SNOW - Encore

Ellen’s good friend Cindy left the snow and grey of Michigan and came to spend a week with us. So far, she has discovered how mean the Mistral winds can be and today, on March 7, she has been served a healthy portion of snow – approximately five inches of “Lake effect-type” snow. Meanwhile, the temperatures in Michigan are higher than here and the “spring thaw” of Lansing appears to be in full swing. As our Lansing neighbor Jeff commented a while ago: “It's 30 degrees, the sun is blazing, and folks are coatless and drivin' w/ the windows open. Must be mid-Michigan! “

Welcome to Provence, Cindy!

 From the “So what?” department: It was two months ago (January 8) that we had 20 cm of snow in Vaison la Romaine.

On Wednesday when she arrived I told Cindy that she and I would need to get pictures of the almond tree blossoms to post at this blog. Now, the blossoms are covered with snow and since they are so white/light pink, it will be a while before they are visible again (if they dare open their petals ever again). Before it snowed, she did get to see the Roman ruins, the medieval village, the olives of Nyons (at Huilerie Richard) and, today, a French dog show in Valence.

We may be an ocean away from the US, but I can now report that dog shows are the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Dog shows are held in large, poorly ventilated buildings into which the organizers try to make space for too many show rings. Then the people come – dog lovers all – and squeeze into the spaces between the owners, the breeders and the plethora of dogs.

I thought it would be fun to take Ellen to the dog show. It has been almost five months since we had Smokey and Braise visiting us and Ellen has been missing our deerhounds. So, we drove to Valence to the dog show at which there were NO deerhounds! But, we got to spend time with the wolfhounds and the Ibizan hounds and, in small measure, Ellen got her dog fix.