I thought I might escape the country without writing a blog post, but Will reminded me yesterday so here it is. We waited around all day Monday for the car battery, which never arrived. We called the depot and when we told them it was a car battery, they assured us that we’d get it the next day. Sure enough, it arrived on Tuesday and the driver was very apologetic. Apparently, one of the other drivers threw out his back on Friday, meaning he abandoned his route so service was a bit slow.
Will and I managed to change the battery ourselves, despite the damp, cold day. Lola is now happy once again, and so are we. Not much else happened during the week until band practice on Thursday. We took Will’s amp with us down to the room where we’ll be playing and rehearsed with it. We learned last time that it’s good to practice with the same set-up that we’ll be using on the actual day.
Apart from that, it was a busy week for me work-wise. I did some work for The Buszy over the weekend, and I needed to make some fixes on Monday. Then the jewellery people came back to us with a list of changes, so we did those too. I also had to move our hosted sites to a new server, and that took some time. Finally, I got the auction site live, and wrote instructions on how to use it.
On Friday, Anne and Andrew arrived for a long weekend. Will collected them from Limoges in the afternoon and they arrived back around 3pm. Will had cleaned the house the day before, and it really needed it. I finished up some work, then started on dinner, or more accurately, a strawberry tart for dessert. While that baked, Will, Andrew and I chopped wood since we had run out of small logs to burn. Such is the life of a gay man in the country, chainsawing logs while baking a tart.
For dinner that night, we had fish pie: cod, carrots and leeks topped with mashed potatoes, served with salad and bread. This was followed by cheese and the aforementioned tart. We played Anna Perna, which we had taught the folks in Greece, for the rest of the evening. On Saturday, we took it easy in the morning and then had Port 80 sarnies for lunch. In the afternoon, we stacked the six steres of logs that were delivered last week. We went out to dinner that night to Le St Jean, a first for Anne and Andrew. We were one of four tables, evidence that Saturday night is oddly not a big night to eat out.
We all enjoyed our meals, and weren’t too full afterwards, for a change. We played more cards on our return before going to bed around 1. It was a bit warmer on Sunday and we had a walk in the afternoon after another round of Port 80 sarnies for lunch. We drove down towards Milhac, and walked along the Voie Verte, a former railway line that runs from Thiviers to St Pardoux. Will and I had walked a bit of it before, but never this stretch so it was nice to see another part of it. The sun came out for an hour or so while we walked, which was a welcome change to the grey skies we’ve had for the past week.
Bryan and Carol joined us for an aperitif that night. We had a pleasant chat, and they left around 7. For dinner that night, we had garden vegetable enchiladas, with a spicy cheesy sauce. This was followed by cheese, and the remaining tart from Friday. Typically, the evening ended with more Anna Perna and Shithead, and we went to bed fairly early. There was a power cut during the middle of the night, and it was still out when we got up this morning. As you can tell, it came back around 10, thankfully, since there isn’t much we can do here without it.
We’ll be leaving in an hour to take Anne and Andrew to Limoges, and then me to Angouleme. I’m staying the night at the airport and leaving for Mpls tomorrow morning. While preparing for the trip, I just noticed that my US passport has expired in January, so I will attempt to enter the country on my UK passport. I’ve heard that this is frowned upon, so I’m hoping that they’ll still let me in. If not, it’s going to be a long trip to Mpls airport and back.
Ok, time to shower and pack. I hope my next entry recounts my trip to the States, and not just the airport.