Picking up from Will’s last entry, the Smoo is feeling better now. We think it may have been worms, since we discovered Louis definitely had them. We’ve dealt with that, but the ticks continue to be a nuisance. We may actually have to Front Line them, so bad have they been recently. Apart from parasites, both boys have been enjoying the nice weather of the past few days. Today is cooler, and overcast, and we’re due rain today and a storm tomorrow, before returning to better weather.
The veggie plot is now planted, just in time for the storm. There are six tomato plants, and one each squash, courgette and cuke. I also planted carrots, a few rows of corn, and a row of sunflowers, to provide cover. Eight of the sixteen special seeds have sprouted, and will plant a few more to start with twelve. We hope to figure out which are the males earlier in the season and get rid of them. Also, there is only enough space in the plot for six, so we’ll have to “weed” them out before hand. I’m still mowing once a week, but the grass wasn’t as bushy this time so it didn’t take too long. It looks like another bumper year for cherries, and we may get an early fig crop, weather depending. The flowers are all in bloom in the front of the house, and it’s been a good year for most of them.
We picked up a new client recently. They contacted us on Saturday, and we arranged a meeting for today. They live 30 min south of Bergerac, so nearly 2.5 hours from here, but they wanted to meet face to face. They have two sites, one selling ski holidays (him), and the other, cooking holidays (her). They spend winters in the Alps and the rest of the time in the south west, so not a bad life. We will be taking over both sites, and then redoing one, so the meeting was fruitful.
Otherwise, I’ve had my usual small bits of work while I wait for the main project to get going. On that front, the clients came round on Thurs evening, and we did make some progress on the design. During our quiet time, we’re working on a rebuild of Andrew’s site, so he can sell his wares directly on the site. Will finished a quick and simple site last week, and has our new client’s site to start on.
We had Richard over to dinner on Wed to discuss paint. We have decided to paint the bedrooms, including the doors and ceilings, and the toilet. He’s driving back from the UK next week, and will collect everything for us while he’s there. He will paint one of the bedrooms with us, showing us what to do along the way. Then we’ll do the other one on our own. This is likely to happen in late June, so we’ll have to live with the bad decor until then.
That’s also when they are likely to come and install our new kitchen window. This is remaining item from the recent round of work we commissioned from the energy sales company. In the end, they couldn’t install the water softener where we wanted it to go, so the guy came around yesterday to redo the contract. We would have liked to have one, but it was also the most expensive item, so it’s also nice to have the money back. The new water heater is working well, but we’ll have to wait until winter to see about the insulation and heaters.
Our only other social event during the week was lunch at Sophie and Dom’s on Sunday. They also invited our new neighbours, Miriam and Gilles, who offered to drive us. Also present were a couple who live in the next hamlet, and also run a B&B. It was a nice sunny day and we sat outside. The meal was salad with hard-boiled eggs (from the resident chickens), bbq’d chicken and rabbit, pesto potatoes and onion/fig confit and homemade mayo along side. I made my nut-instead-of-flour brownies that she served with ice cream. Gilles and I had rehearsal at 3, so we left shortly before then.
In addition to the two of us, there are two other bandmates, Lewis and Harry. Gilles is on keyboard, I’m bass and vocals, Lewis is guitar, and Harry is drums and vocals. It sounds a lot more official than it actually is, and we’ve only rehearsed twice. We have our first gig at the Fete de la Musique on 21 June, but I’m not certain it’s going to happen. We’re meant to practice twice a week, but there are lots of people away at different times, so we won’t have more than six rehearsals between now and the gig. Also, we haven’t finalised the set list, making it difficult to know what to practice. In contrast, Will and I are rehearsing most evenings, and our set list is coming along. I’m trying to convince him to do a few songs at the Fete, but he’s reluctant to play shortly before our gig.