Pique-nique à Nohant avec George Sand et Léon Tolstoï. Pic-nic at Nohant with George Sand and Leo Tolstoy

Pique-nique en noir

Pic-nic in black

Il fait beau comme vous le voyez !

We had nice wather as you can see!

Il y avait une exposition de photos montrant

la vie de Léon Tolstoï via des photos de famille.

There was an exhibition with photos showing

the life of Leo Tolstoy through family photos

Pique-nique (encore une fois) à Thevet Saint-Julien

De pouvoir pique-niqué en octobre, c'est quand même merveilleux !

To be able to have a picknick in October, is really marvellous!

Thevet Saint-Julien et le cours de tennis ou 

nous jouons au tennis une fois par semaine environ

Thevet Saint-Julien and the tennis court where

we play tennis once a week, approximately.

Ci-dessous, c'est le mur de la maison de ma belle-mère.

Les couleurs !!

Below you see the wall of my mother-in-law's hous.

What colours!

Pique-nique à Nohant chez George Sand

Parfois on fait un pique-nique dans la commune de Champillet, parfois dans les communes Thevet Saint-Julien ou Mers-sur-Indre mais aujourd'hui à Nohant, chez George Sand ou dans le parc à l’extérieur en tout cas.

Sometimes we do a picnic in the commune of Champillet, sometimes in the communes of Thevet Saint-Julien or Mers-sur-Indre but today in Nohant, at George Sand's place or in the park outside the mansion anyway.

 

Pique-nique Mers-sur-Indre, une petite déception. Picnic in Mers-sur-Indre, a small disappointment

De temps en temps nous sortons pour des piques-niques, Aurore et moi.

Un endroit que nous avons souvent utilisé, c'est un espace vert dans la commune de Mers-sur-Indre, juste à côte des rivières Indre et/ou Vauvre.

Avant il y avait des grands beaux arbres comme une protection contre la chaleur mais la commune a malheureusement les abattus. 

C'est un peu vide maintenant...

From time to time we go out for picnics, Aurore and I.

One of the places we often have used is a green spot in the commun of Mers-sur-Indre just beside the river(s) Indre and/or Vauvre.

Before there were big beautiful trees protecting us from the heat but the commun has, unfortunately, chopped them down.

It's a bit empty now...

Pique nique

In this part of France, it's possible to have a pique nique even at the beginning of April, something totally unthinkable in Sweden.
We are luckily in La Châtre, the center of France, not in Sweden, where one still find snow in some parts of the country.

Pique-nique in July

As the weather mostly is warm an sunny in the central parts of France, where we live, we take advantage of that and arrange pique-niques from time to time - or rather, Aurore does.
She does all the kitchen work and I carry the things to the spot and then I eat.

This time she decided on a sushi pique-nique, something of a theme this summer, I think.

Together with us, also eating strangely enough,
we had Alexandre, a person Aurore works
closely with and also the one who introduced
her to her work when starting working at Safig.

In the photo to the left below we see
Jerôme, responsible for the TDI
section at Safig

In the photo below we (don't) see Loïc
responsible for the different computer
programmes. As he is an extremely
secret person he doesn't want to
participate on photo.

Cannelle

This is the dog of my father-in-law, having a good time in the stream or 'river' called Indre.
Indre is also the name of the landscape (département) where we live.
We went for a walk and had a picnic with my mother-in-law and we took the dog with us as his 'master' was away working.
The name of this dog is Cannelle meaning cinnamon!

Playing in the park

We had lunch in a nearby park, Aurore, myself and one of her colleagues and on the playground nearby we found a slide! I had to try it - of course!!

Pique-nique in June

We try to use the sunny days to our 'mandatory' pique-nique's and as the day was sunny and warm we left the house at lunch bringing our vegetarian meal and snacks.

These crackers were very tasty containing cheese and seeds of pumpkin.

Aurore's homemade makis (makisuchi) were delicious....

...and the cherry tomatoes as tasty as they were read!

Of course we should have brought white wine not Perrier and Coke but one can't have it all?!

When lying in the grass after the meal, four young men crossed the small bridge, passing us on their way to prepare for a barbecue on the other side of this small 'island'.
Again I established the fact that it's still a great difference between most French young men and women and most Swedish young men and women, concerning their behaviour.
These young men passed us saying 'bonjour' - even though we didn't know each other - and this would never happen in Sweden!
They arranged with their barbecue and listened to music but not - as with Swedish youngsters - at 120 decibel but in a very moderate way.
This is extremely nice for me as a Swede being used to the rude behaviour of not least people living in Stockholm.

Pique-nique in May in La Châtre

This was our second pique-nique and the sun shined down on us and after a while it became rather hot on the spot! 26 degrees Celsius in the shadow and of course a lot more in the sun.
Luckily we had a suntan lotion with a high sun factor to protect us.
It didn't however protect Aurore from the dragonfly ('libellule' in French, 'trollslända' in Swedish), as you can see. I didn't protect her either but on the other hand the 'threat' wasn't to serious.

It has been some very fine days with sunny and warm weather and I hope it stays this way.
In the background we had some young men fishing in 'Indre', the stream or watercourse traversing La Châtre and other small cities in the area. There are some fishes, even though not particularly big - but eatable.
I know that Aurore used to fish when she was a child and adolescent living in La Châtre.
Personally I have never fished!
The sun and summer has finally arrived to France and La Châtre but one can't be sure it stays this way.
I saw in the weather forecast that the Nordic countries also enjoys sun and warmth but it seems as if this will change next week.
On the whole I prefer the climate here in the center of France (or further south) than that in Sweden, even if the summer in Sweden can be terrific.