Tag: My Village

My Village is getting a make over.

/ Matt Talley / 4 Comments

One of the issues we have had during our time in France is that our village has huge potential, but all the little shops and cafes dried up and left.  we have to get in the car and drive one or two villages over or into Toulouse to get  almost anything.  I have stood on my soapbox and bitched about it more than once.  Karma, it seems, has a sense of humor…

Just as we leave, a huge new shopping facility is being completed near the main Village traffic circle.  Every-time we drive by, there is something new and awesome going in and I start cussing.  Here is a short list of the shops that are opening JUST as we leave France:

  1. Picard: It is like a whole store worth of stuff from the Trader Joe’s frozen food section.
  2. Cheese shop that promises artisanal cow, sheep and goat goodness.
  3. A wine shop that is the French version of BevMo with a climate controlled cave in the store where they sell “The Good Stuff”
  4. An organic grocery store
  5. A bakery that has been woo-ed from another village that happens to be a national medal winning pâtisserie and boulangerie.  Dammit!!
  6. A real sushi restaurant that will serve both sashimi and maki.
  7.  A real gym, with squat towers, benches, weights, machines, etc…

I swear to the GoT gods, old and new, that if I drive by and there is a tool shop with chisels and planes in the window I loose my mind!  I am really glad all this is opening, but why now?1  Why did it all have to wait till we were leaving?  to make us have second thoughts about moving home to Seattle?

Old iron is the best

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am too stupid to own a motorcycle. Really. I have been on one bike or another since I was 5 , when i first sat on a 50cc Honda dirt bike and my last one was a beautiful 900cc rocket. I have all sorts of stories about crashes and near misses, a few scars, a broken wrist and foot from my early riding years. I decided that most of my injuries and near-death experiences on a bike were completely my fault and that unless I wanted to be an early organ donor I had to give them up, so after the birth of my daughter, I sold my last bike and other than a dalliance with rebuilding a duel-sport on my balcony in 2004, I have been able to resist the pull of two wheels. Then, minding my own business, I walk into something like the pair shown below:

Matt Talley _ French Moto _ 2015 (1)

Matt Talley _ French Moto _ 2015 (2)

Matt Talley _ French Moto _ 2015 (3)

Matt Talley _ French Moto _ 2015 (4)

Matt Talley _ French Moto _ 2015 (5)

Matt Talley _ French Moto _ 2015 (6)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Went to local pizza shop for dinner last week and what is sitting outside? Two vintage bikes, both old single cylinder French Motobecanes – the single-seater with the white helmet is a 1950 and the double-seater with the gas can on front is a 1952. Talked to the two guys riding them and the bikes are barn finds bike that they pulled out and got running this morning. Super jealous!!!! There were cobwebs and barn dust still on them. Take gander at the old plates! These babies make me want an old bike to tinker with, ride, rebuild, ride, cuss, work on, ride, love, ect… Now, I need another project/hobby like I need a hole in my head, but the pull of the Dark Side is SO strong!