It’s Monday, and I’m on time with my post. I don’t have tons to report since it’s been fairly quiet around here, which is a welcome change.
The weather has turned cool, wet and stormy. It’s only around 20C today, with light showers, and I’m tempted to light the fire but Will forbids it. I managed to mow on Tuesday, using the new mower for the first time. It runs well, and I plan to take better care of it than the last one.
On the work front, things are a lot more calm since my big project ended. I’m currently working on some enhancements for Alan, a friend who has a small business in London. I should finish this week and then I have a longer project for my local real estate client. Will has had a few bits and pieces, including some SEO work for a local couple. His Kiwi client collected his caravan last week, so we hope to have heard the last from him.
We had a few social events, starting on Thursday night. This was an end of the year dinner for my conversation club group. It was hosted by our friends Sophie and Dom, who run a chambre d’hote near Villars. In this case it was a table d’hote, meaning we all paid for our meal. There were 30, including the hosts and a helper. Sophie cooked all day, and it really showed. There were a chance of storms that evening, but it turned out fine, which is fortunate since we ate outside.
Everyone arrived around 7, and we aperos of punch, pineau or wine with various nibbles. The entree was jambon-melon, pate, and veggies with dips including a firey garlic aioli. For the main, she did pork and chicken (perfect for Will), served with ratatouille, and a curry chicken salad which was divine. There were three kinds of dessert including tiramisu, and ginger biscuits with dolce de leche filling. This was followed by coffee and digestifs of various eau-de-vies. Bryan drove us, so we didn’t have to hold back, and we didn’t.
Our next event was Saturday night. This was our 2nd 50th birthday party in as many weeks, this time for our new friend Alessandro. Again, we lucked-out on the carpooling, with Franck and Jenny driving us. This was also forecast to be a stormy evening, but the rains didn’t come until the middle of the night. The event was held in the garden, and there were at least 70-80 people.
The host is Italian, but has lived in France for many years and knows a lot of people from different countries. So when you arrived, you had to wear a small badge with your country of origin. To my surprise, I wasn’t the only American. Will very reluctantly wore his Union Jack, the first time he could ever remember doing so. We knew a few other people there, including Hannah and Louis whose house we ate at a few months ago. Also there was Sue, the English artist we met at JC and Nadine’s recently.
Alessandro loves good food and wine, so we were expecting a feast. There may have been more people than expected, but for whatever reason, there wasn’t enough food to go around*. We learned too late that you had to be quick if you wanted to eat. We missed a good part of the first course, but did alright on bread and tomatoes. The was a grill where they served sausages and bacon, but I only managed to get one of each for the two of us, and was lucky to get that. Dessert was plentiful, but we were a bit full on beer at that point so didn’t have much.
Jenny had recommended that we bring our guitars, so we brushed up on the acoustic set the day before. Alessandro knows many artists and musicians, and he had the entertainment well covered. There was a jazz guitar duo, who were both very good, a woman who sang, and an organ grinder. Our music is not of the same style, shall we say, so we didn’t end up playing, which was fine by us.
Yesterday, Lee came over for dinner. He had dropped his dad off at Limoges that afternoon, and got to us around 6. We played some Wii, then ate sausage pasta, and eventually moved on to poker. Lee had to work the next day, so he left around 11:30. We may see them in the next few weeks since Glenda is back over soon.
Ok, time to make dinner.
* Edit from Will:: As Matt says, Alessandro is a big foodie so we fully expected a feast at his party, only to be disappointed. This morning he emailed to explain that the team in charge of the grill had managed to overlook the fact that 16kg of meat (about half of all he’d ordered) was in another fridge. Guess he’s going to be eating bacon and sausages for some time to come!