It’s official – Will is now a French citizen! He received a letter today informing him of the news, and that he should expect more info within the coming six months. This will include his French birth certificate, a letter from the President and a booklet concerning his rights and responsibilities as a citizen. We’re both very excited and relieved since it means we won’t have to move anywhere if we don’t want to. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to vote in the upcoming presidential election since the registration deadline has already passed.
Apart from that, there’s very little to report. Work is busy for both of us. Will has a number of sites on the go, and there is some chance that he will soon put live a site that’s been in the works for over two years. He also had a client meeting here with CNPV, a local horse association. He built a site for them a few years ago, and they prepaid for three years of work / hosting. There is still one year to go, and the meeting was to review and plan for the next year’s work. I’m mainly working on my big project for Abby, and I have a few other smaller things on the side.
The next Milhac Loisirs soirée is coming up in a few weeks, so we’ve started the preparations for that. The theme is Savoie (Savoy), the region where Sophie comes from. She will be doing all the cooking, and has recently made a trip back there to source the ingredients. There will also be a folk group coming from the area and they will sing, dance, tell stories etc as the evening’s entertainment. Sophie suggested that their trip here would be a cultural exchange, which means she’ll also be cooking two Perigordine meals for them. I think she’s a bit nuts to take on that much cooking, but she doesn’t seem worried. Will made up a poster which has been printed and we’ll start to put them up in the surrounding areas.
We didn’t do much of anything at the weekend. The weather was lovely and mild, with temps near 15C one day, so I took advantage and went for a couple of walks. I also did a bit of gardening on Sunday, mainly trimming back the hydrangea at the end of the drive since it keeps scraping the car when you pull in. We watched a couple of films and feasted on wild mushroom lasagne that we made on Friday.
One of the hard drives on the NAS (network storage) was in danger of failing. I purchased it from Amazon over a year ago, and it was still under warranty. Normally, this is provided by the manufacturer, but in this case, they declined to cover it. So I contacted Amazon who were happy to replace it for free. I received the new disk yesterday, replaced the old one, and after 24 hours, the NAS is back to normal and happy again. I have erased the bad disk, and will be sending it back to Amazon in the next few days.
We took Smeagol to the vet on Monday evening. On Saturday, Will discovered a large lump on his mid-back, near the ribs. It was still there the next day so he called Mon am for an appointment. By the time we arrived, the vet was unable to find anything suspicious, and indeed, neither of us could find the lump either. She thought it might have been an abscess or wound from a fight. We were all relieved and placated Smoo with a treat when we got home.
Before signing off, I guess I should explain the title. When I got my UK citizenship, I had to attend a ceremony at the local town hall. Will made a video of the part where I had to swear allegiance to the Queen, something he enjoys teasing me about. The title of this film was called “The Limeification of Poppet” and I have adapted it to make it fitting for him, my Sugar.