Will and I smoked our last cigarette one week ago. It’s not been too difficult for me, although there are cravings. Will has found it a bit more difficult, but he’s coping too. We haven’t sworn off completely, and may still partake with others who roll them mixed. But that would be once in a great while, rather than daily. The trick is to avoid starting again after a brief indulgence, so we’ll see how that goes.
On the work front, we had a number of meetings last week, all at the house. On Monday, it was a guy who is doing transport and removals. Our luck in this sector hasn’t been great in the past, but he seems like a straight-up kinda guy, so we’ll see. He lives in Villebois, and has worked with Richard a few times. Tuesday, we had the Aussie couple who live near Bergerac. They are redoing an old ruin and converting it to an upscale gite. They spent a couple of hours with us, going over details, and we should have their site done soon.
We also had a meeting on Saturday morning with Dave and Leigh, our new clients who live near Miallet. They have a few live sites that we just took over from their previous provider, and they have another site in the works. They are returning today to discuss the unfinished site. They also had some issues with new PCs, so we’ve been working on getting those up and running. He is being a bit pushy for us to get started on the new site, but they are down the queue since we already dropped everything to get their other sites transferred and updated.
In the meantime, Will has been working on a site for a French wedding caterer. This is the guy who lives in Lalinde and insisted that we meet before doing business. He threw a wobbly last week after speaking to the woman who put us in touch. She is the English wedding planner who went a bit funny just before her new site went live. It’s still unfinished, and she’s not speaking to us at the moment. She had only negative things to say about the site for the caterer, which led him to rethink the design. So Will has had a frustrating week of changes, akin to death by a thousand paper cuts. It appears that site is nearly complete, which will be a huge relief to Will.
I too have been busy, but not as much as I should be. I’ve got the language school to be working on, and it’s still in the definition phase. I had planned to do a project plan and function specification, but it seems the client is happy for me to just get on with the work. I will do the two documents anyway, even if they are only for me. I also have some smaller work for the Kiwi jewellers, and I’ve done three quotes for Abby. The last one is for an existing site who are having issues with their current providers, a story we keep hearing. She was fairly confident that we’d win this project, and if we do, it will be another drop-everything-and-move-it type of project.
We also had a busy weekend socially. On Friday night, we had Lewis and Pary over for dinner. They are the couple who recently moved here from Mpls and are my clients for the language school. This was the first time we socialised with them, and thoroughly enjoyed it. She is a casual smoker, and Lewis recently quit, so this was our first exposure to someone smoking in front of us. I’m happy to report that I didn’t want one, despite having a few drinks. They also partake of the other smoke, so we had some of that instead.
Pary is vegetarian, and it was a nice change to cook something other than the traditional French format. We started with curried butternut squash soup, followed by spinach enchiladas, made with French cheeses, in an almond red sauce, and accompanied by yellow rice and salad. Dessert was my traditional browned butter strawberry tart. They invited us for dinner on Sunday night, so we’ll see them again shortly.
Saturday was the Soiree Creole in Milhac, organised by the association that does my conversation group and choir. Josiene, known as “El Presidente”, is very left wing and was upset that Milhac voted for the far-right Front Nationale in the European elections last year. As a middle finger to that part of the electorate, she purposefully organised an “ethnic” evening. The meal was catered by the Hotel de France, and comprised a tropical fruit salad with prawns, served with a curried boudin (blood sausage) that Will was brave enough to try. The main was curried chicken breast with rice, followed by cheese and coconut tarte for dessert.
The entertainment was provided by a group who live locally, but come from Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. They also had two women dancers in traditional garb. The music was good and people got up to dance after the meal. Apart from the provided entertainment, there were some minor neighbourhood politics too. Miriam and Gilles, the new neighbours, offered to give us a lift, and we sat at a table with them, along with Carol and Ute. We went over to say hello to Lucien and Mauricette, and when we told her where we were sitting, you could tell she didn’t approve. Anyway, we’re trying not to get in the middle of any local disputes, but it’s clear those couples will never be friends.
Rare for us, we had events on all three weekend days. On Sunday, we went to the cinema in Thiviers to watch the third Hobbit film. They were showing two English language films that day, with tea and cake provided at the intermission. This was organised by some local English who are trying to support the cinema which is losing money. We certainly don’t go often enough, so will make more of an effort to do so. The film wasn’t bad, but also not great, but I’m glad we finally got to see it.
We may have narrowly avoided a trip to the vets today. We didn’t see much of Louis on Sunday, and he wasn’t home when we returned. He also wasn’t home yesterday morning, so I went out looking for him, without success. Later that morning, we heard a noise from upstairs and it was Louis, who was hiding under the sofa. He went out for a bit, but when he came back, he hid under the fireplace or under the sofa. We had planned to take him to the vet this am, but he came to see us on the bed first thing this morning, so we’re hoping that’s a sign of recovery. Smoo has new scratches on his belly from defending the home turf against the roaming neighbour cat. It’s possible that Louis, who is more of a wimp, also took a beating from that cat, which was why he was hiding.
In closing, I’d like to wish my brother Ben a Bon Anniversaire. We usually manage to catch-up on our respective birthdays, so I will give him a call later today.