This is going to be short since I really don’t have time. Work is busy for both of us. We had a meeting with another new client last week. It’s a local company that make wooden houses and other structures. It was started by the father of Francoise B of Parentheses Imaginaire many years ago, then taken over by her brother. She and Stephan created two web sites for them back in 2012 and have managed the sites since. The business was just sold to a new guy, and they took the opportunity to pass the site management over to us. We met with the guy and he will eventually want to replace the sites with new versions. For the time being, I did a small amount of work to bring the sites up to modern standards, and we’ll talk in the coming weeks about new sites.
We’re also one of two finalists for the truffle site. We have a meeting with them next week where we believe we’ll be given the green light. In addition to the two big projects I’ve been working on, I have lots of little changes for a number of existing clients. Those are mostly out of the way, but keep cropping up which has delayed progress on the big projects. I really shouldn’t complain about all the work, but it’s getting in the way of exercising and socialising!
On that note, we had a busy weekend starting with dinner at Paul & Nat’s on Thursday with Francoise. We had aperos outside, which were hummus and home-made dried duck breast. The main was strips of chicken cooked at the table on a flat grill, served with two types of homemade mayo (tartar and pepper), plus potatoes and curried veg. I made my strawberry tart for dessert, taking advantage of the last fruit of the season. We were both tired and had to work the next day, so made it an early night.
We hosted dinner on Friday. The guests were Anne & Andrew, Bryan & Carol and Francoise. Since I didn’t have time to cook, I decided to do a raclette, a bit similar to the previous night’s meal. Also, I pawned off the dessert on Francoise who made her famous chocolate banana crumble. B & C had never had raclette before and really enjoyed it. We started with espresso martinis since B & C were kind enough to bring us Kahlua from the UK, served with hummus. All but Francoise left us around 11, and then the three of us played cards for a bit.
It was a triple-Francoise weekend since we spent Sat night together too. Paul & Nat invited us to a jazz manouche (gypsy) concert in Thiviers at a tiny place called Le Theatre du Poche (pocket). It’s aptly named since the main room holds about 50 people, only just. It was a trio: two guitarists and a clarinet/sax combo instrument. Neither of us are particularly into jazz, but all their songs were fairly accessible and included a number of well-known numbers. They were all very accomplished musicians and we ended up enjoying the show more than we had expected. We arrived home around midnight and then stayed up for a few hours playing Wii.
We had band practice on Sunday which went mostly well. We’re going to miss next week’s since we’ve been invited by Paul & Nat to L’Ile d’Oleron. Her parents have a house there, which they’re about to put on the market. We’ve never been, so our hosts wanted to take us there while we’ve got a free place to stay.
We went to Perigueux this morning where Will had an MRI for his hip/back pain. It did show there is something wrong, and he’ll be seeing the doctor to discuss the results and possible treatment.
The weather has been mainly crappy with plenty of rain. Our plants are growing, although some are a bit stunted due to parasites. They really need to go into the ground soon, but we need our fence first. I’m going to call by tomorrow and check on progress. We’re due for a bit more sun this week, but it’s with clouds / storms, so far from ideal. Our new outdoor furniture has been under cover since we got it more than a month ago. It would be really nice to use it one day.