Hello all. An entry’s overdue, so here we go… First off, I’m pleased to say the weather in May has been a vast improvement over the last month, although still patchy and with another run of cooler temps and rain just around the corner, so we arent out of the woods yet. It has allowed us to get caught up on the garden though, which is a good thing. It has also meant that some of my Sites for Homes projects that have been on hold can now start moving which is a big relief as I have been quite aimless lately.
For Matt, he is still busy at BCMD (although working from home 3 days a week now which makes it a lot more tolerable). His first project, with the impossible deadline, was officially submitted to the client and at the start of the month, he began a new project – different design, different client, but v similar type of site, so progress should be fairly quick. Unfortunately, in the interim, the first client has come back with a number of modification requests, some of which are truly stupid ideas (there was much cursing at Port 80 over this). Matt’s boss is taking the ‘client is always right’ attitude, so there’s not much to do but get on with wrecking the site in line with their wishes.
For me, I have had a few extra nibbles lately but nothing concrete has emerged so far. In the meantime, I decided to give our latest business’ website (Port 80 Services) a bit of a redesign and I am v pleased with the final result. Not the same as working for money though! However, I did meet a new Sites for Homes customer last Friday, and have another to meet at the beginning of June, so things are starting to happen. I’ve also had the final parts of the foie gras website to get on with too, though that has not really kept me that busy.
Ok, enough work. We have actually managed a most welcome bit of socialising this month. On Friday 4th, Bryan & Carol invited us over to theirs for a pizza and wine evening. We had a great time, and enjoyed cocktails in the garden before retreating inside when the sun went down for our meal. We packed away a fair amount of food and drink but avoided having too late a night. The following evening, Lee & Richard came over for dinner. It was the first time in a while that we had seen them as they’ve been busy with visitors and working on the house. In fact, they had a lot on for the next day too, so it was a very tame evening indeed and they left us around 10:30, so there were no sore heads the next day. For the meal, we did a repeat of Iain’s pork recipe, served with the same cauliflower cheese. The following day it was nice out, so we pottered in the garden and got a few things planted/repotted.
Our next social event was the following Wednesday, again with L&R, and again brief. They had some friends over visiting from the UK, John & Paul, a couple from their neck of the woods. We met up in Brantôme around 6 that afternoon and enjoyed a couple beers out in the sun by the river before heading off to our respective homes. The following day was a real scorcher out here: it was around 26 degrees and clear skies all the way, so I got myself my first proper sun tan/burn of the year.
On to Friday, I left Matt working at home and met the S4H client I mentioned earlier. She is a nice lady called Nikki, who lives in St Pardoux just down the road, which is very convenient. Despite being in town itself, she is up the top of a long winding hill road and is the last house, so she has peace and quiet, not to mention a fantastic view. Unfortunately, she only wants the most basic package we offer, so it wont be a big job, but it will be work all the same. It is on hold until she gets some photos taken but I hope to start on it in a couple weeks. Afterwards, I went on to Nontron for what was theoretically my last meeting with the foie gras shop. We got Paypal working on their site, so customers can now pay by card. All that remained was taking photos of a few last items of stock, which I did, and then presenting her with the bill. She seemed a bit shocked at first about the amount, but I think she assumed the amount was just for the site itself. Once I explained that it also covered my time for taking, formatting and uploading all of the photos of her stock, and also the brochure I made and printed for her, she was ok with it, and wrote me out a cheque there and then. Over 5 months in the making, but finally it is done!
That evening, it was Milhac’s monthly curry drop-off night, so we invited Bryan and Carol over to eat with us. Poor Bryan had fallen ill the week before (suspected sunstroke from working out in the garden all day) and had quite a fever. Fortunately, by Friday he had come good again and managed his curry, although he stayed off the sauce all evening, unlike the rest of us. We had fun with them as usual, and the curry was typically delicious.
The next couple days were both sunny and hot, so we were out in the garden for a lot of it. Matt did some work on Saturday morning, then in the afternoon, we went out and planted the rest of our seedlings – some peppers, some cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes (and some more exotic herbs too). Glad to have gotten that done at last. Yesterday, Matt mowed the lawn in the morning. He did it not more than 2 weeks ago but already, it was getting shin high, so it was well needed. In the evening, we were invited over to Nat & Jill’s for a BBQ. We realised we hadnt had a proper catch up with them since NYE, so it was overdue. We had a great time and a really excellent meal, but was it was a school night, so we didnt go too crazy. We were home by 11:45 and in bed not too long after.
The only other thing to mention is that this Thursday is a bank holiday in France (3 of 4 this month) and Matt’s company are in the habit of giving staff the following Friday off as well, so we have a 4 day weekend ahead of us. While this is meaningless to me, it certainly isnt for Matt, who was keen to mark it somehow. We have booked a hotel in Bordeaux for Thursday night and will be going down there for a night on the town with the boys from Villebois. I am sure you can imagine just how refined, cultured, tame and alcohol-free that will be… Right, that brings us up to date, I think. I am off to do some laundry. Joy…