Bonjour à tous! Not too much to report but I thought it has been a while since the last post, so here is a brief update. The weather here has been mainly cloudy but on the whole, not too cold. We had the fire going once or twice at night earlier this week, but it has warmed up a little now so we haven’t needed it for the last few nights. Today has been really gorgeous: mostly sunny and a fab 14 degrees. We took another of our Brantôme walks this morning to get out and enjoy it and are now back home and chilling out.
We haven’t been up to too much recently – I have been playing a lot of guitar and working out, and Matt has been playing a lot of online poker, studying French and swimming. Beyond that, we have just been taking it easy, but it is about to get busy again! This weekend, my brother, Dave, and his girlfriend, Rosie, are flying out to see us, which we are really looking forward to. We will have a long weekend with them, and then 3 days later, Matt’s lovely aunt, Mimi, who lives in Baltimore, is flying over to spend a few days with us before catching the train up to Angoulême to see Paris for the first time.
Mimi’s timing is very serendipitous: it sits nicely with our return journey to the UK for Christmas. We are driving back to the UK on the 20th, getting the ferry from Caen to Portsmouth, so will be able to drop Mimi at Angoulême station en route. We will then have a very busy few days in London, catching up with as many people as possible, before continuing up the M1 to Bucks on the 24th for a Roberts family Christmas! We then leave for France on the 28th, getting back just in time to play host for New Year’s Eve. One of our friends from London, David Cox, is coming out to spend the week with us over NYE. He is going to be joined by Andrew & Tony, our amigos en España, who are driving up from Valencia for a few days to help celebrate the New Year, bringing with them their lovely 2 dogs, Tigger and Teddy. The usual mayhem and madness is virtually guaranteed. Can’t wait.