We’ve been back for ten days and it feels as though we never left. This is mainly due to my work load, which should start to improve a bit now. Since we never really adjusted to the time zone there, it didn’t take long to get back to ours.
We both had lots of work to catch up on, so that kept us busy for the first few days. On Thursday, we went down to Milhac to attend the town council meeting with VIAPL. The next night was the Fete des Voisins in Milhac. Jackie had organised most of it in my absence, although there’s not much to do. It wasn’t well publicised, so there were only 40 people which is about half of what we normally get. It was a very pleasant evening, and I think we ended up staying until well after midnight. It was the last Milhac Loisirs event of the year, and I’m pleased to have a break from it now.
I had forgotten that I’d arranged for Colleen to come over for a WordPress tutorial. She is the woman who sold us her web design business a few years ago. Her husband has an accounting firm, and she wanted help working on his site, so he came along too. They showed up Friday afternoon and I had to run out and ask if there were lost. They stayed for an hour or so, and I think Colleen is feeling a bit better about the site.
The rest of the weekend was quiet, and Will did a lot of gardening. The weeds had taken over the veggie plot, so he got rid of those. All our plants are in fine form and very much enjoyed the heat. It’s cooled down now, but the week we got back temps climbed from 28C up to 35C. It was far too hot to do much outside, but I managed to mow the lawn one morning before it got too bad. We’re now heading into a cool and stormy period, which I won’t mind as long as it rains.
Work has been very busy for both of us. Will launched two sites last week, although he’s not crazy about either one. The first is a small site with very little content. The second is for a client that comprises a number of people with different skills, allowing them to offer a range of services. This meant design-by-committee which never works out well. So the site is fine, but Will isn’t a big fan.
I’ve been working hard on my project from hell. I’m happy to report that it launched today, and so far, it appears to be working. I’m not out of the woods yet since there is more to do, and I’m sure there will be bugs to sort out. But it gives me some breathing room to work on the other projects that have been backing up behind this one. On that front, I’m back to my big project with Abby that is going to have a soft launch in a few weeks. We also have another smaller project together that I’m waiting on her for the design. I have another project too, but I’m hoping I can defer it for a few months.
My other big news of the week is that I got a new computer. I had been waiting for the new iMacs to come out, and they finally did when I was back in the States. So I ordered one early last week and it arrived a few days later. It’s so nice to have a computer that works again. It’s an all-in-one, meaning it looks like a big monitor, but all the guts are on the inside. I have to get a stand for it since it’s not tall enough, so for now, it’s resting precariously on a book.
I have gotten used to using a French keyboard, so I ordered one with it, only to remember that Apple keyboards aren’t the same as PC keyboards. There is very little reason for me to use French keyboard since I rarely write in it. French keyboards make programming much more difficult since it requires symbols which are well hidden and require multiple key strokes. So I rang up Apple customer service on Friday and asked to exchange it for an English keyboard. The lady rang me back today and said they’d be happy to do so, and what’s more, I can keep the French keyboard. So now I can switch between the two when I need to write in French.
I went to choir on Tuesday, and there were only 7 of us. It was hot so we sang outside. We’re doing an end of year concert at Sophie’s next week, just for Milhac Loisirs. It’s a good thing we’re not performing in public since we’re not at all ready, despite working on most of the songs all year. I find it depressing that we’re not better after all this time.
We had a fairly busy weekend. On Friday night, we had Christian and Marie over for dinner. He gives Will guitar lessons every Friday, and we had a meal around theirs a number of weeks ago. I wanted to do an American meal, so we started with chips and salsa, although they wisely declined magaritas. The main was bbq chicken and sausage, with potato salad and a green salad. Dessert was brownies and ice cream. It was nice enough that we ate outside and then came in for dessert. Christian is an excellent guitar player, so we all got out our instruments and jammed a bit. I hadn’t picked up the bass for months and it showed. He would like to form a band with us, but we’ve got the same problem of no drummer.
We got a call from Benoit the next day asking over that evening for Eva’s going away party. She is leaving for New Zealand on a one year working holiday. My stomach was upset most of the day, but I came good by the time we went out. The meal was in the field near their house, but there were only 20 people or so. I say only because there are often twice that many at these affairs. It was half Eva’s friends and half Benoit and Virginie’s.
We arrived around 8 and started on the vodka and didn’t really stop until the meal was served around 11:30. Friends of theirs sell fish from a truck every Tues in Milhac (and presumably other places too), and they made a giant paella. There was a lot of seafood, but they did a chicken version for Will. It could be that I was ravenous, but it was the best paella I’ve ever had. Afterwards there was cheese and cake made by the local baker. It was an enormous version of the Royale, one of his best patisseries. We stayed there drinking and chatting until daybreak, around 5, then staggered home and crashed.
Carol rang around 12:30 and we were still in bed and invited us over for cheesecake. This got us out of bed which turned out to be a mistake. I had to go back to bed an hour later, but felt a bit better when I woke up. We went round there place and had cake and chatted with them before coming back and watching telly. I made loads of bbq, so we had leftovers and then a fairly early night.