Meaning “in bloom”. Because it is – in several ways. First, the garden is really beginning to look lovely now. We have a wisteria vine creeping up over one half of the front of the house that has just started bursting into flower, buds are popping out on all the roses, the fruit trees are all blossoming in the back garden, and various other pretty flowers of (to us) unknown name in the front garden are in bloom. On Sunday, Lucien & Mauricette gave us another plant of unknown name as a gift which we have repotted and placed out front. So yes, altogether it all looks quite lovely.
The veggie plot is also coming along – we have shallots and onions pushing through already and potentially a few tatties as well. Hopefully, the spring onions and lettuces we planted a couple weeks back will start sprouting soon too. We have also started off a load of seedlings (peppers, tomatos etc) that will stay indoors for a couple of weeks before moving outside.
So, since the last entry, we have had a few social activities. First was dinner round Sharon’s last Wednesday, accompanied by Nat & Jill, and Jill’s daughter Lucy who was over visiting. Sharon served soup to start, followed by a delicious coq au vin. Despite the usual excess- red wine, cheese, patisseries – it was actually a fairly tame evening, and we were home by 11 or so.
The next event was dinner over at the lovely Morgan’s place in Augignac, about 30 mins away. So far, Morgan has inexplicably escaped being blogged. This is quite baffling, so to remedy that: Morgan works at the Déchetterie in Mareuil (a dechetterie is dump/recylcling centre), is about 26, most good-looking, funny, and great company. He’s also straight and has a girlfriend, which might be more of a downer if she (Maude) wasn’t herself such excellent fun to be around. Sharon invited them over dinner round her’s back in October of last year and we all had a great evening, culminating in a long poker match that eventually had to be abandoned.
Well, this time we were all invited to dinner round his place, which is a lovely home. He bought the plot of land quite a number of years back for a real bargain – well, certainly compared to todays’ prices. He and his dad then drew up plans of how they wanted the place to be and (foundations aside) built and decorated the whole place themselves. Nice way to do it. M & M were both really pleased to see us again after so long, as were we to see them – it made us remember just how fun our last soirée was. We shall certainly make more of an effort to see them from now on. We had cocktails and wine out in the garden then sat down to a truly divine meal courtesy of Maude, who is a phenomenal cook, and chocolate cake, made by Morgan. Afterwards, the poker chips came out again, and again, we had to abandon the game as it was getting too late.
Having not drunk too much, we were in pretty good shape on Sunday, which is more than can be said for our one solitary toilet, which decided to become blocked. Thanks for picking Sunday of all days, by the way, toilet… It was out of commission all day, and Lucien didn’t have a plunger so we had to leave it be till Monday. Lucien was typically great and came over with a load of tools to check out the state of our fosse septique, not an easy feat given the huge stone slabs that had to be lifted in order to do so. He said it all seemed fine, which is a huge relief as any issues would have been most costly to fix.
So, we got up early Monday, scored a plunger at the Inter Marché, did our weekly shop then charged home and were immensely relived when the plunger immediately sorted the problem. Phew! I spent the rest of the day working on translating Sites for Homes into French, which is now live. We have also netted our second client: Richard of Ridgit fame. He needs a site to sell his home and a separate one to try and rent it in the interim. That evening, our new friend, Barry (who sold us the dining table) came round for dinner. Being a restaurant owner/chef, we (well, Matt) were a little nervous about what to serve, but Barry seemed to enjoy the menu (a pear and bacon salad to start, spinach and ricotta enchiladas for the main and the fabled inside-out carrot cake cookies for dessert). It was very enjoyable, but again, we didn’t have a late one so are fully functioning today.
Going back to the title, the other thing that is blooming is Port 80 itself. We have had a productive day and (after borrowing a more powerful drill from Lucien), finally got both our large framed print and the lovely spice rack put up. This means that the big kitchen-lounge-dining room space is now totally finished, which feels great. Even just these last few touches have really made a difference in terms of making it feel like home. Matt in particular is digging the spice rack…
It was about 22 degrees today and clear skies all the way, so we spent much of it outside. The cats in particular had a blast. Smoo has had a day of nuttiness, carnage and destruction, killing first a shrew, then a lizard and then nearly a second lizard, but this one he let go in the house. It since managed to escape, minus a tail. Sausage on the other hand spent literally about an hour in the same spot, studying the same molehill intensely, despite the mole being clearly long gone. It was very Sausage-esque (ie, slightly autistic) and sweet.
Well, this has gone on FAR too long, so that will do, apart from to note that we have visitors arriving in just 2 days! Mum & Dad have pipped our friend Gavin to the post to win the accolade of first official visitors to stay at Port 80. They are coming for a long weekend and booked at the last minute, making it a most welcome surprise. The weather promises to be excellent for the next week too, so we are shaping up for a lovely weekend. Ok, bonne nuit.