We had a bit of a shock on Friday when Will received a Facebook message from David’s father. He was getting in touch with all of David’s friends to find out if anyone knew where he was. He had a big meeting at work that morning and although he was seen leaving his flat, he never made it to the office. Much later that evening, we found out that David had suffered a stroke, possibly the previous night, and that he was in hospital undergoing surgery.
The news since then has been a bit sketchy, but last we heard, David was out of surgery, and able to respond to basic questions. We will pass on any further info when we get it. We’re both really shocked since we only just saw him a few weeks ago and he seemed in fine shape. He’s only a few years older than I am, which is far too young to suffer this type of illness.
There isn’t much else to report, so I’ll keep this brief. We had one social event last week; dinner chez Sophie and Dom. They are the couple who moved here from the Savoie a few years ago, and run a chambre d’hote in a small hamlet near Villars. We were joined by Françoise, Philippe and his younger brother, Pierre who is visiting for a week. He lived in England for ten years so speaks excellent English, which meant I could cheat that evening on my French-speaking.
The menu for the evening was cheese fondue, a specialty of the Savoie, which borders Switzerland. I’d only had it once before so don’t have a basis for comparison, but it was easily the best I’d ever had. She used three kinds of cheese and a bottle of white wine, along with copious garlic. The meal is just that, with hunks of bread that you skewer on special long forks and dip in the bubbly, cheesy goodness. When it was all mopped up, Sophie then took more bread, garlic, wine and cheese, a duck egg, plus a splash of whiskey into the pot and scrambled it all up. The result was interesting. We had biscuits and ice cream for dessert and called it an early night. We passed up having a digestive with F&P (&P) since we were anxious to get home in case there was news about David.
Work-wise, we’re both making progress on our various projects. Will appears to have purchased a caravan for the Kiwis. Assuming that all goes through this week as planned, that should be our last help-desk project. He also finished the site for Catherine Cole that he’s been working on since December. For my part, I’m hard at work on the site for HAHS with my friend Abby in the States. I’ve started the build and it’s going ok. Although it’s meant to be done by the middle of April, I’m hoping to have it mostly finished by the end of the month so we can review it first. This is going to be a challenge with our schedule of visitors.
Kevin is arriving from London on Wed morning, in time to see Will for a day before he leaves for England. He’s going back for his nan’s 80th birthday and to see friends in London. Kevin is starting a gardening apprenticeship at Kew Gardens, so this was the only time he had available. He leaves on Sunday and then Cyril arrives the following Friday for a long weekend. I will have to do some work while the visitors are here, but I worked both Sat and Sun to try to get ahead before they arrive.
The weather has been mostly cooperative, although we had a couple of cooler days last week. It’s back to 19C and sunny today before turning cooler just in time for our visitors. Lucien will come by today and turn over the veggie plot, so I’m hoping to get onions and garlic planted while Kevin is here. I’m going to buy plants for most things this year, and only plant seeds for corn and our special crop. Will is less than enthusiastic about the garden, but I’m hoping we’ll have a better year this year. Ok, time to do some work.