Acres of hardwood (6)

Remember Wilhelm Tell? Behold the musket above the sliding doors, a present from our Swiss friend Christine:

This evening

The view of Alcobaça from the bedroom, taken with Chang's new iPhone "Pro"

 

Acres of hardwood (5) -- The carpets have arrived

 

Acres of hardwood (4)

 

The living room this morning, with the new dining table, made to order, at the center. It's extendable up to 12 people.

Same story, now in the afternoon (today was our day off)

Yesterday, on the beach

 

Acres of hardwood (3)

 One day later, and somebody said, "Let there be light!"

Charlie working on the medicine cupboard in the main room, with the hallway beyond

Acres of hardwood...

 Remember our post of Nov 15? Well, we are progressing with our acres: 

The hallway, now with the beginning of Chang's new picture gallery...

...and Michael's office, with the bookcase in place, and with the silhouette of Charlie at the kitchen table beyond.

That's all?

Well, here are three drone pictures of the house: 

It's the place in the foreground

It's in the cluster of the six houses in the foreground with the town of Alcobaça in the background

The same perspective, now with the sea on the horizon.

That's all?

Not quite:

Michael, Charlie and Chang taking a break in yesterday's sunny garden

This afternoon on the Praia do Norte

It's a surfer's paradise with Guiness Book of Records surf. It was fairly quiet today, although the waves still topped four meters or more.

The prettiest town hall in the world -- Alcobaça, Portugal

 This is where we live since three weeks:

Fog moving in...

...with Charlie and Michael walking on the boardwalk of Nazaré:

 

We thought we'd end up in a little apartment...

 ...what with all the money trouble we were in.

Instead we got a big villa with acres of oak hardwood floor:

Yes, this is the elevator

Hallway

Kitchen

Kallax, installed by Charlie

The mezzanine

Staircase

View into the living room

Afternoon picnic

...just back from an afternoon picnic in the park, the "forêt domaniale de l'Estérel":

Sunlight is the best disinfectant

We're getting concerned questions as to whether we are safe and well. Well, here's a picture of our face masks, hanging outside for sunny disinfection. We put them on when we go shopping. There are no shortages in the local Lidl, not even of toilet paper.

Yesterday

Alex Hogan, the influential editor of Gay Flash Fiction, wonders where we are. Here we are, Alex, in the Valais, the Swiss region; this was the view from our chalet yesterday morning:

The Valais, yesterday (rhymes)

...with the Bietschhorn, the mountain that dominates our region, in the background.

Back in Switzerland -- yet again

The view from the chalet over the Valais -- yet again (yesterday evening):

A few days ago...

...during the heat wave over the Mediterranean, Michael and Sacha (the owner of the boat):

Sacha, why Sacha? Because he's also the model of Jack Horn in the Green Eyes saga; he's to us what "Q" is (or was) to James Bond. 

Fragment, fragment...from the first part of the saga, Ch. 43, "Clutter Clutter & Clutter", and it's thankfully short:

Every soap opera has its homme à tout faire, be it James Bond ("Q"), or us ("Jack Horn"). Speaking of James Bond, if you’ve watched the earlier movies (there is a new-new Q now, bear with me), you must have realized that Q’s old lab was too small. There was no way anybody could combine a shooting range for war heads with a workshop for poisonous pens with an assembly line for Aston Martins anywhere outside Pinewood Studios. (The newest Q holds court in the British Museum where they have more space).

Same for Jack Horn. If you ever had a look at Jack's place—he lives in a rambling farm house outside Georgia Beach with a large orchard and a big barn where he works—you don't have to enter the barn, you only have to look at it from miles away—it's like Q's (old) universe, only more so. There are toy helicopters, coloring books of his three lovely daughters, the original camera of Toulouse-Lautrec, the screen wall from Startrek, entire hardware shops, books even, some of his friends write books. It's like the law firm of Clutter, Clutter & Clutter: there it is, climbing the stairs, climbing the walls and climbing into the basement where antique premium cars await repair: clutter. There’s no way you could spend a minute in this chaos and not come away with the idea that Jack is your man when it comes to harebrained schemes.

We are barely exaggerating, give it a try:

The Lambda Literary Award finalist

"Click"

From live reviews: 

"If you like Woody Allen, you will enjoy the book!" 
"I dreamt of the GREEN EYES and woke up happy." 
"Grab it an plan to read it from cover to cover immediately!" 
"A literate and wonderfully witty romp!" 
Wow! That was my first reaction to reading this book, my second reaction was plain and simple holy shit!"
"This is a perfect book for any adult reader!"

Yesterday

A cruise ship on the way to Cannes, seen from the house. In the background the Isle St. Honorat with its fortified monastery, which shielded the monks from Sarrasin attacks during the Middle Ages.

"There are no good songs anymore," our friend and ex-rock-star Sacha complains on a regular basis. But then, we go for a walk in the Estérel, and when we come back there's something on KISS-FM [footnote] the preferred local station, and we know: This is was a good song:

The power of love is a curious thing

Make a one man weep, make another man sing

Change a heart to a little white dove

More than a feeling, that's the power of love

Tougher than diamonds, whips like cream

Stronger and harder than a bad girls dream

Make a bad one good, mmm make a wrong right

Power of love will keep you home at night

Don't need money, don't take fame

Don't need no credit card to ride this train

It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes

But it might just save your life

That's the power of love

That's the power of love

First time you feed it might make you sad

Next time you feed it might make you mad

But you'll be glad baby when you've found

That's the power that makes the world go round

Don't need money, don't take fame

Don't need no credit card to ride this train

It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes

But it might just save your life

They say that all in love is fair

Yeah but you don't care

But you know what to do

When it gets hold of you

And with a little help from above

You feel the power of love

You feel the power of love

Can you feel it?

Don't take money, don't take fame

Don't need no credit card to ride this train

Tougher than diamonds and stronger than steel

You won't feel it until you feel

You feel the power, feel the power of love

That's the power, that's the power of love

You feel the power of love

You feel the power of love

You feel the power of love

[footnote] Once in a blue moon, sorry.

Cannes, on the Croisette, the Burberry shop

We had to inspect our car, I mean (talking a bit like Dolly), we had to have our car inspected, and during the car-less hours we took a stroll on the Croisette, and here's one of Chang's results: