A gorgeous May day

Late afternoon in Cravant

We've had a beautiful day today, in every conceivable way. Sunday 26th had to be a good day. It was the 70 birthday of a friend of ours and she'd organised a Garden Party. Talk about lucky. We got up this morning to brilliant sunshine and warmth. Yesterday we were walking around in almost winter gear. Anyway today was at it should be. The party was lovely, about thirty of us, half French and half English. Some people we knew, some we didn't, but everyone was on good form, the food was lovely,  so it all went really well and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Got home mid-afternoon and had literally just pulled into our driveway,  when some good friends of ours, Françoise and Jim, from Tavant, turned up. They're about twenty minutes from us by car. It was lovely surprise to see them. We really enjoy their company. They are great fun and we always have interesting conversations. We had a quick drink and then we all went to the cinema, this time to    Le Cube, which is over towards Ile de Bouchard and about equal distance from us, as is Chinon. First time we'd been there. It's a newish community centre with a lovely multipurpose auditorium and a retractable film screen. We'd meant to go before but never got round to it. The film we saw was a comedy called Les Profs which has some fabulous actors in it including Isabelle Nanty and Dominique Pinon, who we'd first seen in Amelie. It's about a school which after the bac results is regarded as the worst in France. All the usual ways of trying to improve standards have been exhausted, so the inspector of schools tries to find a solution to the problem. He embarks on a radical decision - to employ the worst teachers for the worst students. It is absolutely hilarious. Pitch perfect by all the actors. Needless to say it all works out well in the end. We were all rolling around. It was very funny. After that we went back to our friends for an apèro or two. We sat outside in their garden, basking in the sun and having a really good chat.  Eventually we set off for home.

Vines at Cravant

The drive back was gorgeous. A fabulous quality of light, so we dropped back home so I could pick up my camera and then drove out to some local vines to get a few shots in. Luckily there's still some water in the fields. The reflection gives the image here a lift. This is the sort of view we enjoy in pretty much all directions. It's a lovely spot to be.