We’ve both been feeling a bit cheated by the weather until now. It’s one of the main reasons we moved to France and although we had a mild winter, we’ve been hoping for a bit of summer too. Thankfully, our wishes have been answered and the forecast looks perfect as far as they’re willing to predict. Last night, to celebrate, we made a large batch of margaritas and sat outside for cocktail hour(s). I decided that we were celebrating Cinco de July, a melange of two national holidays. I’ve been meaning to say that when Mom came, she brought us some ice cube trays and they have revolutionised cocktail hour.
On the social front, we went to Nat & Jill’s for dinner last Saturday, in celebration of their 50th birthdays. Nat’s was on Tuesday and Jill’s in early August. They had planned to do a hog roast for 30 people, but it rained most of the day so they scaled it back to dinner for ten. Nat’s mom was there, along with some friends from her college days, a woman from Paris and a gay couple who live in Bordeaux. Jill’s daughter Lucy was there also, along with Veronique who we’ve met a few times before. We had champagne outside and then a buffet dinner of cold cuts, salads, bread plus various other things including my salsa that I was asked to bring. It was a relatively tame evening with some dancing later in the night and we left not long after midnight. We hit it off with Thierry and Philippe and we may see them when we go to Bordeaux in August with Gavin.
We went to Nontron on Monday so I could see someone at the Pole Emploi and Will to file his income taxes. I do mine online so also did it the same day. We saw the ladies again on Tuesday when they stopped by for an aperitif before heading to Brantome for birthday dinner. They came to see Richard and Brigit since this was the last chance for them to see each other. We also invited Carol to dinner since she is still on her own until tomorrow. I made Tamale Pie, a veggie classic and served it with salad. We had cheese and later, carrot cake cookies with fruit salad much later for dessert. The salad included the first batch of raspberries from our garden, along with our first strawberry, from the plants Mom bought for us when she was here. Rigit headed off around 11 since they had Vinnie the dog locked up at home. Carol stayed for a final cleanser and left us around 1 to walk back in the rain.
On Thursday, we had a meeting with Vortex, our local transport company client to talk about future plans. They are moving into bigger premises and are meant to start the new lease in September. I will help them install their computer equipment and I was afraid that they would need me when we’re not here. We plan to go to London/Greece in early Sept and then my dad arrives on the 18th and we’re spending a few days in Normandy. Thankfully for me, they are fairly certain things will be delayed and they won’t necessarily move to the office right away. I did a proposal for them a few months back about suggestions for improving their IT systems and never heard anything. At the meeting, they gave me the green light to start and also, to set up VPS hosting for their website. We host ours and our clients’ sites this way so I have some experience. It also means I can charge them 1 day per month for my time for administration.
I am close but still not done on my project for Media Trust, the UK charity. It looks like we’re finally getting somewhere with the other company doing development so hopefully, it will wrap up soon. It’s already over budget but not really my fault so it will be a nice bit of cash when it finally ends. Hopefully, they will have more work for me in the future as well since my contact told me they’re really happy with my work.
A bit of news on the home front – we just launched a new version of our homepage today. We weren’t happy with the old one and have been trying to come up with something new for a while now. We finished with a first draft the other day, but it wasn’t very good. Will started playing with a different idea the other day and voila, we both like it and it’s now live. We’ll be doing a bit of advertising to see if it makes any difference.
The cats are both very happy the weather has turned good. They are spending loads of time outdoors and currently, are both riddled with ticks so we’ll have to Frontline them today. They’ve been on a killing spree including a bird, left just under the stairs inside, and a bat which we found mostly eaten on the driveway. Neither of them has managed to kill my mole that is still tearing up the front garden. I will have to give Bryan back his traps since Carol said they have some new visitors but they will give me the name of the guy in the UK who sells them and will ship here.
Lastly, the garden is coming along, but not hugely so. There is now some corn, but only 25% came up so that leaves lots of places for weeds to grow. One of the tomato plants is some sort of vine and it’s growing like mad but the others, not so much. The peppers should do well but I’m not so sure about the squash. The onions and garlic are all in good shape. We’re getting some cherries now, but they’re watery and not very sweet. We’ve had plenty of rain which means I’ve had to mow the lawn once a week. I just ordered a new blade for the mower since the current one is kaput.
A+ (as they say here, meaning à plus = until later)