Yes, the title seems like it would be a contradiction but that’s the best way to describe the last week. First, on the work front, there is still little to report. I’ve been doing a lot of searching on line and I’m coming up short. I’ve mostly given up on the idea of doing contract work, certainly through sites like odesk.com or elance.com. The problem there is that the competition comes largely from places like India, China and Russia where the cost of living is far less than here so even the top developers are only making $30/hr. Now at this point, I would happily work for that kind of wage but the problem with these sites is that you have to build a reputation solely from your work on each individual site. So I would need to do a number of small projects to establish my worth and that would mean working for more like $3/hr and I can’t justify spending the time to earn so little.
On a positive note, I did find a posting from someone in the Dordogne that does front end work and was looking to team up with php developers so perhaps something will come from that. Will translated our CVs so we’re ready to work here even if this particular lead doesn’t pan out. Also, I put together the first draft of an investment proposal for doing some iPhone app development, similar to what I did for eLeaf. This would be for a series of guide books called “I Never Knew That About ______” that cover areas of the UK including the best selling one about London. The books themselves are very highly rated on amazon.co.uk and the hardcover version of the London book has sold 100,000+ copies so there is clearly a market for the title. I’m working with “cousin Jake”, not my cousin but that of my friend Luke and he’s a cameraman who works with the author. So he and I are trying to find investors willing to front the money for the development costs in exchange for a cut of the revenue. I’m somewhat optimistic that we’ll find someone so not only would that keep me busy but could provide a steady stream of work in the future.
Will is nearly finished with the small project for the guy in the States; he’s just waiting for sign-off before he can upload it to the live site. More importantly, he just got paid for a site he built last year but never finished because the client never sent the new photos and text. He still may someday but in the meantime, he paid Will for the work he’s done so far and since we never really expected to see this money, it’s a real bonus. To balance out this windfall, we’ve had two computer accessories give up the ghost this week. The first was the monitor and being that I bought it back in ’04, it’s had a long life and has already been replaced. The second thing to go was the speakers and this didn’t come as a huge surprise since they had previously given us a bit of trouble. Shortly after we moved to France, the speakers stopped working but came back to life after I removed and reinstalled the back cover. This time, they died on Sat night and the same trick didn’t fix them so I’m fairly sure it has a short somewhere. Anyway, I’ve ordered a new pair and we should be back in business later in the week.
Now, to explain the fairly busy part of the title. We’ve had a number of social engagements this week and they are scheduled to continue into this week as well. On Tuesday, we hosted Ben, Camilla and Wilfred who stayed with us for the evening on their way to Spain. They live in Norwich but stopped the night in Kent on Monday and then took the ferry and drove down to us on Tuesday, arriving around 5pm. Ben is a school friend of Will’s he is married to Camilla who is Swedish. Wilfred is nearly 20 months and he will have a new sibling sometime early next year. For dinner that night, we made what I like to call a French twist on an American classic (or something like that). In the southern states, fried chicken is a staple dish and it’s often accompanied by mac + cheese and greens. My take on this is confit de canard accompanied by baked mac + bleu cheese and broccoli. As usual these days, we started with Caprese and then served a cheese course followed by pecan squares, now nearly all gone. We all went to bed at a reasonable hour and they left us Wed morning to drive down to Spain where they are meeting Camilla’s family to celebrate her dad’s 70th. They are returning to the UK via the Dordogne so they’ll be with us from Wed – Sat this week.
The next event was Thursday night when we had Pete and Sally over for dinner. The were one of the two couples at Sharon’s when we had dinner there a few weeks ago and it was nice to spend time getting to know them a bit better. They are in their early 60’s and have led a fairly interesting life, mainly based on the Channel Island of Guernsey where they owned a boat. They explained that they would work only long enough to make some money, then hop on the boat and sail around until they needed money again. It seems they have a similar existence here since they were leaving for the UK the next day on a spur of the moment trip to visit their daughter who is having a huge party at her house that she’s just sold. For dinner that night, we made Mary Carol’s sausage pasta with white wine and lemon served with salad. If you haven’t guessed, Caprese to start, cheese course and pecan squares followed. They didn’t stay late since they were travelling the next day so another enjoyable but early night.
