Tomorrow is our eight year anniversary of moving to France. I guess this calls for some retrospection, but I’ve not got much to say. We’re both still happy to be here, especially when we look at the messes in our respective countries of birth. In general, life is good and we have no plans to uproot ourselves anytime soon.
Andrew was here all week working on the house. He arrived on Monday afternoon and we had confit for dinner that night, along with a superb St Emilion that Paul and Karmen brought us. I went swimming, then took the car to the garage where they replaced the seal around the rear taillight again, and it appears to have worked this time. Will went over on Tues morning with Andrew to meet Jean, who didn’t show since he was at a funeral. So they went back and met him after lunch, and they mapped out where all the sockets will go. I made Chinese for dinner that night, which comprised leftover confit in rice pancakes with homemade hoisin sauce, spring onion and cuke, followed by fried rice and stir-fried veg.
On Wed, Will and Andrew went to Super U where they picked up the hire truck, then went to the lumberyard and collected the wood for the roof. They wanted a lot of money to deliver the wood, so it worked out much cheaper to hire the truck and move it themselves. They didn’t take into account that 6 metre long wet oak beams weigh a ton, so they were knackered when they got back home. They also collected supplies from the builders merchants in Nontron and then returned the truck. Dinner that night was sausage pasta.
Andrew worked on the house all day on Thursday along with a local labourer who helped construct the new roof. They made progress on the frame that day. We decided to try the new-ish Mexican restaurant in Brantome that night. We should definitely know by now that it always pays to call in advance, but we didn’t. It’s located in the old pizza place that’s built into the rocks, the one that always let us down when we lived at Sharon’s. We arrived and it was open, but no longer a Mexican restaurant, having reverted back to a pizzeria.
So we went to the Recre Gourmand instead, which is the bistro / pub a little ways out of town. We hadn’t been in years, but the owner still remembered us, and chastised us for not making a reservation. Will and I had burgers; his was duck breast with fois gras, and mine was rare beef with gouda, bacon and fried onions. It was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had, certainly in the last 15 years anyway.
We had a mostly quiet weekend. Andrew worked all day at the house on Friday, this time with a third labourer, so they made good progress. Will and I have both been very busy with work all week. We’ve done a number of quotes over the past few weeks, and nearly all of them have come back a go. There is one for a big project that I really didn’t want, so I priced it high hoping to scare them off, but even that one is going ahead. I don’t think we’ve ever been this busy, certainly not at the same time. A number of these projects will involve both of us, so we’ll be working together for a change. At the same time, I’m migrating a number of Abby’s sites to a new hosting provider, and we’ve got to change our email provider, which requires contacting clients etc.
I had a Milhac Loisirs meeting here on Friday morning, mainly to plan the upcoming Soiree Britannique. This will be the first year that Will and I aren’t playing, and we’re both pleased about it. We’ve got the same camp DJ that did the soiree in May, so that should be fun. I’m ordering food, beer and cider and Will is doing the poster. Since we were denied Mexican the previous night, I attempted to make up for it with veggie enchiladas and yellow rice.
Andrew went back to the house to finish the roof with the two labourers, and they succeeded. The two will be putting on the tiles starting tomorrow, so it will soon be done. The fosse septique was installed during the week as well, although it’s not connected up since they’ve yet to lay the pipes. We had lovely weather for most of the time Andrew was here, including a couple 20+ degree days. I mowed the front on Thurs and the back on Saturday, despite having done it a couple weeks ago. We had turkey escalope with quinoa for dinner that night, followed by cheese and brownies.
Andrew finished up at the house on Sunday. Will and I had band practice with Christian that afternoon. We’ve decided to concentrate on acoustic numbers, so that we don’t have to worry about backings, finding a drummer, or getting equipment. We moved the clocks back that morning, but Christian didn’t so he showed up an hour early. We were invited around to Sophie and Dom’s that night for a fondue. She had just returned from Savoie where she picked up a number of regional cheeses. We were joined by Manu and Mathilde. The two couples hit it off at the wedding, so wanted to do something together.
We had copious white wine with the fondue, which was followed by a chocolate mousse. Sophie is taking a on-line patisserie course, so she was showing off her new skills. It was light and fluffy, and much nicer than the one I make. We determined that this is because she uses twice as many eggs as I do. We left around 11:30 and invited M & M back to our place for a nightcap. It’s school holidays next week, so they have the week off. Andrew was leaving early the next morning, so he went to bed but the rest of stayed up awhile and had a few vodkas. It was very difficult getting up, and we’ve been sluggish all day, although we only have ourselves to blame.