We took it easy after our visitors left. I’d run into Lewis and Pary in Nontron earlier in the week and we talked about getting together. I rang them on Sunday and they invited us around for dinner that night. Pary’s sister and her best friend and son were visiting for the week. Also in attendance was Stephanie, a cousin of Pary’s who is currently staying at their place while they’re away. We spent a lovely evening in their garden, enjoying the still-warm weather. Lewis made a meat and a veggie lasagne, which we washed down with vodka tonics and lots of wine. They are off to Paris for work again in early Sept, so it was great to catch up with them during their short time here.
Monday was a holiday here, but we both had work to do so it didn’t apply to us. I worked on the site for Abby’s law firm client, preparing it to go live. It’s been in the works since last year, so I’m pleased to say we put it live on Friday. Will is working on a site for two locals who do aerial drone photography. They came over on Monday evening to finalise the content, and their site should hopefully be going live soon. Will also has some translation work for an existing client, but I’ve not got much else to work on at the moment.
I took advantage of summer hours at the pool and swam on Tues and Fri, and had the lane to myself both times. On Tues night, we met up with Lewis and guests in St Front to try the fish and chips van. Although it’s been a weekly thing for a few years, we were both reluctant to go. It’s not something we miss, and it seems like such an ex-pat thing to do. So we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. It was another warm night, although a storm passed by while we ate. There were at least 60 people there, and at least half were French. We ran into Nat & Jill and said hello, but not much else.
On Wed, we had Bryan and Carol, and their two grandsons over to dinner. We’d hoped to have a bbq, but the weather turned cooler and wet during the week. Instead, I made veggie lasagne and garlic bread with brownies and melon for dessert. The boys have been with B & C for three weeks, so they were both exhausted. The boys are 10 and 12, and full of energy. We had aperos outside, and B & C were both quite thirsty for vodka. We ate inside and then chatted for awhile before they left us around 11. They’ve got the boys for one more week, and then Carol will fly back with them and stay in the UK for a few weeks. They’re going back for the winter at the end of October, although Carol will come back in November for the Soiree Britanique.
We’re starting to prepare for the soiree as well. Mainly, this is forming a band and finding a place to rehearse. One of the singers, Celine, recently moved to Perigueux, although she still plans to sing with us. We think we’ve found a drummer, Harry, an English guy that also plays at Musique en Herbe. He too is a bit fed up with them, so it shouldn’t be a problem to rehearse on Fridays. Without the backing tracks, many of the songs in our set list will sound a bit empty, so we will probably need to make some adjustments. Celine plays keyboard, and we hope she will agree to do for the concert. We plan to rehearse in the communal room in Milhac, although that’s not certain.
In addition to planning the musical portion of the night, I’ll also be responsible for organising the meal and finding musical equipment. This is contingent on me becoming president of Milhac Loisirs, and I’ll know for certain after the AGM on 2 Sep. I’ve got three others lined up to fill the remaining board positions, and I’ve scheduled a meeting here for Wed to discuss our plans for the year. I’m not thrilled about taking on a big new responsibility, but no one else wants to do it, and I don’t want the group to die. I’ll try it for a year and see how it goes.
Not much happened on Thurs or Fri. We decided to give Netflix a try so we have some new shows to watch. Due to our internet speed, the quality isn’t great, but it’s still watchable. They started producing their own content a few years ago, and have a number of really good tv shows. Apart from that, the selection of movies and other tv isn’t huge, so not sure how long we’ll keep the subscription. On the garden front, we’ve extracted four male plants, leaving twelve females. Six are medium sized, and the others are all quite small, due to the late start to the growing season. It’s been very hot which is good, but also very dry, so we’re not terribly optimistic about the harvest.
We spent a good part of yesterday afternoon giving the toilet an overhaul. When we first moved in, the toilet get blocked on a regular basis, due to the limescale build-up in the u-bend. Andrew had the idea of removing the toilet and scraping it out, which he did on one of their early visits. This made a huge difference and being over five years ago, we figured it was time to do so again. The toilet was blocked again yesterday morning, so we bit the bullet and dismantled it. Once we got it outside, we found that it wasn’t nearly as coated as last time, so we removed what we could and then started to reassemble it. The flushing mechanism was also worn out, and since I’d already purchased a new one, we decided to replace it. By the time we got it all back in place, three hours had gone by. What a great way to spend a Sat afternoon!
We had one more social event last night, when we hosted Emmanuel, Olivier and their friend Crystal for dinner. We had veggies and dip, plus charcuterie with our espresso martinis for an apero. The main was turkey escalope in a lemon caper sauce with lemon parmesean mashed and salad for the main. This was followed by cheese and dessert of brownies and ice cream. We hadn’t seen the boys since late Feb so we spent a nice evening catching up. Their friend Crystal lives in Tours, so she gave us some suggestions for our upcoming visit there with my dad. Now I’m going to take advantage of this sunny, cool day by going for a walk.