Thursday at Home
This morning we held our last class, on medieval furniture, furnishings, and table manners. The students learned that forks are a post-medieval utensil, everyone brought their own knife to dinner, and hands had to be washed in public since food was sometimes eaten with fingers out of the same dish.
One of my concerns during this course is the students' adaptability (or not) to living without cell phones for 18 days. This morning they had an unusual (for me) request: Would I please not return the phones until they are in the airport? Usually we give them back in Dijon before leaving, but the group has coalesced so well that they want to be together as long as possible before returning to cyber obligations.
Aïe is an expression, something like "yikes" in English, pronounced "eye".
Every morning several students go running on side roads, and they have been looking for the local historic bridge, the pont roman. Today it was finally discovered, and definitely off the beaten path. By local tradition it has been there for a thousand years, which is possible.
After lunch we walked up the street to a new neighbor, a potter who makes all sorts of interesting objects (that you may see again...). While the house is being renovated, she has her shop in the cave, or basement – usually where one stores wine but it makes a lovely space for her wares.
I had promised the students a red wine tasting. While waiting, several graciously pitched into the hearty May task of weeding, made all the more necessary by the growth spurt following rain, and my preoccupations elsewhere lately.
Oops - a neighbor in distress with a dead battery. Cables and a push out of the garage - guys to the rescue. (Note the medieval hood supports.)
A car-pushing gardener gets his reward.
We finally got to the wine tasting. The reds up here in northern Burgundy aren't as full-flavored as those further to the SE (where we will be on Sunday), but they are nevertheless dry and enjoyable although they do not travel well.
