Chocolat ou Chocolat?

Would you like chocolate with that? Yes, everywhere in France there is something chocolate. I forget the number of kg of Chocolate the French eat per year, but it is staggering.
I guess it is a bit like how many French Fries folks in the USA eat per year?

Anyway, everywhere we look there are Holiday boxes and tins of chocolates, macarons, Caneles (Bordeaux specialty) and other regional specialties. Decorations aren't over the top, as it were, but they are pretty and typique de France.
Just to make all this even more attractive was the Christmas Market or Marche de Noel, in Bordeaux, when we arrived there on Saturday...but I digress...it was the thought of chocolate that made me do it! Honest!:) More on the Marche de Noel later. Lots to remember in the meantime.

Friday, we cleaned house, did laundry (the last until Wednesday of next week), gave extra loves to the cats, swept leaves off the lanai...only to watch the wind blow them back on! aiee!!! and tried to avoid the wet as much as possible.
We were going to refill the bird feeders, but the birds tend to just drop all the seeds on the ground, so we didn't do that this time around. We watched the cats sit under the one bird feeder, ever hopeful. Waz reported a bird head in the breakfast room, and wondered where the rest of it was located. I hope one of the moggies at it...why not the beak for extra roughage?

Holly cracked us up. Jolly was in HER bed box. H went around and around looking at Jolly in her box and figgering out what to do next. After uch licking of Jolly, she decided that as Jolly wasn't going anywhere, she would just sit right on top of the old guy. Fair enough too! She doesn't look that comfy, to be honest, but she achieved her objective...sleep in her own box.

 Prior to that, she was my helper...yeh riiiight! I am always fascinated as to why cats like to be up high. Scruffles is such a lightweight that she easily jumps to the top of one of the dining room dressers. I couldn't find that photo!

Needing to get out of the house if only for a little while, we took off to the town lake for a walk...well, one of the lakes, as there are two, and the one we walked around that first day with our hosts.
The walk was good for us in so many ways...we find waiting difficult, especially when everything is done, and now we have hours to wait to go somewhere. We much prefer to just up and go, when all the work is done...
...and as it was then afternoon tea time, we felt it was perfect timing to stop at the patisserie we had discovered, that has all the gorgeous goodies, and choose something special to go with out cup of tea at home...Last chance and all that!

This Tartelette Framboise tasted unbelievably better with the last of the liquid cream. You know we were emptying the fridge, right?

 Just to take your taste buds on a wee small journey with the tarte....underneath the fruit was jam...raspberry jam, and under that was a Frangipane, or almond cake like stuff (why is it so hard to explain?) and then the sweet pastry case. Of course it was nicer with cold plain cream!
Waz decided to have a Café Religiouse ( ray lee zhurse), coffee flavored of course. That is frosting on top, and so are the white things. And of course it was full of café (coffee) flavored crème patissier.  Chou pastry (like profiteroles).

We sat watching TV for a while, and through the BBC news cycle, before having a relatively early dinner of whatever was left over in the fridge. This consisted of a mushroom and lardons omelette with plenty of slices of Cucumber.  Pretty yummy, and very light. Polished off, much later on with a cup of tea, and an early night once all the kitties were inside.

We had packed all our stuff earlier in the day, and put everything in the car, ready for an early departure. I didn't want to be lugging all the bags down to the garage with all the cats in the house, so we did it while they were out and about during the day.

That accomplished, we only had our toiletries and night clothes to put in bags at the last minute. I am leaving you here, because another day has dawned, and we have a long journey to Bordeaux to document. Au Revoir.