I’m a little jaded this morning, but it’s my turn to update the frog blog, so I will do my best. We’ve had a more-than-normally insular week due mainly to being without a car, whose battery is officially totally kaput. We’re waiting on delivery of a replacement but, this being France, it’s taking longer than it should. We hope to recieve it early next week, assuming the courier company can (be bothered to) find us that is.
Stranded at Port 80, we’ve been focusing on work in the interim. Matt has had a flurry of requests from several clients so has been putting in a lot of hours trying to meet deadlines. This is all starting to bear fruit: one major project he’s been working on is the auction site for a guy who has pretty much become our new top client. The site’s very nearly done and the client came by for an update on Friday, at the end of which, he paid us for all work done to date (circa €1k) – very welcome indeed.
For me, I’ve been getting the also nearly-done jewellery site translated into French, which ended up being a fairly large and tedious task. That site will be going live soon and will also net us quite a tidy sum. On the subject of getting paid, we were recently very pleased and relieved to receive a cheque from our erstwhile top client, Vortex (or BlueStar as they’re now known). It’s less than 10% of what they owe us, but still it’s a welcome gesture – assuming the cheque clears of course…
Aside from work, there’s not too much to report here. Band practise has been going well, and in fact, we’ve another this afternoon, so I shouldn’t dally too long writing this entry. The rehearsals are definitely paying off: we’re starting to sound fairly tight, if not quite at the same level as the Fab Four themselves. I don’t think we’ve posted our setlist on here before, so here it is:
1. She Loves You
2. Here Comes the Sun
3. And I love Her
4. All my Loving
5. Ticket to Ride
6. I Want to Hold Your Hand
7. Norwegian Wood
8. Yesterday
9. A Little Help from my Friends
10. Yellow Submarine
The concert’s in just under 3 weeks and Matt’s away for one of those, so we’ll do our best to cram in as many more rehearsals as we can in the interim.
We narrowly avoided having a week devoid of any social activity thanks to Francoise who called us on the spur of the moment yesterday and invited us over for nibbles and cards. They taught us a fun game called Asshole and also one that is ubiquitous over here, but which we’d never actually played before, called Belotte. This was capped off (bien sur) which a few rounds of Anna Perna for good measure. We left there sometime around 1, full of pizza, wine and vodka, and then wisely decided to crack open a bottle of white and put on a film when we got in (hence our jadedness today). As always, it was a pleasure to see the Lermites.
Right, I think that’s more or less everything. My parents come over on Friday for a long weekend, which we’re very much looking forward to. I just hope the car is sorted by then or I dont know how we’ll collect them from Limoges. The weather’s unfortunately due to get very cold just in time for their arrival, with the first snow of the season predicted, so it’s a good job we’re all stocked up on wood. We had a further delivery on Friday – 6 more steres. Should see us through.
Finally and to explain the photo (and my apologies for ending on a sad note): this entry is dedicated to Smeagol and Louis’ mother, the lovely but oddly-named Demi Moore. She was diagnosed with feline diabetes a couple years ago and last week, she finally lost her battle and passed away. She was only 6 years old and such a beautiful cat. Her owner, Véronique, is obviously devastated and we’re very saddened too. Rest in peace, Demi and thank you for gifting us the 2 loveliest pusses in the world. x