September 2020
Hello everyone,
On August's roads...
The month of August passed like an email via 4G, in the quiet solitude of our Auvergne farm, with just a little getaway to meet our friends Bertrand and Patricia, in their "chatô" near Nîmes, with, in passing, a salute to two architectural masterpieces, showing the incredible evolution of bridges in just over a century: the viaduct (railway) of Garabit, built in 1880-1884 by the company of Gustave Eiffel), it is a kind of horizontal Eiffel Tower ; and a little further south the viaduct (road) of Millau, the highest in the world, 270 m above the river Tarn, a project considered pharaonic at the time of its construction, but which constitutes all the same a famous technical feat: Eiffel was also for something there, via the Eiffage company). The viaduct was opened in 2003, and it is the only section of the Clermont-Montpellier freeway which requires a toll ( 10.80 euros, plus one point on Francette driving license and 45 euros, for a slight speeding ticket (86 km/h) off a town with a nice name, Pégairollles de l'Escalette).
Excellent stay in the Gard, with excellent fish, and, at the superb restaurant "Chez Alexandre", a treat: stuffed zucchini flowers, reminiscent of the late Roger Vergé, at the Moulin de Mougins.
And then we returned to our heights in the Combrailles region, and I resumed the interminable fight against brambles, nettles and even wisteria: the latter seem to have the avowed goal of invading the whole world. Francette has returned to Paris for a few days now, where I too will spend some time at the beginning of September. In the meantime, I'm trying to control the disorder that has invaded the two farm buildings over the decades; in particular, I found a quantity of 33 rpm albums from the time of vinyl, recently reborn from its ashes, since I found it easy to buy a small record player that reminds me a little of the Teppaz of my youth, and I i've begun to dust off, classify and store the hundreds of records, some of which, like the first ones by Bob Dylan, still under cellophane, never played. I haven't managed yet to get my hands on a cardboard box, misplaced in the course of my various moves, containing, in the same state, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the first Elton. John, but I am not desperate to find them.
I wish you an excellent return, protect yourself from the Covid and the evildoers, I embrace you.
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