les Davey de France

This is my office. The lady serving was a bit surprised when I was back in the afternoon meeting up with someone else. But it's a nice place to meet, comfortable with enough privacy to talk. It was cold at lunchtime but lunch in a café is expensive so I got a sandwich from a supermarket in one of the shopping malls then sat on some steps to eat it, along with about 5 or 6 other people !

So at the synode we discussed what we had for breakfast. I'd had a nice standard French breakfast of really nice fresh bread with super fig jam and black coffee. A colleague had had instant coffee (shudder... ) and those dry toast things... So what do you normally have ? Qu'est-ce que tu prends d'habitude ? Always porage. (Flocons d'avoine) Des flocons d'avoine tous les jours. Oh, that's really nice, oatflakes. You can use them to thicken soup, too. Kwakawat. Mais c'est bon, les flocons d'avoine. On peut les ajouter aux soupes, aussi. Kwakawat. Sorry ? Comment ? Kwakawat. It's a brand. Kwakawat. C'est une marque.

Pat's at church helping with a fortnightly Wednesday afternoon Kids' Club. When Gwilym gets home I have to trim his hair, then we'll go off to get a replacement wood-burning stove. I'm quite excited about this stove - it will take longer logs then our old one and the cost of the stove is less than the cost of the spare parts we needed to repair our old one (the grate burned through...) It's been a bit of a saga waiting for it to come in to our local DIY store - but it's there now and we should be able to get it (and fit it ?) this afternoon. If I have trouble fitting it our old stove fitter said to call him and he'll come and sort it out for us. Then we have the FAC AGM at the FacFlat in the middle of town this evening.

So it's time for my annual blood test to check cholesterol, PSA, diabetes, etc. etc. I have also had a letter to suggest I do a test for occult blood, but I have to get the doctor's signature to do that. I phoned for an appointment but she said to go straight away and I forgot to take the letter with me. Bof. Still, she was a happy doctor. The blood test results will come this afternoon. If there's anything that needs poking around then she'll phone.

I've always thought that Synod was an interesting word. If you try to understand it by breaking it down into its component parts you don't go far wrong, do you. Syn. Od. Synod. Anyway the Synode Régional was in the charming and remote town of Rieubach, near the Mas d'Azil way down in the Ariège. Here's a few photos. Synodes are not good places for the tummy or the wasteline as people try to present the best of their regional cuisine and also to make people feel at home. I don't know quite how this one worked out, but the first meal we had was a wonderful choucroute . The second was andouillette , but by that time I was feeling the need for lightness, so I stuck to the "salade de magret de canard" starter and let the "pigs guts sausage in a savoury onion casserole" pass me by. I did crack for a marvellously aromatic cheese that looked so innocent but had a strong element of ammonia. It was delicious spread with the local fig j...

What have you found helpful, folks?

It really has been wonderful weather here. Especially good as we wait for a wood-stove to be delivered to Leroy-Merlin ! They said it would be there last week but it wasn't. The afternoons are warm and sunny. The mornings have a certain nip in the air and the evening is a little chilly. We put the heating on in the evenings but really we're very comfortable. After the excitement of a very full weekend I was pretty jiggered yesterday with a dry throat and an irritating cough. Today I have more energy so I'm back on the case with emails flying to the right, to the left and a long skype call this morning. I've also been doing a bit of planning and reflecting, not too much, just what is necessary. We'll be writing a prayer letter soon, and for that I asked for a bit of clarification from the mission about finances and so on. I've also been ordering some books that I should have ordered a while ago. Catching up generally. This evening prayer meeting. A good Tue...