Au Revoir Acquigny!

the river that runs next to the parc

Tomorrow I'm going to have to say goodbye to wonderful Acquigny and move on to my next adventure in Basse-Normandie at Chateau de Brécy where I will be living with Didier and Barbara Wirth. I'm not sure if they are American, living in France, or French but speak perfect English. I guess I will find out on Friday. There has been some debate on the issue. Originally, I was supposed to be leaving for Brécy today, but I don't think the family is even home right now. I actually have not been in contact with them myself, but my wonderful host mother here in Acquigny, Mme d'Esneval, has been making phone calls to the French Heritage Society's coordinator, Diane de Roquette.

the second night I was here we held an auction in the cider press barn to raise
money for the church that lays adjacent to the estate

So I ended up staying two extra days here, and I am trés content for that matter. Here's a few reasons (not in any particular order): the cuisine is incredible: Mme d'Esneval is a magnificent cook; the three people I live with are very kind-hearted, sweet people who are patient with me and teaching me French at a pace I never knew was possible; Adrian is probably the nicest guy I've ever met and great to work with; it's beautiful here and I feel like I'm in a fairytale. But the two extra days of being in Acquigny are giving me a sense of closure, so I feel that I can leave now. It probably will not come without tears tomorrow night though.

View of Chateau de Acquigny through an Iris

I wanted to write this last post before tomorrow's madness (I'll probably work all day, and then pack, and then have dinner, and then drive with Monsieur d'Esneval to Paris afterwards). And also before I leave Acquigny and going to Brécy. I know you all love pictures so I'm doing my best to post some more. The internet here is very temperamental, and therefore it sometimes takes me three days to get a post up because the pictures take forever to upload.

A wonderful little bar and restuarant we went to for the owner's 50th birthday party.

(I think I wrote earlier about how we ran into the owner earlier that day because Jennifer and I were on our way back from the post office and we thought the restuarant was really cute so we wanted to take pictures. Well, the owner pulled up and spoke in English, and I was shocked, and when I asked her, she's like of course! I'm English. And then she realized we were the two Americans coming for her birthday party. Her birthday party was great. I talked with an English couple about wine for an hour...hmm, I think I have something in common with people in France :)

I heard there was some interest in what I do all day. Well, in short, I just garden and eat (and sleep at night). Ha ha, I'll explain the long. During the week I try to wake up at about 7:45 am (more or less because I don't have an alarm clock, so I normally wake up at 7am, and then every 15 minutes after that). And then I wash up, get dressed, and go through Madame d'Esneval's room to check to see if she's up, or if I need to turn off the alarm (we have about 9 different alarms set throughout the estate, 4 around the house itself). And then after the alarms are de-activated, I quickly eat breakfast, make some tea and run out the door to try to find Adrien at around 8:30. He's usually in the Potager Garden (Kitchen Garden), but I don't always find him right away.

Above, all images from the lovely Potager Garden :)

From 8:30 to 1 pm, I work with Adrien in the garden. Our communication is getting better and better. He's getting better at English, and I understand his friend a lot more, so between the both of us it's working out quite well. We even had a conversation about James Bond today -- the ultimate test. However, his favorite is Pierce Brosnan, which scored him a lot of negative points. Appparently he likes Daniel Craig the least, and I told him, whatever, I LIKE Daniel Craig a lot and I think he's great. I also found out through the most rediculous conversation with him today that he's NOT married. He didn't understand why I thought he was married. He's like 'I'm too young' and I'm like, well I was told you were married. And then he was trying to explain to me that just because two people lived together and were dating in France didn't mean they were married, and I laughed and told him it was the same in the states (or Etats-Unis as they call it). But I told him, it wasn't that I assumed, but that I was told he was married. He laughed and then asked me if I was married, and I told him definitely no. The whole conversation came up when I asked him why he went for a month to South Africa and Madagascar and he told me his girlfriend's family is from Africa. And I was like, girlfriend? You mean your wife?! Hmm, ha ha.

l'Orangerie

Okay so getting back to gardening. Well, I've been doing a wide variety of tasks, weeding for one (but this is real weeding, not the kind for the faint of heart. Adrien is super strict, and I need to get out the entire root, as well as make sure that the weed's seeds don't disperse all over the garden beds. Also, many times I cannot distinguish the weeds from the plants he wants to keep!); deadheading bulbs and rhododendrons (both are also difficult tasks because apparently your not supposed to remove the leaves of a bulb while they are green, and because these are French formal gardens, everything has to be perfectly manicured, which leads us to the next tasks); cutting the grass with SCISSORS when it overlaps with the bed edge; cutting the grass with a hand mower when it's next to a bed; cutting the grass with a tractor (much fun but also like riding a horse because the ground isn't level); ripping grass out with its roots (I had to add that one in for fun because I keep talking about grass - actually grass in french is called herbe - I find that funny); pruning and thinning apple trees (this is not a difficult task, but a very time consuming one. I cannot prune pear trees however, because it takes a lot of practice and mistakes to really understand how a pear tree grows); thinning garden beds; setting animals that Adrien accidentally trapped, free; learning botanical and french flower and tree names; creating identification tags for the historic and interesting trees on site (I'm especially excited about these, spent the last two days making them. Adrien didn't want to make them because he doesn't like his handwriting. But I get to leave something permanent behind now!!); opening and closing the small dam we have for the canal system in order to clean out the canals; watering the potted plants; and that's all I can think of for now. But I've really learned a lot about plants and proper techniques over the last two weeks which I never considered before, which is great that I'll have knowledge to take with me.

A view towards the farm next to the parc. We have a few cows over there. I love looking out past the canal in this direction because it's very Romanesque

Lunch break is only supposed to go only until 2, but here it often lasts til 2:30 or 3, and so I return to Adrien a little late. I don't think I actually need to resume working after lunch, but I want to, because I really enjoy working, and working with him, so I go back and work with him til he's finished (usually between 5:30 and 7). Then I come back and either take a shower or mosey around the house until about 8, when Jennifer and I prep the table for dinner. After dinner (which can start as late as 10) I usually like to read in the den, or lately I've been going on my computer. By 11:30 I try to be in bed already and look forward to sleeping. Which means I should be getting ready to go to bed soon, but I do want to finish this post tonight! (It's 11:23 pm, Wednesday). And for those of you who don't know, I'm 6 hours ahead of EST. When I'm not working, which is on the weekends, I do have some free time. As I was mentioning briefly before and as you learned in the previous posts, we eat a lot, we spend a lot of time eating, and we eat delicious food. So that can occupy quite sometime of the day. The gardens are currently only opened to the public on weekends, so Monsieur and Madame d'Esneval take turns and sit at the gate to welcome the public and sometimes give tours to interested parties. I sit with them for a little while, soaking in some French, and then I often walk around the estate taking pictures, drawing, and writing letters, or writing in my journal. For once, I get to think without the stress of my next assignment. And it's like when I'm in the garden all day, I have this peace and quiet that I cannot get anywhere else.