We’re not long returned from Angouleme where we dropped off our latest visitors at the train station. We first had lunch outside at one of the places on “restaurant row”, a place we’ve been to before and liked. It’s around 26C today, and getting steadily warmer over the next few days. Will and I stopped at the DIY shop, looking to buy a pump to replace our broken one, but they were way too expensive, so we’ll make do with watering cans for now.
Working backwards through the week, we had a day of sight-seeing with our guests yesterday. We had a stroll through Mazeroux and the woods before lunch. After Port 80 sandwiches, we headed to Brantome, via St Jean de Cole. The weather yesterday was not as nice as today, but still warm enough to sit outside and enjoy a beer. We stopped in Nontron on the way home to pick up supplies for the evening, and for our guests to stock up on wine and other French goodies. Dinner was turkey scallopini with roast potatoes, followed by sweet potato pie, something Julian had never had before. Katherine had bought some cheese which we decided to have as a starter. Katherine whipped up some cocktails based on a drink she’d had in Paris, and we stayed up playing music and scouring YouTube for funny videos.
The guests arrived on Sunday, and Will collected them from Angouleme while I had band practice. We are hoping to play five songs at our upcoming gig on 21st June, and we have three definites that we can play. Because of vacations, we only have two rehearsals before the concert, so not much time to prepare. That evening, we had our traditional first night meal of confit de canard with cheesy potatoes and salad, pate and chorizo to start, and brownies for dessert. We stayed up until nearly 2 getting to know / caught up with our guests. Katherine is a friend from London and we’d not met Julian before. He is half French but born and raised in London. We enjoyed their visit, even if it was only a couple of days.
We did a bit of socialising on Friday and Saturday with Carol, Bryan and their son, Mark who is visiting from the States. He has been living in Rochester, NY for the past ten years or so. On Friday, we had aperos at their place and Saturday night was dinner here. The starter was onion tarte, followed by Moroccan chicken pie with roast potatoes, and brownies for dessert. We enjoyed meeting Mark and hearing about his experiences in the States. He also works doing web-related things at a university so we had that in common too. It was nice finally meeting him after hearing about him over the years.
The week was largely uninteresting. I took Lola for an oil change and to have her new front tyres mounted. She should be good to go now for awhile, although her fuel economy isn’t back to where it used to be before she started having issues. She seems to run fine, so hopefully, it’s just a sign of age and nothing serious. Work was mostly quiet last week but has picked up some in the past day or two. Will seems to have a list of projects that never shrinks; as soon as he finished one, something else crops up. I’ve been waiting for other people on a couple of projects, and of course, both of them came back to me yesterday.
The garden seems to be doing well. The tomatoes have all taken hold, and the other plants range in health. Our special plants are doing well too, and shot up a bit today while we were out. It’s a pain not having an outdoor water source, which means frequent trips back and forth with the watering can. I’m not sure that we’ll find a pump for less than €300 since it needs to be strong enough to pump up the water quite a ways. We’ve also discussed getting water butts, but even if we did, we can’t count on them having enough water for quite some time. There is a tap on the back of the house, but the pipes that feed it are cracked, so it’s been disconnected. We don’t really want to use mains water if we can help it.
The cats have been enjoying the fine weather during the day, and take turns spending the night on the bed with us. The Smoo had another fight last week, and he was bitten in nearly the same place as before. It’s on his front leg and like last time, it swelled up quite a bit, and he’s limping. Last time, he recovered in a day or two, but this time, it’s taking a bit longer to recover. Although the swelling has gone down, he’s still limping slightly. We know the owners of the other cat, but there’s isn’t much we can ask them to do about it, apart from having it neutered. So our boys will still have to fight to guard their territory for now.
Looking ahead, the next day or two will be spent cleaning in preparation for Mom’s visit. She arrives in Angouleme on Thursday, and will be here nearly two weeks. We’ve got a number of local activities planned, but mostly, we plan to put her to work in the kitchen and garden.