Another Saturday - Oradour Sur Glane

Oradour Sur Glane
Blog Entry for Saturday 12 April, 08
Well, we still do not have internet service. Maybe not enough time has drifted by but we have it not in any case. This is just too bad. So it will remain as I can tell little from the France Telecom site since I do not yet have the required account name and password. I will no longer bore you with this aspect of our misery, the next time you hear anything about the i-net it will be that we have it and I have posted all the blog entries as history. So there.
Yesterday we drove south 2.5 hrs using Bonnie the Tom-Tom to the ill-fated village of Oradour Sur Glane. It is but a ruin of the day the Nazi's came to town, June 4th, 1944. They destroyed it and all inhabitants in a frenzy of tank shelling, machine gun fire, fires and explosions. The populace of some 642 persons was almost completely wiped out. Men, women and children shared the same awful fate. The place has been left en situ (as it has remained) since. It is a hauntingly and at the same time terrible reminder of the horrors of all wars. There were but 7 survivors of that day who lived to tell the tale. The Nazis partied until late into the night revelling in their “victory” over the residents, it was no victory in the normal sense as the residents were largely unarmed, surprised and cut down before anyone could respond. Horrible. The trials that speak of this war crime became a laughing stock as well when most of the soldiers and French civilians that were in charge of the operation were freed from their jail cells, some even had death sentences that had been overturned.
We drove the 2.5hr route home in the late afternoon with scattered clouds and spotty rains. The weather remains cold and wet day in and day out preventing my work outside in the garden and preventing the painting inside (too cold).
We had our dinner with 4 of our closest friends Thursday night, it was great fun and went on for hours and hours, 7 to be exact! Only 4 bottles of wine passed our lips as well, a new LOW record it was too!
We are usually good for several bottles more but somehow the atmosphere did not allow us that freedom this time. The Thai/Chinese/Vietnamese food came off OK, I was disappointed in my garlic/lemon grass soup, too dark, cloudy and in need of a kick of something, perhaps mint or basil...too late now. The red chicken thai curry was mildly hot and very tasty I thought but brought little comment good or bad, the oyster sauce beef was ok, but I thought it a bit confused, too many flavors (R thought the same), I'll rework it next time with fewer sweet peppers. The pork nems were good but the rice paper dissolved somewhat when frying, opening the interiors to the fry oil of ½ sesame and ½ grapeseed oil. My apple/ginger tart was ok, I would have liked the apples more cooked...er ah...softer but it was ok, also the pastry shell needed more time to pre-bake so the bottom would have been crisper. With the vanilla ice cream on top it was good though if not great. We finished up with tea and coffee and a bit of Floriovo liqueur and a nip of Scotch. Very nice beginning for our visit I thought, Now to plan the next one.