…and not much was happening. I had two conversation groups last week, the first on Tuesday at Sabine’s, our neighbour who we had dinner with last week. She is a primary school teacher, but is on a training sabbatical for the next few months. She is trying to improve her English, although it is already excellent, including her accent. She isn’t able to join our Thursday group, so invited Françoise, Barry and me over to her place to work on pronunciation. I found a couple of things online that are meant to be useful for that, one focusing on enunciation, and the other which highlights the many ways different words with similar spellings are spoken. On Thursday, it was the usual group and our last time until January.
Apart from that, we’ve both had some work to do. Will is working on a site for a new client, a professor and author who splits her time between Australia and France. She sent through some feedback and images, so Will has been putting together a design for her. I had a couple of small bits to do for Media Trust, and I finished those on Thursday. I was meant to start a big 3-4 week project for them in the new year, but it turns out they won’t be doing the project, which is too bad. On the flip side, I heard from my friend Abby in the States. I did some amends to an existing site for her, and later in the week she came back and asked if I would be interested in developing a new site with her. She had already won the tender, but the original developer pulled out so she asked me instead. It’s a good sized project, but I won’t be able to start until Feb at the earliest, so I may be a bit idle in January.
Also on the work front is the pewter jewellery site. We sent them a large invoice at the end of November, and we were starting to get nervous that we hadn’t received the cheque. This arrived on Thursday of last week, much to our relief. In addition, they have some new products to add to the existing site. This means some work for me, and a lot of translation work for Will. He’s less than thrilled with the prospect since it’s fairly tedious and takes a long time but we can’t be too upset to have paying clients. Once that’s done, we will convert their existing site that they use for the New Zealand market to match the new one we built.
Finally, we have a tiny bit of help desk work for a local English couple. They are Peter and Maggie who live next door to Nat and Jill. We met them a few years ago and they always extend a vague invitation to come round for a drink. We aren’t thrilled with idea of spending time with them so haven’t been too bothered that it’s never come to pass. They were both at our concert in Milhac and discovered that we do computer help, so have finally invited us over for a drink, and of course, to fix their computer. We’re going there today at 5, and I can’t describe how thrilled Will is at the prospect.
We did a bit of socialising on Saturday. Jill’s kids, Rupert and Lucy were both visiting last week for an early Xmas. They invited us to join them for a meal out on Saturday night, the kids’ last night here. We had a few glasses of champagne at their place and then went to a place called La Cuisine in Thiviers. They’ve been open since Feb of last year and this was our first time going there. We were all very impressed with it, especially the food. The proprietor has been in the restaurant business for many years, and they run a place called La Table in St Jean de Cole during the summer months. They normally spend the rest of the year in Morocco, but his son recently finished culinary school and so they have opened this restaurant for him.
The menu wasn’t huge, and used a small number of main ingredients throughout. These included “Cul Noir”, literally translated as “black butt”, which is a cut of pork, magret de canard and of course, fois gras. They also use Trappe d’Echounic, a cheese flavoured with walnut oil which we love, but rarely have. Some of the meal’s highlights included: Mille Feuille de Fois Gras, a starter of fois gras layered between apple that had been infused with various herbs; Carre de Canard, duck breast, served like a steak tartare but quickly grilled on either side; and the Perigourdine Burger, also made of duck and topped with fois gras. The desserts were also impressive. I had the Everest, which is their version of Banoffe Pie, although much lighter and a lovely chocolate fondant gateau. All of the dishes showed signs of the Moroccan influence, both in the seasonings, but also in that they all had an element of something sweet. We will definitely be going back there in the near future.
Apart from that, Will and I have spent most evenings watching our recently downloaded films. Most of them are new to us, but we also acquired a bunch of old favourites. I went swimming once last week and again today and have also taken advantage of the lovely weather by doing a few local walks. It’s 13C (55F) today and although we’ve had a bit of rain, we’ve so far avoided the deluge that the UK is having now. It’s going to get a bit colder and wetter in the coming days, but still well above freezing.
That brings us up to date. For those that celebrate, have a merry xmas. And to all a very happy new year!