We made up for the early nights on Saturday which was the Nuit de Spardos in St Pardoux. Longtime readers of the blog might remember last year’s when we were very amused by the French band that covered Thriller but sang it sans the “th” sound, i.e. Triller. The other notable thing from last year is that Nat and Jill were stopped by the gendarmes on their way home and even though they were well over the limit, managed to talk their way out of any punishment and were told to go home. Therefore, the big question of the night was to determine how best to drive home after the event in order to avoid the gendarmes. I tried out a route earlier in the day but it still involved passing a few places where pesky cops might hide so ruled that out. In the end, Sharon agreed to drive in exchange for a few favours to which we gladly agreed. Turns out, all of our scheming was unnecessary since we didn’t see any gendarmes on the way home unlike the previous year where they were everywhere. Every small town has some sort of night market or festival so we’re guessing that they don’t do the same ones every year to keep people on their toes.
Ok, on with the recounting of the evening. Before that, we got a call from Keith and Julia who were in the area and stopped by for a few drinks and to see our place. They live in Wales in the winter and bought a derelict barn near Brantome that Keith has been working on during the past few summers. The place now has a roof and windows so they’re going back to Wales in Aug and will work on the interior next summer. We hadn’t seen much of them since we moved although we did run into Keith in Brantome back in May but he couldn’t make the housewarming. Julia just comes down for a few weeks at a time so it was over a year since we’d seen her. It was a pleasant surprise to catch up with them and they left around 6 to meet up with some friends before heading to St Pardoux. Sharon came over around 7:30 and although we’d originally planned to make dinner, we decided to eat there instead so after a drink, we headed to town where we met up with Nat, Jill and Jill’s daughter and son and his girlfriend.
We started off with a couple glasses of spardos before dinner. It’s a fruity concoction, much like sangria except with less fruit and more booze. It’s the color of a dark burgundy but it’s much thicker and stickier than wine. It has some sort of spice like a mulled wine although it gets more difficult to tell what it is the more you’ve had. It’s served by men in monk’s costumes from a huge metal tankard that they set up in the middle of town. In addition to food, they also have a number of small stages at different points around town and we were pleased to see Les Mauvais Herb (The Bad Weeds), the band of Guillaume from the equestrian centre in Mazeroux. Except for Will who had a sausage sarnie, we all had Perigourdine burgers which, as you may have guessed, is a very rare burger with a piece of fois gras on top. This was accompanied by chips and washed down with more Spardos. Afterwards, we strolled around town and eventually ended up at the main stage to see the headline act. We had high hopes after last year’s band but were somewhat dissapointed with their song selection. When we arrived, they were playing “Think” which amused us since it came out as “tink” or even “tsink” but things went downhill after that when they started playing some country and also what we think were original numbers based on the reaction of the crowd. It’s a shame because they were clearly good musicians but they just lacked something so we left after a few songs.
It was a much different experience this year compared to last, mostly because it’s now our local festival. Last year, it was maybe the second time we’d been to St Pardoux so weren’t familiar with the town or the festival. This time, it was cool to see the town transformed but the novelty was gone. It was still a lot of fun and if anything, less crowded than the previous year which was nice. Anyway, we said goodbye to Nat & Jill and crew and then Sharon drove us home. She has planned to stay the night which was good since we ended up staying awake till at least 5, smoking and drinking and having a really great time. It was the first time we’d spent an evening just with Sharon and it was much like some of the evenings we had with her when we first arrived in France. We all got up around 10:30 – 11 and then Sharon made us a proper fry-up including bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, fried bread and eggs. It was delicious and most welcome. She left us shortly after and then Will and I did very little for the rest of the day.
Tonight, Lee and Richard are coming over to cook us dinner. They are in the process of decorating their place so we selflessly volunteered the use of ours. The weather has turned nice since the end of last week. Today, it’s sunny and 29 and will get to 31 tomorrow before turning a bit cloudy again. The cats are really enjoying it and are spending most days outside. The other night, Smoo came to visit us while we were watching telly when Will noticed he was laden with fleas! We had just treated him the previous day and we’ve never seen a flea on him but he must have found someplace or some creature where they were dwelling. Thankfully, they are easy to spot on his light coat so with a flea brush, we were able to get rid of them but he really didn’t like it and sulked all the next day. It was a similar story last night but when we tried to clean him, he bolted but it appears the treatment is working since he was clean this morning. Also last week, we awoke one morning to find blood and feathers in the hallway but no other evidence of animal so it appears Louis enjoyed himself a bird as a midnight snack.
Ok – I’m out to enjoy the nice weather. On that front, the garden is doing much better after the rain. It’s still mostly tomatoes but we’re going to have some broccoli soon and it’s looking good for butternut squash so I’m pleased about that. The apples and pears are nearly ready for eating and the peaches are also coming along nicely. C’est tout pour l’instant.