Rain, exit; stage left even......

“The dog days of Dordogne”
An idea by Saskia Amaro (My youngest sister)

After a three hour drive Cindy and I return to Eymet for a nice local lunch, I get the Cotelletes De Agnew, Lamb, and Cindy gets a Boeuf hachett avec Frites’, a burger and fries. I chose to let the chef prepare it and not add on anything exotic, you know like uncooked egg, so lowbrow of me. We really enjoy the lunch, prior to that we had driven south from Eymet to Marmande. The drive was on and off again nice, dull tractie homes, then those mouth watering old decrepit farm houses with the stone and the tile roof, man I would love to get my hands on one of those Renovat’s, as they call them. The weather is warming up slightly, with moderate rain, and the traffic is minimal, thankfully. We arrive Marmande and drive around the old part of the city, which is nice except you have to drive through the new outer parts to get to the beautiful old medieval part. The new part was stylish 60’s, 70’s, and that’s about it.
Cindy asked. “Were there a lot of bombings here in WW 2?”
I answered. “Not to my knowledge, resistance fighting mostly.”
Then she counters with. “Well there should be now.”
I couldn’t agree with her more. This is a case where modern improvements just messed up the beautiful old village feel. After Marmande we head east to Castlemoron, and after driving through the most beautiful countryside we drive into the beautiful old town of Tonneins. We drive through and head to Castlemoron. Do you know why it’s called Castlemoron? Because we, like four hundred thousand people, have asked.
“So where is the Castle?” The idiot tourist asks
And the ever, patient local replies “Yes, we have no Castle.”
“But your town is called Castlemoron.” Wondering about the reasoning.
“There is no Castle…..Moron.”
I kid you not, we drove for two hours specifically because I wanted a picture of CASTLEMORON, well I wanted to see a castle, but the name, you know an idiot like myself could have a field day with Castlemoron. The answer is; YES, the jokes on me. Oh, and for anyone else who goes into the hardware store and asks for two cans of black spray paint, don’t waste your time. The cashier asks me” You enjoy the castle…moron, no you can’t buy spray paint“. So no tagging for me on the sign into town crossing off the word castle. That was our drive to castle-imbecile. We stop and find the local WC’s and then enjoy the local market. You have got to go to a small French town on market day, it’s like that scene in “Under the Tuscan sun”, except with Cindy instead of Dianne Lane, I guess that would make me the contractor who is walking into the walls due to my ageing eyesight. The market is unreal, local produce, Foie Gras, cooked specialties, arts and crafts. The picture posted above is of the town of Castlemoron. Beautiful town, did I mention there’s no castle? We arrive home and show Caleigh her souvenir we have bought for her to share, foie gras, so; she’s happy, and to top it all we look out the window and see bright sunlight. We are hoping the Dog days of Dordogne are behind us, and as we lower the drawbridge on another day. I need to go look up the information on Chateaux Hooterville.
(The above happened, as written, no locals or domestic animals were hurt in this story.)