ALAIN AND KATYA

Our English neighbor, Jenny Willis arranged for us to visit the cave of another neighbor. We wanted to see how their cave was set up. We also wanted to get to know Alain and Katya a little better. Their house overlooks our backyard - they have seen all our laundry but we know very little about them.
Alain met us at the door, glasses in hand. Their front door is accessed by way of the little passageway alongside the mairie, the Ruelle de Trois Pigeons. That's a very appropriate name. Alain likes nothing better than shooting pigeons in other people's yards.
Alain took us up to the Haute Rue where he has another property. We walked through the garage to the back where he had built a small vaulted cave. He started us off with a wine he described as "doux". This white wine, a Coteaux de Layon, was very soft and sweet. He followed that with two different bottles of a Saumur-Champigny. The wine was from a local winemaker but there were no labels so I'm not sure exactly what they were. We had a bottle of "épine" next and finished with a white crémant.
In between bottles we were treated to Alain's inpenetratable French dialect. Things got a little easier when Katya came home from work. She is from Saumur - a very understandable dialect.
After our winetasting in the cave Alain asked us if we wanted to visit see how boule de fort is played. He is a member of the private club across the street and like all members he has a key and can bring guests any time. Boule de fort is similar to petanque or bocci ball except that it is always played indoors on a curved court that resembles the bottom of a boat. The ball is made of stone with a belt of iron around it and it is weighted on one side. It takes a lot of skill to get a ball like that to go where you want it to.