Chasteuil Day 4 (11/2)

Day 4, Thursday. Yet another beautiful day. There weather is turning chilly. The falls colors are being blown to the ground by the strong winds from the south. Yet we are still blessed with bright sunshine. The B&B is at the top of the village so we get a view of the roofs. Chimney smoke rises from some of them. Three kilometers down the hillside one can see stretches of the Verdon river and also the road leading from Castellane to the south. This morning, the sun is streaming onto the terrace where I am sitting writing this blog. I have some beautiful piano cello music playing. I think life can be better than this but I’m not sure right now how.

Pascal is taking care of some B&B business. Nancy is busy trying to purchase train tickets for two (Tai and Nancy) to Paris. We decided that the back seat of the new car was too uncomfortable for a 10 hours drive to Paris so two of us would take the train while the other two drove the car to Paris.

In the meantime, after she finished hanging the laundry, Tai was shown by Nancy how to pour some of the pure karité butter (shea butter) into tins. The butter required just the right amount of heat so as not to be overheated. After it was poured, it would take overnight to harden, to cap and then label.

This afternoon, we need to go into Castellane for some groceries. There is a largish supermarket on the outskirts of town called Casino. It’s somewhat smaller than a standard Safeway store but has more household goods. You can get some hardware items as well as some electronics and clothes. We were a little pressed for time since the store closes from 12:30 to about 3pm. Most stores in France close for about three hours in the middle of the day. This is great for shopkeepers but can be a real pain for shoppers. None the less, Pascal stopped in to give Tai and I our first tour of Castellane. It a nice town built around a central square. The square is lined by small hotels, restaurants, tourist type shops, a post office and a couple of banks. Castellane is sort of a gateway into the Verdon Gorge. So there are a lot of tourist facilities that operate from early spring to late fall. During the winter, the population drops dramatically. We walked around some of the streets and alleys off the main square. It was nice to see the town without hoards of tourists. Then it was back to the car and off to the Casino, supermarket.

Shopping was very interesting. I was intrigued with the different household items, how products were packaged. We shopped for the necessary items on Pascal’s list and of course included some dark chocolate and headed back to Chasteuil in time to cook dinner. Tonight we had an English stir fry with snow peas, squash, carrots, onions, garlic, ginger and strips of beef on a bed of basmati rice. I’ll let you guess as to why we called it English. It was very tasty and welcomed after an excursion into town.