This must be a very frustrating blog this year, we have been so busy as I mentioned in our last blog and the situation remains the same. Since my last blog we have been to Spain for a week and had more visitors, I have got a brief 2 hr time slot before the next arrive, I need to mention that our last visitors departed yesterday, so we had the day planned to catch up on a few jobs. As soon as Wyn and Pete (from Winterslow) left we had some St Maure friends arrive unexpectedly for a chat, when they left, Terry went into the garage to pick up where he left off with his laundry room project and I started tiding the house (as you do). Twenty minutes later Terry walked in the kitchen with blood pouring down his cheek from his right eye, apparently a stainless steel wire had flicked from somewhere straight into his eye, there was a medium sized hole in the white of his eye, so we had our first experience of French casualty and were very impressed with the 5 mins wait and the treatment. As the injury was the sclera (white of the eye) he only need twice a day eye washes and antibiotic drops. Hopefully that's Terry's yearly incident over and done with.
The laundry room has certainly become a slow project, at the beginning of the trip he really got on and achieved alot, but it has slowed down now and would you believe we are waiting for a French plumber, this is due to the acetylene (I think) that needs to be used, so hopefully in the next week we should be almost up and running.
We bought a large plastic demountable swimming pool last week in anticipation of some very hot weather (which I think happened while we was in Spain) anyway this pool is huge at 15 ft across in the old money, it took forever to fill up, the pool included a filter, pump and steps into it, so a substantial piece of equipment. I did have a swim in it a couple of days ago and could actually do 6 strokes of breast stroke. The reason I am writing this in the blog is that we have been very pleased with this acquisition alas .... we went out last night to some friends for dinner and when we got back the pool had emptied itself and is now flat on the grass, we think the heavy rain shower last evening filled the cover with water and the pressure of the water pushed the side of the pool that is lowest due to the uneven ground. So Terry's boys are coming today he will get them organised to move the pool to flatter part of the garden and start again and after all this effort we will pray for alot of sunshine. The boys are my brother and brother in law.
Talking of weather, not good this week, showers and sun (good grass growing weather, lucky me) but apparently improving.
The photos include one of boozy night last Saturday at Nerac, the four of us went to the community festival which was brilliant, everyone eats on large trestle tables in the village square, we sat next to some very interesting Dutch people (with yet another invitation to meet for drinks) anyway whilst we were eating various villages had bands playing some very upbeat music. The night was alot of fun, dancing and drinking, it started off that you bought a bottle of wine from the local restaurant (a rip off at 8 euros a bottle) then Terry and Pete helped themselves to wine from local producers stall, which was OK as we have got to know them quite well and seem to be always there buying 5 litre containers of wine. I suppose that was OK but later we went to listen to another band at the end of the evening and people had left half bottles of wine on the tables, Pete was the spotter and Terry was the lifter!! Anyway Wyn and I had to drag them to the car as they were staggering so badly and for a 20 minute drive, it probably took about 1 hr and half to get home as we had to stop at least 6 times for Terry to relieve himself of all the booze!!!!
As I mentioned last night we had dinner with some friends in their village house, in fact it is a couple from Washington USA and they do similar to us spending as much time as possible in France and they also invited a couple who are here for 4 months from Perth, it was an interesting night and of course knew mutual people (maybe because she is a midwife). This village house is in Nerac just above the river for those of you who know the area and we were amazed how noisy it was compared to our little bit of paradise. We heard cars, motor bikes, church bells, church bells, church bells and general noises what a comparison, I know what we prefer.
Our French has improved I think most of time and in fact Terry who hasn't had much in the way of lessons seems to have suddenly got the lingo, except funnily enough he has just got back from taking our bottle recycling to the village should I say daily trip ha ha ha, anyway he said he had bumped into the mayor of our village who was asking how much longer we had here (30th Sept we leave cry cry) and all was very impressed at the French conversation until the mayor said good bye and Terry with a big smile said Bonjour (hello) he then realised what a twit he was so just kept shouting au revoir (goodbye) out of the car window just a little bit embarrassed.
I feel less guilty now I have got more or less up to date except to say we had a great time in Spain, very relaxing beach holiday, in fact we were on the nudist beach everyday, which made it slow to read a book with all the distractions after the first day it improved and we able to sleep and read quite easily, this is Helene and I as the boys were off fishing most of the time. We had fantastic food, lots of fresh fish and paella.
The photos include our vegetable patch, we are now eating our own organic courgettes, lettuce, tomatos, French beans and radishes.
Abiento
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