I am getting really bad at forgetting to do my entry on the Monday, and I have no good excuse for it. So here’s your delayed Frog Blog update. It’s definitely getting colder in Mazeroux all of a sudden. We’ve been spoilt of late with 20 degree days but since saturday, we’ve become mired in the single digits. We’ve even had a few overnight frosts, so the houseplants will soon be coming in for the winter.
Work continues to be busy for both of us. I am working on a design for a largish website project that we’ll be working on together. It’s for the Garden Tomb, a Christian holy site in Jerusalem. Being both atheists, we weren’t too thrilled with the subject matter but the client has money and our motto is, after all, “never turn down work”. They have a current site that is a train wreck. I am going to submit my design for their new home page this week. Fingers crossed they like it!
Matt meanwhile is having an email-related nightmare. Without getting too technical, there was a web hosting company we were using to store all our clients’ email inboxes, and we were doing it in a way they didn’t like. They recently discovered what we were up to and told us we would have to move the emails, or start paying them more money if we wanted to continue. So we’re switching away from them so we can close the account. Unfortunately, this means that all our clients’ email inboxes need to be moved too, and this requires them to do a lot of the work. Given their average IT literacy, this is going to be interesting.
Friday was our monthly curry night, but no-one else was around so it ended up being just the two of us. We had a haircut appointment before and then had time to kill before the delivery, so we took advantage to check out Milhac’s newest attraction: our new boucher / bar on the main square that opened up last week.
Ok, so “butcher’s” and “bar” isn’t an obvious combination, but conceptual oddness aside, it’s a nice enough place. We met the owners a little while back at Benoit & Viriginie’s and they’re really friendly. We stopped for a beer which turned into two as he bought us one back. They ran a butcher’s in St Pardoux but it was tucked out of the way in a sombre spot and they weren’t happy there. They’re now bang in the centre of town and like it a lot. They weren’t keen on the bar aspect of the business, but Milhac council has a hard-fought-for alcohol licence going spare so it was made a condition of the deal that if they had the butcher’s, they’d run a bar too. So there you have it: the right side serves fresh meats and the left side has a few tables and serves beer and spirits. Slightly odd but we’re thrilled about any development in Milhac that encourages sociability.
On Saturday evening, we had Benoit & Virginie over for dinner. Normally we end up tying one on when we get together but it turned into a relatively early night as poor Benoit developed a headache and so they left a little after 11. That said it was still a good fun evening. We served up one of our winter comfort food favourites, Sloppy Joe’s, accompanied by sweet potato chips. This was followed by cheese and then cookies for dessert.
We both did a small bit of work on Sunday morning and then had our band practise in the afternoon. This went very well and we changed things up a bit. We went all-unplugged and tried doing different versions of the songs we’re covering – a slow ballad version of what’s usually a fast rock/pop song by the Cure, and a lounge-style take on Rock Around the Clock. It was amusing and I thought we were sounding pretty good.
Afterwards, we had a repeat visit from Benoit & Virginie as the former had left his coat here the night before, so they came to collect it. And they did not show up empty-handed either : Benoit was feeling 100% better and somewhat randomly brought along a bottle of champagne that we polished off. They also brought us some homemade crepes and quince jam which were delicious. And that’s more or less all I have to say. Until next time.