Last Thursday we chatted with friends from Normandie in the morning, evening for them of course – always good to catch up. Roscoe is there champagne-colored poodle, when he hears our voices on WhatsApp he perks up and looks at the door, we guess that he thinks we are coming to visit – he is such a great dog.

Thursday evening we went to Spin the Bottle, a wine and record shop just half a block away owned by Will and Teal. Will is a chef so he does special food and wine events, this night it was Frank & Franc, a gourmet hot dog paired with a cabernet franc wine. There was a time I really liked hot dogs, not so much now since they are so processed, but I made an exception for these.

Saturday we had plans to go to friends for the afternoon on their patio, we have to take advantage of the unseasonably warm days we are experiencing. Instead of lunch we had breakfast, eggs Florentine. If you are not familiar with eggs Florentine it is just eggs Benedict with spinach replacing the ham, and in our case adding a slice of tomato.

Monday I made myself a pear and blue cheese flat bread using naan for the crust like I did in my post last week.

Yesterday for lunch Tricia made her famous, well it would be famous if you all tried it, pistachio-crusted goat-cheese-rounds salad.

With all of the commitments we had this week I did not get a lot art done, but did spend a couple days doing this season-inspired piece featuring Neville of Normandie. I would like to think that after he left us in Normandie he is now wandering in some mystic, Celtic world. He would love hunting the mice.

Our hearts are saddened these days when we see the news of the protests in France. Protesting is a part of life there, considered a right, even a part of the whole governing process. The majority of the time they are peaceful marches. We observed many of them in our time there and rarely ever felt in danger. These current protests have taken a dark turn, I am confident that the people and the government will find solutions because, unlike protests in our country, they are already discussing various proposals instead of just vilifying the protesters.

The violence is wrong, thankfully most are still peaceful. Our friends in Paris sent us this photo from their 3rd floor window of some protesters walking by. When our friends waved the students looked up and clapped in response.

Times continue to be uncertain, food, friends, and art are more important than ever in maintaining our sanity. I hope all is well in your piece of the world. Thank you for following and commenting, it is encouraging to know we connect across the miles since we are all in this together.

Be sure to check Tricia’s post today about our time in Tallinn, Estonia.