It’s officially Spring, and not just because the calendar says so. Lucien came by with his tractor the other day and tilled the veggie plot. He’ll be back a couple more times over the coming weeks to finish the job. I also trimmed the wisteria, grape vines and roses. The lawn will be due for its second mowing soon. The weather has been mostly warm, sunny and pleasant, although we’ve had a day or two of clouds.
It’s been another quiet week in terms of activities. It’s largely about concert preparation on many fronts. The choir will be singing twice in June: first we’ll do a few song’s at the choir director’s wedding; and then we’ll open for a professional women’s choir who are performing at the church in Milhac. This will be the Sunday following our concert at Jenny’s the night before, so the timing isn’t great. On that front, Jenny hasn’t confirmed the date, but there aren’t really any alternatives, so we’re planning accordingly.
We’ve previously mentioned playing with a couple of women from Musique en Herbe. They are no longer in the group due to some more fallout with Alain, in which he accused them of stealing us away. Anyway, they’re coming here on Saturday afternoon to see if they want to play with us at Jenny’s. They both sing, but don’t play any instruments, so the idea is for them to take over as much of my singing duties as possible.
We had a terrible rehearsal at MeH on Friday. No one was focused, there were equipment problems, and every song was a chore. There was one song that sounded ok, and the rest were terrible. Also, Harry, the other bass player, wasn’t there, so I had to play on every song. My back has been sore lately, and that didn’t help my playing or mood. Due to a technical issue, Will’s guitar always sounds bad there, which is discouraging for him. This is to say that the end of June can’t come early enough. Alain has asked us to play a concert in mid-July, and I’m tempted to say yes since it will be a repeat of the two previous gigs. However, Will is opposed, and I’m starting to agree with him.
We had one social event on Saturday night, which was dinner at Nadine and Jean Claude’s. They are moving to their new house in the Gars next week, so this was a farewell dinner. Also in attendance were Gael and Corrine, and Philippe, who had just returned from a few weeks in Martinique. He wasn’t impressed with his visit, but he did bring back some lovely flavoured rum that we enjoyed as an apero. Our meal was a starter of mache with roquefort and walnuts, followed by spaghetti bolognese and cheese.
I was asked to bring dessert, and had a go at making carrot cake. It wasn’t bad for my first attempt, although the frosting was a disaster. It was meant to be the traditional cream cheese frosting, but ended up being more of a sauce. It tasted fine, and we passed the “sauce” on the side so it didn’t go to waste. We didn’t stay too late, and it was good to see everyone.
There isn’t much to say on the work front. My project for Abby starts next week, and is scheduled to take a six weeks. My part shouldn’t take more than two, he says optimistically. It’s fairly quiet for Will too, although he has a site or two on the go.
The cats are both well, and very much appreciating the nice weather. We had a few mornings of Louis coming in at dawn, singing us a song and generally making a racket. It’s hard to get back to sleep after that, so we’ve had a few early mornings. We also had one on Sunday, when we were woken by a phone call. Will had placed an ad on the DVN to sell some guitar pedals, and a guy wanting to buy them rang around 9am. He ended up coming over that morning and buying two of them, so it wasn’t all for naught.