The French population generally takes off work and school for the month of August. I know! Wouldn’t that be awesome? They have a term for the return to “real life” in September – la rentrée. Children head off to school, adults return to work, routines are implemented and life generally regains its usual rhythm.
We returned from our visit to New Orleans late last night and after being away 11 days it feels a bit like la rentrée for us. David headed off to work this morning and I am trying to get back in the swing of things around here. There have been calls to return, suitcases to unpack, laundry to wash and all those little domestic tasks which call out for attention after time away.
Fortunately we came home to nice weather because this is what we had the entire 10 days in New Orleans:
Blue skies…
Warm, sunny days…
Honestly, the weather could not have been better. In fact, I’m pretty sure I told David at least a couple or ten times that I could be happy with that weather year round. The days were sunny with highs in the 70s and 80s and overnight lows in the 60s. Perfect!
The other reason I am grateful for nice temperatures here at home is that I’ve been without heat or a/c today. I received a phone call at 7:30 a.m. this morning – yikes! – from our plumber. The part he had ordered for our unit had arrived and he was calling to see if he could send his guys out to install it. I put them off a little while because I had just woken up and wasn’t quite ready for unexpected “company”. After several hours of work, they just left. Unfortunately the part was defective, they had to put the old one back on and now we wait another couple of weeks for the new, new part. Which means I get to spend yet another day with workmen in the house. At least the guys were nice. In fact, one of them is a friend of our son’s and has been here numerous times for parties and such.
So that, and a mild sore throat have been my welcome home or la rentrée. Vive la Oklahoma…or something like that.
That’s no fun on the A/C. Be sure to be taking a lot of allergy meds, we’ve all been miserable around here ha.
Good idea. We came home with mild colds anyway.
There used to be a similar thing happen in Wales when most of what the Welsh did was mining. They called it “miners fourtnight” and for the last week in July and first week in August everyone got to be on vacation from all but essential tasks (housework, for example, could only be avoided by those who could afford to go stay at hotels or whatever). It’s still a big time for holidays to happen even now though.
Anyway, welcome home. Sorry you came home to broken AC and slight colds, but glad you had a great time.
Somehow this reply got buried in my inbox. Sorry! That is very interesting about Wales. I had never heard that before. I think we all need some time off every so often.