ARRIVING IN LAMOGES
I arrived in Limoges station at 11:00p.m., an hour late because of train problems. Todd, Susie's husband met me and we went outside where Susie was in the car waiting. Susie is going to be 64 this Sunday 05-25. She is petite with long naturally graying hair that fits her face and personality perfectly. She was easy to talk to which we did a lot of during the whole hour ride to Le Grand Bourg where she lived.
Her house in right on the main street in town where many of the houses are attached, looking like they all are one. There is an iron gate where you enter before going up the semi-circle spiral stairs to the front door. Her house is on 3 floors with 2 living rooms, a kitchen and a dining room that Todd uses as an office because that's where the printer is. But Todd doesn't work. And hasn't for about 12 years. The second floor is 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms; one with a shower and sink and the other with a bathtub and a toilet. The one with the bathtub is quite large as it was a bedroom at one time. The third floor is my apartment. It's very big and has a kitchen and a bathroom. I really, really like it here.
I arrived late Saturday night on the 17th of May. The following day Susie said to take it easy, no work, just do whatever I wanted. So I walked the whole town. Took me all but 15 minutes. There was no one around. Everything was closed and very quiet. So I went to the river where there's a park and walking trails.
PONGO
Susie has a dog. She is a rescue dog from when Susie lived in Morocco for six years. Susie found poor Pongo as a pup of 5 weeks having no hair at all due to a skin disease called scabies. Susie rescued Pongo, brought her to a vet and 2 shots later, Pongo was on her way to good health and being doted on by her new mum. Susie's English so she is "MUM". Pongo's breed is unsure, looking somewhat like a Corgy/Pomeranian mix with golden, red hair. She carries around a rock most of the time in her mouth, begging you to throw another. When you do throw a new stone, no matter where it lands or whether she sees where it lands, she will scour the whole area where she thinks it landed and always come up with the stone you threw. Her smell is unbelievable. She is absolutely obsessed with rocks. And she will never give one up to you. You always have to throw a new one. She even carries one in her mouth on walks.
Being a lover of animals (unfortunate, homeless mostly), at one time Susie had 12 dogs and 40 cats, all vetted and well taken care of. Most of them lived outside on the roof tops of one of the neighbors. When Susie went outside to feed them, the cats would all come jumping down on top of and all around their savior. She was covered in cats.
When one wants to travel to another country, you must obtain a passport for each animal. That gets expensive when they must have appropriate shots and get a clean bill of health by a vet and passport stamped stating so. Susie did this for all these animals when she made the decision to move to France. After getting all her pets a passport, the woman who was buying her house in Morocco said she'd very much like to keep all these pets and possibly find good homes when she could. This woman had just sold a home in Greece with a similar house full of rescued animals and having to leave all of them to its' new owner, was duplicating her lifestyle now in Morocco. Knowing they would all be taken care of, Susie decided to go to France with her dear Pongo and wrapped up in blankets like a human baby was her very sick cat, Ted. He had an infection that the vet in Morocco could not help but Susie could not leave him and thought she could help him best by her side in France. Ted was so sick, he didn't move a bit at the airport security and was not discovered. Together they arrived at their new home in Le Grand Bourg, a three story, 100 or so year old stone house in the center of town. Unfortunately poor, sick Ted died and is buried under a rose bush in the front of their new home. Before agreeing to buy this house, she had made a ridiculous offer that was previously rejected. But 10 months after making the offer, received a letter accepting her low-balled offer. So the decision to move to France was made and off she went. After moving in, Susie went to an animal shelter "just to look", came home with 2 abandoned kittens which were bottle fed and ready for a new home. The male was named "Colen" after Collen Ferril because he was a ferule cat. His sister, Hilda was hit and killed in the road and is buried in the back of the house under a rose bush. Susie then acquired "Tripod" a three-legged cat who leg got bitten off by some family dog while in a frisky game of play. The family vetted Tripod and Susie took her so as not to cause the family dog any distress as the dog was noticeably upset at what he did to poor Tripod. So now we have a family of 4 in a newly decorated 3 story home in the heart of a once bustling but now sleepy town of Le Grand Bourg.
When Susie first noticed this house for sale, she did a quick look-see but did not inspect all there was being offered. After her offer was accepted and she arrived at the house to sign the papers, she discovered behind one closed door 2 rooms that had previously been the business of a town butcher. So there remained a walk-in cooler and 2 rooms. When asked about this little area attached to her just purchased house, she was told it was included in the sale. This was the birth of "Time for Tea" her little English tea shop. The walk-in cooler was transformed into a lavatory. Previous to this, Susie had never baked a single cake, scone or bakery product.
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