Hello all. Time for the weekly Frog Blog update from the heights of Mazeroux. I shall start off by wishing my Nan a very happy birthday for today. Hope she has a lovely day, whatever she gets up to. Shame the weather has yet to realise that it is now officially spring and continues to confound the flora and fauna. Looking back over the blog, it’s amazing to see the difference between how the garden looks now and how it looked this time last year. Granted, it was a freakishly warm March in 2012 but the contrast is most jarring: nothing is blooming at all out there whereas last year, all our fruit trees were blossoming and the roses, wysteria and magnolia were all out and looking lovely.
Here’s hoping for a reprieve very soon because we’re already half way through our emergency wood order from the other week. The wood is chestnut, not oak, and it’s very dry, so it gets devoured very quickly by our burner. I am also impatiently awaiting the time change as I tend to wake up early as soon as it gets bright, and that’s been getting earlier and earlier. C’mon Spring, this is your cue: where are you??
On to the weekly news roundup: first off, I had a checkup at Périgueux a week ago today to see how my hand was doing. There was an initial hiccup when on arrival, I was told that had I had called them a week ago to put my appointment back to late April, so would I please come back then. This being news to me I insisted on being seen there and then and fortunately, the specialist acquiesced. The news is all good: no signs that the lump is coming back and the wound has healed well. I have since recommenced my workout schedule and played guitar several times. Both activities are considerably harder than they used to be but I am determined to get back to where I was as soon as possible.
Next: the boiler story. I must admit to being relieved that unsurprisingly, we did not get approval for the financing so have escaped a rather scary financial commitment, even if it means being left with an inefficient and antiquated boiler and uninsulated roofs. For the latter, we know of a handyman in the area who can supply the same quality insulation and fit it for us, so we’ll be contacting him soon to sort that out. I doubt he offers 0% financing, but it’s something we really do need to sort out so we’ll bit the bullet and shell out all the same.
A quick work roundup: we’re making good headway on the 2 websites for our new client, Vortex, with site #1 virtually done and site #2 underway. The sites are great for us in that they require both of our different skill-sets in equal measure so they have kept us both busy. I have made them pretty and Matt took care of some complex functional aspects like the cubic capacity calculator which allows potential customers to work out the volume of their shipments so they can request a quote. Modesty aside, our efforts blow the original sites out of the water.
Amongst the many, many ways the first designer conned them, I recently discovered that the French translations he supplied for the sites are just appalling. All he did was run the text through Google Translate which, while being a useful tool for getting the general gist, cannot properly string a sentence together. I have to re-do the whole translation properly which is time-consuming to say the least. Still, Vortex don’t seem at all concerned about paying us for our time so that’s a good thing. Here’s to the start of what we hope will be a long and mutually-beneficial relationship!
Ok, now on to socialising. On Saturday, we were joined for dinner by Bryan & Carol and also, at long last, by our friends Pete & Sally who had virtually disappeared off the face of the earth recently. Matt put together a lovely meal of fried chicken and roasted sweet potatoes that went down a storm. Pete is also currently recovering from hand surgery – although his was far more involved than mine and involved fixing tendons etc. He is healing extremely well, due in no small part to his stubborn refusal to follow doctors’ advice about resting his hand completely. Just days after the op, he was forcing himself to use it and has already regained far more mobility than they expected. I shall know better for next time!
Everyone seemed to get on, and Bryan even treated himself to a full glass of red wine. He is also healing well and fingers crossed, may get permission to drink normally again in a month or so. Everyone left us around midnight, but Matt & I stayed up for a final cleanser so weren’t in the best shape the next day. Fortunately, I had an Amazon delivery of DVDs to see us through the hangovers.
This week so far hasn’t been too eventful. We’ve both been concentrating on Vortex all week and haven’t done a lot of socialising, although that is just about to change. I should also say that Matt has, for the first time in literally years, picked up his acoustic guitar again, spurred on by the idea of playing at the equestrian centre’s party in June. Neither of us is remotely up to it yet, so time will tell whether that ultimately happens! This evening, we have a French contingent joining us for dinner. There’s a lady who Matt often sees at the swimming pool in Nontron called Sylvie and she’s keen to become friends, so we invited her and also Josianne from the conversation group, plus husband, Cammi. We’re pleased to learn that their daughter Laetitia is still around, so she will be coming too.
The socialsing continues this weekend with a visit from Ridgit, our friends who moved back to Nottingham a couple years ago. They’ll be coming over on Saturday for a catch up which we’re looking forward to very much. And that pretty much concludes the news from Port 80, I think. I shall end by saying that our huge pine tree in the front garden is no longer as towering and imposing as it was this time yesterday. Lucien has been on at us for ages to get it trimmed as he maintained that in the event of a big storm, it could get uprooted and damage the house. Having experienced a few mighty storms out here already, I think this was a bit over the top, but when Lucien gets fixated on something to do with the garden, there’s no stopping him. He came by this morning with an array of tools and the tree is now a couple metres smaller and (in my opinion) looking quite sorry for itself. This is another reason to pray for the arrival of Spring soon: it’ll mean he can occupy himself with his (and our) veggie plot instead! Bon, c’est tout pour l’instant. Until next time…