I'm not quite sure what happened this week. I actually started writing this entry on Thursday and am only getting back to it today, Saturday afternoon!

On Thursday, I started to write:

I'm having a mini-celebration this afternoon. First, I actually finished correcting the manuscript to my book, OVER HERE: An American Expat in the South of France. With the computer crash, it took two weeks longer than I'd planned. It feels good to be done though.

I'm also feeling celebratory because of a phone call I received last night; the mother of one of my students called. Maxime had had his first test since starting lessons with me. He went from 11/20 (grades are the number of points out of 20 that you get correct) to 19/20!! He said that my lessons had definitely made a difference in his understanding of what they had done in school. I'm as pleased as if I'd gotten that grade myself. Too bad there's no similar way for my adult students to judge their success.

Then, I had to stop, because it was time for my new student, Camille, to have her lesson. We wound up not having a lesson, because she hadn't brought her schoolbooks, so I wasn't sure where we should begin. Instead, we wound up talking in a "getting to know you" session that lasted for two hours. By then, it was time to make dinner and settle in for the evening.

Yesterday, we left early for a meeting in Narbonne. I believe I may have mentioned that JM is getting his real estate agent's license. In order for him to belong to the FNAIM, which is the national, realtors organization and has a lot of advantages, including a reasonably priced insurance package, he had to go to meet the board of the Aude branch. For some reason, that is in Narbonne. We didn't really mind, because the weather was more than stunning, and therefore it was a perfect day for a drive.

Narbonne is about an hour-and-a-half from Chalabre. We had only ever been there once, when we'd had trouble with a rental car while we were on vacation, and the nearest Hertz office was in Narbonne. The FNAIM office is right on the Canal du Midi, which is quite beautiful. We found the city to be pleasant and not too crowded, which was good for driving.

Because the day was so beautiful, we decided to come home on the Nationale, rather than taking the Autoroute. We went through Lezignan (underwhelming) and had lunch in Lagrasse, which is designated as one of the most beautiful villages in France. They have a stunning medieval abbey there, which is in the process of being restored. We stopped and had a simple, but good lunch at a little café (the only restaurant actually open). No matter how beautiful the weather, it's always good to remember that in this part of France, many places close for their annual holidays in January and February, so you need to be flexible about eating out.

We took the road from Lagrasse to Limoux. It's a spectacular route through the Corbieres. At one point, there was a sign warning "difficult road." At first, we didn't think it was all that difficult; a bit narrow in spots, but no big deal. However, as we got into some of the wilder parts, we saw the reason for the warning. The snow that fell last month had done major, and I do mean major, damage to wholed swathes of forest. There were hundreds and hundreds of downed trees; some of them had actually been torn out by their roots. It was a sad, even if impressive, sight. I think that before the road crews had gotten to them, that there must have been trees lying across the road in a lot of places.

We got home a bit tired, and no wonder. I'd actually wound up driving about 150 miles, most of it on windy mountain roads. Worth seeing, but exhausting. Still, we couldn't have asked for a nicer day to do something like that. When I think of what the weather was like last year at this time, I'm astonished. This was the weekend that we moved into our house and we had snow the whole time; indeed, it was so bad I couldn't even take the car out to go to dinner. Yesterday and today, we were outside without jackets! The sun is shining in a brilliant blue sky and it seems hard to believe that we're still over a month away from spring.

I think we need to enjoy it while we can though. Rain is predicted for tomorrow and I imagine we'll be back to coats, gloves and boots for a little while yet.

Ciao for now

Randy

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Here in the Possum Kingdom, we celebrated by meeting with our new accountant. Very romantic!

But, because yesterday was a simply glorious, totally unseasonal day, it had other compensations. I have been editing the manuscript for OVER HERE, the book of my first year's blogs that we will be publishing in the next couple of weeks. As I've been reading about the weather we had this time last year, it's a striking contrast. This whole past weekend, and particularly yesterday, were so astonishingly spring-like that it's hard to believe. I think we had to wait until April to have even one day as nice as this last year.

Of course, it's not going to last, it is, after all, only mid-February. But it was wonderful to have it, even for a couple of days. Our accountant's office is in Cepie, between Limoux and Carcassonne. So, after our meeting, we stopped in Limoux for lunch at the Tivoli, our favorite brasserie in the town, then we took out some excellent Chinese food from Le Perle d'Orient to reheat for dinner. This gave us a great opportunity to walk around and soak up the warmth and sun. It was such a lovely change to not have to wear several layers of sweaters and a coat to be comfortable outside.

Today, though, the sky is gray again and rain is predicted for tomorrow. I knew it would happen, and we do need the rain. But it is a little bit sad to see spring slipping away from us again.

Ciao for now.

Randy

AND FOUND

A couple of months ago, I offered to reformat my old computer and give it to Christian and Nathalie for their son. When I went to do that, however, the computer would not boot up and I couldn't even get it to boot off of the CD drive. So, I just put it back in the closet.

After the loss of my recipe file, JM and I were talking and he asked if it wasn't on the old computer. Well, an older version (but with the most important stuff) was on there, but the computer didn't work. He convinced me to try it, figuring that if it didn't work and the other hard drive was totally trashed, maybe someone could recover what I needed off the old machine.

I pulled it out, plugged it in, and damn! It booted right up! Okay, it was slow and cumbersome, but I was able to save the files I needed on a USB key and they are now back where they belong on my now working computer. I'm going to do an immediate back up of all my files to my webserver and look for a good back up program to help automate the process.

So, I guess that's my little pre-Valentine's day miracle.

Ciao for now,

Randy

LOST

I feel like I've been gone for a long time, although I know it's only been a couple of days since I updated you all on the goings on here in Chalabre. But that's what happens when our faithful computers become ill. I really felt as if I was missing a part of myself. That's not to say that JM was not generous in letting me take over his 'puter whenever I wanted. But, it's not really the same as sitting in your own office with your own computer set up exactly the way that you like it.

So,I DID get my computer back on Friday night. I had to leave in the middle of an English lesson with Maxime, who is a terrific student, but luckily, JM was there to take over for me while I headed to the repair shop before they closed.

The good news is that they saved most of my data. The operative word here is "most." They didn't save my most recent address book, but I did have one from around September, so I don't think I lost a lot. (NOTE TO MY LOYAL READERS: If any of you have corresponded with me since the end of August, please drop me a new note so that I can get your email address!!) They didn't save my most recent bookmarks, but again, I have one from September.

The problem was in two things that I specifically asked them to save and which they didn't. One, was the data from Keytext, which was a shame, although I again had an older version of it, so probably haven't lost anything fatal. BTW, Keytext is a great little program. It sits in your system tray and allows you to copy and save any kind of text that may strike you while you're surfing the net. It also allows you to auto fill online forms and other handy things. I've been using it for years and can't imagine being without it.

The BIG problem is that they did not save my MASTERCOOK files. That means that my recipe file, with recipes that I've been saving for 30 years is gone. For some reason that I can't fathom, that is the one thing that I don't appear to have saved anywhere else. I can't imagine why I never saved an older copy. I'm going to call the Doc-Micro on Tuesday (they're closed tomorrow) and see if they still have my hard drive. I may send it to a specialized file recovery service in that case. Otherwise, I still have my old computer, which won't boot up since the move. Still, I may be able to send THAT drive out and at least get the file from before we moved, so I won't have lost everything, only changes from this year.

I'm definitely going to start a new program of backing up on a regular basis. Maybe I need to buy one of those "one-touch backup drives" that I've seen advertised...

Ciao for now!

Randy