I’m pleased to announce the birth of Elvie Roberts, born 25 June at 3am, weighing in at a whopping 8lb 9oz. Both mother and baby are doing well by all accounts, and Anne and Andrew are going over to meet her today. Will is a very proud uncle, showing photos to anyone who comes by. Those are all the details we have for now, but I’m sure there’ll be more to follow.
We had a largely quiet week, and have been enjoying the nice weather which finally started on Tuesday. It was in the mid 20’s during the week and we have 30C today. Will’s been keeping the lawn mowed and the garden weeded and watered, amongst his other usual chores. The seeds we started a few weeks ago are growing quickly now, and we’ll soon put them in pots and move them to the greenhouse. The ones we planted in the garden have taken to their new home and are starting to develop again. With such a late start, none of the plants will get that big, but we should end up with some sort of harvest. The squash and courgette plants are also doing well; the tomatoes, not so much.
Work has been quiet too for a nice change. Will still has two nearly finished sites, including the one for the brewery, and we both did some work on it. It’s now ready to go except for the last bit of content, so we hope to get it live soon. I’ve got virtually nothing on my plate, so will be setting up a new hosting server. The current one is running old software, and now has 30+ sites on it, so isn’t performing as well as it could. I’ll be using a new web server on the new one, which means I could be creating a lot of extra work for myself. This is the quietest it’s been for me in over a year, so the timing is good in terms of weather and my recovery.
I still had a fair bit of localised pain last week, but the last few days have been better. I convinced myself that I must have torn something, but I had a good discussion with Virginie who is a nurse, and she reassured me that it’s unlikely, and I’m healing normally. I’ll know for sure on Thursday when I see the surgeon for my post-op checkup. So I’ve been spending a lot of time on the couch since it hurts after I’ve been standing awhile.
We had a very social weekend, starting on Saturday at Marie and Christian’s. Also present were Manu & Mathilde, Francoise, and two couples, Pierre and Noelle, old friends of the hosts and Michel and Lillian, who they know through VIAPL. Everyone was asked to bring a main and dessert. Mine were a Mexican chicken, corn and red pepper salad served with homemade nacho chips, and nectarine cobbler, both of which I made that day. Will and I packed up the car with our musical gear and headed over around 4pm. We had a drink then got everything set up on their deck, then did a sound check and were ready to go before the others arrived around 7:30.
We had an apero or two, and then started our concert around 8. It went mostly well, with just a few minor technical issues, so a nice change from what we were used to with Musique en Herbe. Both Will and I had a couple of pastis for our apero, which may have been just a tad too much. It was nice playing for a small, sympathetic crowd for our first show, and everyone was very complimentary. Marie said we were “pas mal”, which is high praise coming from her. She gave us some notes on a few songs, mainly the slower ones which she said were a bit empty. Noelle took some video, which we’ll get from Christian when we next see him, so look for a montage to follow.
We played till after 9, and then sat down to eat. Manu did a huge tray of sushi rolls, a nice surprise for me, and Lillian made tabouli, a French summer standard. Francoise brought bread and five lovely cheeses, which we had before moving on to dessert. After that, the guitars came out, with Christian, Pierre and Will taking turns / jamming and the rest of us singing along. The locals left around 1ish, but Will and I lingered another hour or so over a digestif. We watched a little telly before turning in after 3.
Will was feeling a bit rough the next day, but I wasn’t too bad, having stuffed myself with sushi. We relaxed during the day, then went over to Benoit and Virginie’s for aperos around 7. Their daughter Eva was due back yesterday, but surprised them by showing up on Friday afternoon. They were over the moon, and so happy to see her. She’s doing very well, had a great time there, and now speaks decent English. She’s decided to become a tattoo artist, and will soon start a month-long training course in Toulouse. After that, she’ll head to Quebec for a few months before coming back to France and then hopefully, back to NZ. We were joined that night by Clement, a local friend of Eva’s.
We had a few aperos and nibbles before a light meal of rice salad and hard-boiled eggs, from their hens. We continued drinking and chatting until finally moving inside around 1, when Benoit went off to bed. Eva invited us to see her newly remodelled “squat”, and we had a little pick-me-up, then played shithead, which Eva learned in NZ. We chatted for a bit afterwards and finally left around 3:30.
On Monday, it was my turn to feel rough, with a mean sinus headache that lasted until the afternoon. We were originally invited over to B&Vs for Monday, the day Eva was due back, and they insisted that we keep to that as well. So we rallied after a quick shower, and started all over again around 7:30. This night’s other guest was Sam, who had been away for the weekend. A much more tame version of the previous night ensued, this time with a light apero, followed by some bbq’d sausages and cooked veg for the meal. Sam had prepared some passion fruit / mango rum for Eva’s return, so we tried a bit of that before calling it a night around 9. We went home and watched telly before crashing.
Tonight is the last session of choir, which is taking place at our neighbours. We’ll sing a few of our songs (badly), and I’ll leave it for Will to tell you about next week.