Staying with friends

Marie and Kristina joined us in our little rental car this morning to drive down to Lou’s place an hour south-eastish of Paris.   The area is called Douchy and the nearest village, where we stopped briefly is called Courtenay.  We learnt later that many French people don’t know where that is and they often resort to saying “near Alain Delon’s place”, and that seems to work!

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Lou and Riccardo have a lovely (understatement) big old restored farmhouse with a heating bill to match in winter.  They looked after us really well with a yummy lunch, then dinner and oodles of hospitality.  That was all interleaved with conversations with them and their friends, walks and afternoon tea.  We spent a bit of time reminiscing and reliving memories from our very special days in Yemen.

We had some discussion on future travel together.  Ethiopia appeals and may be accessed from Yemen or directly from somewhere else.  Watch this space!  [Edit:  We made it happen only a few months later with just me and Marie.  Read it here.]