It is late and Alice, David, Casey, and the dogs are all snoring. It is dark and wintery outside, and bed beckons.

We just got back from dinner at Chateau Tourney, a castle belonging to Alice and David's dear friends Patrice and Danielle, two incredible characters transported to the present from a medieval age. They are in the antiques business. Danielle is a linguist and a foreign diplomat, who is tall and elegant and carries herself like a duchess, dressed always in floor-length gowns. Patrice has the bearing and the beard of a French Knight, and he has restored Chateau Tourney brick by brick, flawlessly, himself.

Yes, you read that right, we were just served dinner by people resembling a duchess and a knight, at a castle, a real castle with a wood fire and chandeliers and big oak table and a stone tower and a bridge across a moat. It was incredible. We ate stew and potatoes, accompanied by red wine and followed by a huge cheese board and an apple crumble. They two of them make excellent company. For the second time in Europe (first was the fox hunt), we were, incredibly, transported back in time.

But as incredible as this expedition was, I have to go to bed. We rise early tomorrow to return to Paris, where we will spend a day and a night (not to be confused with a Knight, that was earlier) with Whitney, roaming the streets and the museums some more, and then fly back to Bristol the next day. There we will meet with our next employer, Paul Cronk, and go back to the grindstone of work.

C'est la vie.

C'est Magnifique.