A family visit

 A different and very pleasant week has just flown by. We welcomed my niece Katherine to stay. She’s the daughter of my younger brother Tom, who died at the beginning of the year after a long and awful illness, a combination of ailments which made him, and those close to him, suffer a long time. Originally Katherine was to have visited with others in her family, but for various reasons neither her husband Ian nor parents in law could join her, and they were missed.

Our fairly low-key, scant week together was not a high octane tourist one in these virus-restrained times, but we did manage a few trips out. Notably we went to the Pont du Gard, photos from which illustrate today's post.  It's a favourite visit for us as for many others in the Languedoc, and the River Gardon which had flooded badly a week or two ago showed little sign of the recent storm - after the worst ever floods (in 2002 I think) the whole site around the aqueduct was rebuilt with good visitor facilities and better protection from the river.  Our early visit had a sprinkling of visitors, but it was quiet.  Happily the café on the right bank was open and we could sit and enjoy a coffee while enjoying the views - Uzès, just upstream, sits in good view on the hillside, though we did not visit it this time.

Later in the week Mary and Katherine took the dogs to the beach at La Grande Motte, where K bravely swam, and the dogs had what we learned afterwards was their first sight of the sea.  They were also let off the leads for the first time with us and behaved well, Elvire staying sedately by Mary while Edmond tested his running muscles but came back happily when called.

I'm often frustrated by technology which does not work as it should - on Sunday we and Judi in Kentucky could see each other just fine on Zoom, and she could hear us, but no way could we get the sound to work from us to her so we called it off and will try again when the planets are better aligned.  A pity - her city, Louisville has had a bad patch with the death of Breonna Taylor the latest example of civil unrest from unjust treatment of black people - racism is all too frequent a stain on the news these days on both sides of the Atlantic.

Today is the first when our regular weekly schedule starts again - Mary out most of today for cello things in Vauvert, our first French conversation group post-lockdown tomorrow, though only a small spaced out group, our first monthly wine-tasting group on Saturday, and after some hesitation I have decided to go back to choir and sing Bach, the first return rehearsal next Sunday, again with careful distancing.  And today October gets going properly with watery autumn sunshine - only 2 or 3 weeks till the clocks go back, maybe for the last time.