Volunteering In France | Interning in France

What a busy day this Thursday has been! This morning we saw Mark make the finishing touches to his now completed shutters; all painted and currently drying in the sun right this minute! We have some pictures here of what the shutters will have looked like beforehand and what the finished product looks like! You can see all the hard work and effort he has put in these past two weeks with tidying them up, cutting them into shape and painting them so a big well done to him! These shutters are going to look beautiful on someone’s window!

After!

Before!

Today’s work day has been once again very productive. Mark finished his shutters today, now all in good shape and painted that nice deep green to match the others. Marlou has been helping John in the garden again with his project  of cleaning out the garden just outside the old house, tomorrow it should be ready to plant some more grass seeds! Paul took Emilie around Brossac to take some more photos for the Brossac website and him and Derrick went out afterwards to take pictures of a Laughing Horse! Gayle made a wonderful broccoli soup today for our lunch along with an egg salad that we all enjoyed.

After our busy working day, John, Marlou and Emily headed down to the lake to enjoy the sunshine before returning back to LG for tonight’s antics! This evening we were having some guests come dine with us for Emilie and sous-chef Marisela cooked us a delicious Indian curry. 13 people got the great advantage to taste another first for LG, our four guests being Jean-Michel and Indira, and Lucy and Arnaud. After the tasty curry was dessert time. Jean-Michel had made an apple pie and Indira had made a grape dessert and there was more than enough to go round! The rest of the evening was spent having various discussions over the candlelit table; looking at the stars on yet another clear night sky.

So it’s the start of our working week again as we all carry on with our given tasks. Marisela has been up in the computer room as she will be taking over emails, blogs and social media sites once Emily leaves. Marlou and Derrick started with cementing some of the floor of what will be the professional kitchen in the old house while Mark has been sawing away at his shutters. Paul has been helping John as he is working outside still; the grass seeds he planted last week have already started to shoot up! All this while Gayle prepared us a delicious lunch!

After work John, Marlou and the two Emilys headed down to the lake as the weather has been quite warm all day. Not warm enough though apparently as the water was quite chilly, yet we all still braved it  and went for a swim. This made us very hungry so were very excited to get back to LG to the delicious smell of Gayle’s cooking – a beef stew with potatoes which was just what we needed after a good day’s work!

Afterwards we had a debate on what film we were going to watch for yet another film night; John wanted to go for the sad but good film Sophie’s Choice while the girls wanted to watch something a bit happier like Cabaret. In the end after Gayle’s suggestion we watched Paycheck starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman which we all enjoyed greatly before heading off to bed.

It’s Monday morning again so LG set off to Chalais market once again. For Mark, John and Emily it’s their last time there so we all spent more time looking around. Some of us came away with some beautiful smelling soap made of donkey’s milk and Gayle and Derrick got to buy a whole roast chicken with roast potatoes that they’d been dying to buy for a least a good week. This week there were many more stalls than last, but to our dismay the chichi and crêpe woman wasn’t there which was a shame seeing as she makes some delicious crêpes!

The weather brightened up in the afternoon so John and Derrick went down to the lake while Paul, Gayle and the two Emilys went to do the weekly shop in Chalais. When we returned, we were welcomed by Raymond and Jean-Michel who had popped round for a quick drink and to pick up some drawings that Irvin had drawn for Raymond and Indira. Marlou had made a start on the dinner and Jean-Michel insisted that he help peel some carrots! Marlou made a very tasty dinner – mashed potatoes with bacon bits and spring onions, orange juice boiled carrots, and chicken with bread crumbs!

After the scrumptious meal we headed off to pétanque. It was Mark and John’s last chance to win a game and they were on separate teams; the teams were Mark, Gayle and Emily and John, Marlou and Marisela. The suspense grew as it was 12-12, who was going to win? It turned out John, Marlou and Marisela were the winners in the end after that extremely close game! Meanwhile, Paul and Derrick were against Emilie and Jean-Michel, they played two tense games, both winning one each. Paul and Derrick did well when they were loosing badly and ended up winning 13-11. This week is the last week that pétanque will be played in the evening on a Monday, from next week onwards it will be back to the autumn times in the afternoons so we made sure this evening was a good one!

This Sunday morning, Marlou went off to Aubeterre with her mum who is staying in Brossac for the weekend while the rest of us went off to a Bric à Brac at Saint Quentin, not far from Chalais. There we had a delicious meal of pâté and bread, steak and chips, dessert and wine/water all for the great total of 8 euros! We also picked up some good bargins, Emilie bought some beautifully decorated salt and pepper shakers for her parents, Paul bought three tennis rackets and Emily and John bought some French books.

When we returned to LG the sunshine made an appearance so we took Marisela to the lake. The weather was however a little too cold to be swimming in though so instead we just enjoyed the sun by sitting by the lake as opposed to in it.

In the evening we were surprised to see Gayle and Derrick return back from Dordoigne a day early. They had a brilliant time but had managed to see everything they had gone there for. They had already eaten dinner but the rest of us hadn’t so we decided to eat pizza and lasagne and enjoy a quiet night in watching the comedy The Proposal.