After all the excitement of last week, things have been decidedly calmer here of late. I had a recent flurry of small bits of work from people I’m waiting on. They all, of course, choose the week that my parents were here visiting to break their respective silences, so I dealt with them all this week. Irritatingly, not a one of them has sent me all I need to finish the website concerned. So I continue to work without being paid, basically. In a similar vein, I recently offered to do a website for VIAPL, our anti-wind farm association. They had a Facebook page but it wasn’t working out for them, so I steered them towards a full website, which has been a fun project to work on. Only downside is that I of course offered my skills at a very reduced rate so I wont have much to show for my efforts.
Wednesday was band practise night and our pattern of “one good, one bad” held true. We were sounding surprisingly together and made it through everything first time. We’ve less than a month to go now, so this is encouraging. Matt and Milhac Loisirs are getting organised for the event too, making up and distributing flyers, and planning out the food.
Thursday was a far more eventful day at Port 80. For years now, as long term readers may recall, we’ve waged war with our various internet service providers over our line speed. Harbouring under the belief that we’d need to pay ourselves to have the old cable leading to the house replaced, we put up with our measly 2 meg (on a good day) speed. It was only when the neighbours got online and had closer to 6 meg that it really started to rankle. Well, long story short, we got the Orange technician out recently and a revolutionary experience it proved to be. It took two trips as they first told us we needed to sheathe some wires in the house. That done, they came back and one hour later, the old cable was replaced and our connection promptly jumped to 8 meg where it has remained since. 8 meg may be far from the speeds that all of our readers in the US and UK enjoy, but it’s still pretty nifty as far as we’re concerned. And to top it all off, it cost us not a single centime.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, Ridgit came over for a meal at ours that evening. We got to show off our new fireplace to them, and to have another good long moan about Brexit and the rotten state of the UK in general. Like my parents, their original plans to move out here have accelerated considerably as a result of the worsening outlook for the negotiations. They’re going all-out now with a view to moving over by spring. As with my folks and their house-hunt, we wish them bonne chance! Oh yes, I’d best mention the meal in case Matt ever needs to refer back to this entry and see what he made them. He served up his latest favourite easy meal of mexican cheesy rice and bean bake, with brownies for dessert.
Lucien and Mauricette also called around this week, to give Matt his birthday present (a rather superb looking 2009 Bordeaux rouge, which I’m probably more excited about than he is). We chatted for a bit and then at their request, packed them off with 2 plastic bags full of apples from our still-laden tree. She wanted to make up a load of compote – and also apparently, an apple tarte, which was delivered to us still-warm the following day. Bless ’em.
In other news, we took a trip to St Pardoux on the Friday to cart away to the tip the debris from the stove-lowering job. While we were there, we called in on the local doctors’ surgery to see if they had room for two new patients, as our current doctor has recently retired. We didn’t realise it, but a friend of ours from Musique en Herbe works there as a receptionist so we stayed for a nice little chat with her for a while (leaving a hapless caller on hold for the whole time, to our amusement).
To change doctors in France, your “dossier médicale” needs transferring to the new doctor from the old. You might think that this could be done electronically, given that it is 2016, but no. We need to go and physically collect them from Thiviers, in paper form, so that we can then hand them to the new doctor. On the plus side, we wont have as far to go to see the docs in the future. We were with the old one for about 6 years and he never cracked a smile once in all that time, so we’re hoping for a cheerier one this time.
Having had a boozy Thursday with Ridgit, we didnt do anything much over the weekend, but we were invited over to Josiane & Cammis for brief apéros on Saturday. This was partly just to socialise but also partly to see if we could coerce Cammi into manning the bar for the Soirée Britannique. French law dictates that this must be done by someone who has taken a three-day training course, of which Cammi is one of just two people in Milhac. While he agreed to be present for the evening, he refused to work behind the bar. Josiane was president of Milhac Loisirs for 8 years so its fair to say Cammi’s also put in enough of his time. And as long as he’s present, it doesnt matter who actually serves drinks. Mind you, someone’s still got to do it, and volunteers are thin on the ground. Matt’s already half-jokingly suggested I could do it, which I’m less than thrilled about as I’ll be busy stressing about performing. Still, if no-one else can be bothered then at least I would be kept busy right up until we play.
Right, I don’t think I have anything else to add, so until next time, à plus tard.