We really only had one event last week, the Soirée Espagnole, which was put on by Milhac Loisirs. I had a meeting on Tues afternoon at Jo’s to finalise preparations. Mainly, this was to make a shopping list of missing items, and I volunteered to do the shopping since I was going to the store anyway.
The next day, we had a client meeting here with Robert from Le Jardins. They are pleased with the site, and we just needed to make a few adjustments. The site is now ready to go live, and we’re just waiting for them to give us the go ahead. Will is a bit frustrated since this isn’t the only site in a similar state, and it prevents us getting paid. I did the shopping in the afternoon, for the event, and also for dinner the next night. I had another meeting in Milhac that night, to discuss Easter with the two other groups who take part. It was largely pointless, and I escaped as soon as I could.
On Thursday, we had Jenny and Virginie over for dinner. I spent a bit of time preparing during the day, but based on the menu, there wasn’t tons to do. The starter was antipasto of roasted peppers, artichokes and olives in a vinaigrette. The main was turkey scallopini in a lemon sauce with mushrooms and shallots, served with mashed potatoes, with chocolate chip cookies and ice cream to finish. It was good to socialise with Jenny since we hadn’t done so in quite some time. Virginie recently returned from visiting Benoit in Martinique. He is totally fed up with the place, having been there for nearly seven months, and he is due to return for good at the end of the month.
Friday was largely quiet, and apart from rehearsal, the only thing worth mentioning is having curry for dinner. Rehearsal was about as expected. Some of the songs are finally coming together, but they still have a long way to go. Alain approached us about doing a couple of concerts in July. One would be a similar set to our June shows, so that’s a possibility. The other would be mostly English songs, meaning we’d have to rehearse songs we’ve done before but not played in a while, or else find some new songs. We flatly said no to this, since there isn’t nearly enough time to prepare. Will doesn’t want to do any more shows after the spate in June, but I’m tempted to the one in July since it’s the same set.
On the music front, he and I have started preparing for the concert at Jenny’s. We’ll end up doing about half of last year’s set, and the rest will be new songs. Some of those will be numbers we’ve done with MeH, but we’re also adding in a few we want to do. We’ve started practicing some of those, and I’m pleased to say that we haven’t completely forgotten last year’s songs.
Our main activity was the soirée in the village. I went down on Saturday afternoon to help with the preparations, including setting up the tables and the bar. We finished after a couple of hours, and went home to rest a bit. Jo picked me up around 7 and we met with the others to continue preparations. Those of us that were serving had some fish soup, which was the starter. We also sampled the sangria, which was made with white wine for a change. People started arriving around 8ish, and we started serving around 9. There were 70 or so paying customers, plus the seven musicians / dancers to server.
The main course was paella, and it didn’t seem quite as popular as the soup. It was catered by the butcher in St Pardoux. Originally, Hotel de France were meant to do it, but they pulled out last month, so Jo had to scramble to find a replacement. The food itself was pretty good, but not great, and it costed twice as much. Dessert was a creme catalan, prepared by our local baker. The entertainment was two guys on the drums / guitar, plus four flamenco dancers. They drove up from Nimes, an eight hour drive. They were very good, and played a mixture of Latin music, mostly popular songs. There was plenty of dancing by the locals, and most people stayed well past the dessert, which is rare. Will and I stayed clean up, and left around 1:30. We had a cleanser at home and watched a film, so didn’t get to bed until 3:30.
The only other event of the week was the sale of our chairs. These were part of the suite given to us by Mike and Jean when we first moved in. They are a floral pattern, and quite old-fashioned looking, so not at all our taste. Rigit took the matching sofa, in exchange for two Ikea chairs. After finding our “new” sofa on the DVN, we advertised the chairs, and had a number of takers. The first guy to call has a house here, but lives in England. He had just gone back, so was going to arrange for a friend to come and collect. The friend was due to come on Saturday, but his trailer flipped on the way over so he had to abandon the idea. The buyer then arranged for a different friend to come, which he did yesterday. We sold the chairs for €75, so in effect, paid €25 for the sofa.
I’m off to take Carol to the airport to collect Bryan, so that’s it for me.