The weather has been cool and wet; we had several days of heavy rain but some sun too. It was a good week though; we are all well, nobody has had a cold, flu, accident or anything. Praise the Lord.

Work went well; we got a lot of things done from scraping walls to final painting, dropping a ceiling under a stairway landing, removing an old tile floor in a small bathroom and retiling the walls and floor.
Rosie has been busy preparing meals, baking for coffee breaks, shopping, laundry, etc. Another gal helps her in the mornings and does shopping with her.

Yesterday (Sat.) we went to Avignon with one of the other couples, the Carmans. It is about an hour and a half south from here by slow train. Avignon is a pretty city on the Rhone River, very ancient and originally completely walled. Today it is a bustling city, lots of hotels and restaurants thriving on the tourist industry.


In the 14th century the papal residence was moved from Rome to Avignon. Nine popes ruled from there before it was moved back to Rome in 1376.
We toured the huge papal palace that was built by the first two popes and walked the streets and parks of the city. It is a big tourist attraction and was loaded with people, including a man we met who drives a metra train through Prospect Heights every day and knows a friend of ours! Small world! Also had coffee at McDonalds!

Today we went to a good church of about 300 people; great enthusiasm, good music and preaching, lots of young people, young marrieds couples as well as older people. In the afternoon two gals took us north about 15 miles to visit a thousand-year-old church and a winery.
The area is vineyard country. It was interesting to see how the vines grow fastened to stakes. Most of the bunches of grapes hang on the bottom fifteen to twenty inches of the vine. It was a sunny afternoon so the drive along the Rhone River was very pleasant.

Tomorrow it is back to work; two more full weeks of work before we go north to Paris and fly home.

Thanks to those of you who responded with comments to our last blog. Hope you are well.