The corn, that is. It’s the seeds I brought back from the States and we may actually end up with an ear or two by next week. Some of the stalks have insect larvae coating them and few others were knocked over during a recent storm so I’ll be happy to end up with even a few ears. Otherwise, the garden is more or less kaput, with the exception of some stray courgette and a winter squash or two. Since squash is in season, the local supermarkets are carrying it so I’ve got no less than six butternut squash on the kitchen table. It’s a versatile vegetable so I’m enjoying trying out new recipes with it.
Speaking of which, we had a visitor this past weekend. Iain, our former next door neighbour in London arrived on Friday morning. I collected him from Limoges while Will finished cleaning the house. We went to Brantome for lunch at cute waiter restaurant and were pleasantly surprised to find not only Gregory, but a second cute waiter as well. This was a younger model too and both Will and I had a hard time concentrating on our meals. We had a stroll around town and then stopped at the shop for some supplies before heading home. Iain has been a great cook as long as I’ve known him and last year, got a certificate from the Cordon Bleu cooking school so now he’s even better, if that’s possible. He had the idea to get some dark chocolate to melt down and coat some figs, which came out beautifully as Sharon will attest. He also made a an apple tart with puff pastry and frangiapanne, also delicious. We were going to use pears since I has some in a bowl on the table but after poaching them, we realised they were basically inedible (they tasted a bit like dishwater).
There is a lovely house near by with fruit trees and that’s where I picked them a few weeks earlier. They have another kind of pear tree there, from which I’d already eaten the fruit so although it was getting dark, we decided to drive over and pluck some of these pears and have another go. The house is usually empty but to our dismay, it was occupied when we drove up. We were going to steal into their yard and pluck a few anyway but got close and discovered a small creek between us and our forbidden fruit so we gave up. Thankfully, Sharon had a few green apples that we used instead so dessert was saved. The rest of the meal was a butternut squash and spinach gratin, with onions and cream and it was delicious, if I do say so myself.
On Saturday, we had lunch at home and then went to Saint Jean de Cole in the afternoon. We did a 9km walk around the surrounding hamlets, one that we did back in January when Kevin was here. It was quite warm for October and we all wished we’d worn shorts. Afterward, we had a beer in the village square at the cafe that I’d never seen open before. That evening we had dinner with Sharon at the Bad Boys restaurant, just down the road from us in Vieux Mareuil. The staff rotate every year so it was a new crop. There was only one young waiter this time and boy was he young. He didn’t look a day over 14 (although we assume he must be at least 16 to be working) and he made a few errors but nothing major. Similarly, the food wasn’t quite as good as usual but I’m guessing it will be back on form if we give it a few months.
Sunday, we had lunch out by the pool, including salad from the garden and leftover cheese from Friday night’s dinner. We did a local walk before taking Iain to the airport in the afternoon. He was our first visitor back in November of last year and will probably be the last one of our year off since we don’t expect anyone else in October so there’s some nice symmetry to his visit.
In other news, we’ve had resolution of a few outstanding things. The main one is the €150 that we were debited for but didn’t actually receive back in February, using an ATM in Sitges. At the time, we brought it to our bank’s attention and they said it could be weeks or even months since it was with a foreign bank. Recently, Will had to fill out a form and hand write a letter explaining the situation but it turns out that was for nothing since we need to fill out that form back in May. They claim to have sent us a form to fill out in March to be returned in 70 days and since we didn’t, we were SOL (shit outta luck). I raised a stink with our personal banker and first she said they’d waive the account fees for a year, then retracted and said half a year. Her manager got involved and eventually, they agreed to just give us the money back. Why they couldn’t have just done that in February eludes me but either way, it’s nice to have it resolved, a mere seven months later.
Also, I got about 50% of my money back from the medical treatment I’ve had since moving here. The government covers anywhere from 35 – 80% of the cost, depending on the treatment. Most people also have a private policy to make up the difference so I’ll have to look into getting one of those. Lastly, we sent in the paperwork to change the cat ownership so Fjodor and Forrest (aka Louis and Leon, aka Sausage and The Smoo) officially belong to us now.
On the work front, I finished the time keeping app and that’s with the client for testing. I’ve also now nearly finished the prototype. It will never be done but it’s good enough to go live, in my opinion anyway, so we’ll see what the other guys think. It’s been quiet for Will so he’s trying to drum up some local business.
Finally, an update on house hunting. We spent an afternoon with an estate agent who showed us four places. All had good bits but at least one negative too major to overcome. We also saw the place in Champeau a second time on Tuesday. We didn’t find any major problems and Will’s dad had a look at the photos and didn’t see anything major so that’s good. The main issue now is figuring out how to buy the barn bit as well. We decided it’s too risky to buy one without the other since we’d be gutted if someone else moved in next to us and turned our home into a building site. We’re trying to find contact details for the sellers but if not, we’ll go through the estate agent to see it. We’ve told the seller of the first place that things are on hold until we see the barn. The other problem is that we don’t have enough cash to buy both places outright so we’d have to borrow money to get both which we really didn’t want to do. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
That’s the news from Badaillac.