exhausted

Thanks for your kind wishes in regards to my last post. I confess I'm thinking more about my poor grandmother, who has lost her sister.

As for me, I am utterly exhausted. The last few days have found us entertaining and being entertained day after day and I am just drained. Thursday we had guests not just for lunch, but for dinner as well. My sister-in-law had an interview at the high school here in our town, but as she doesn't drive, her mother brought her, as well as her daughter and our niece, who has been spending a week or two with her grandparents. Since her interview was at 11:00, they invited themselves over for lunch - actually, that sounds worse than it is, as we were happy to have them and it's been ages since we had any family over for lunch. "Oh, just do something simple," my belle mère said, but unfortunately, chips and a sandwich just won't do here in France. So our "simple" lunch consisted of deviled eggs and carrot salad, stuffed tomatoes and rice and a small ice cream cake for dessert.

As soon as they left, I was back in the kitchen preparing dinner for our next guests. By 6:30 I was in the car on the way to the train station to pick up kyliemac and her friend visiting from the States. Once back at home, we all dug into Frog's Very Special and Impressive Italian Salad (thank you so much for that, Frog dear!), a tartiflette (because the weather still felt like deepest autumn, so we might as well eat like it), and a pear clafoutis, made by yours truly. We ate and drank into the wee hours and rolled ourselves into bed.

In the morning, kylie, her friend and I piled in the car, picked up my niece in Troyes, and drove down to see Guédelon. This was my second time there (my flickr set is here) and it would have been Stéph's third if he hadn't begged off, but it was everyone else's first time there so I was happy to play bus conductor for them. Plus it really is in the middle of nowhere, and still two and half hours by car from Troyes. The weather was clear enough, still a bit cloudy but no rain, and it was unbelievably muddy, but a good time was had by all. We got back to Troyes in just enough time to have a quick walk around the old downtown before kylie and her friend got back on the train for Paris.

After all that driving I would have been happy to be a couch potato this weekend, but we were invited to YET ANOTHER barbecue today. Today the sun finally came out after nearly a month's absence, and it came back with a vengeance - it must have been in the mid-80s today. (For those of you sneering, "Oh poor you!" I hope you are enjoying your air conditioning!) After six hours of hiding from the sun and eating sausages, my friends, I do declare that I am DONE. Just stick a fork in me. I love entertaining, I love hanging out with my friends, but I feel like I could sleep for a week.