We leave tomorrow morning for Greece via London. This will be our first official vacation since our trip to Asia two years ago. Living out here, we don’t feel the need for holiday like we did when we lived and worked in a big city, it’s always nice to take a break. The occasion is Will’s dad’s 60th birthday this month so we’re tagging along with them to help celebrate.
Most of the preparation has been on the work front for me. I have three projects on the go and I’m trying to get as much done as I can. The first is for a charity in London and I’ve been working on the project since May. It’s finally finished, although we’re still waiting for a third party to finish their work. Once they have, we will put their system live and then do some final testing before going live on our end. Thankfully, this is scheduled to take place in early October so I have some breathing room before then.
My other project is for Vortex, our local transport company. I had a very successful meeting with them last week where I showed them the demo site I had done. They were very excited about it and are eager to get it live so I will be working on that as soon as we return since they want it live by the end of September. That doesn’t give me much time but should be enough if all goes well. The last project is the auction web site for another English transporter out here. I did a proof of concept over the weekend and it looks like it will function as specified. I had to push back the delivery date on that until early October. The client requested an impromptu meeting so he came around this morning to see the demo and discuss plans for some other sites of his.
Work has still been very quiet for Will so we hope that picks up when we return. He has one client ready to go when we return and a few other potentials so we hope that he will be as busy as I am. It looks like the site for the UK lawyers is a no go since they are not returning his messages. I won’t make any disparaging remarks about lawyers since a few may be reading this but we’re not pleased that they didn’t have the decency to respond.
It’s been fairly quiet on the social front since our return from Bordeaux. Our only event was a bbq at Nat & Jill’s last night. Lee and Richard were invited too but cancelled at the last minute. Lee’s mom and husband are in town and were meant to sign the compromis (contract) on a place they are buying here but it didn’t go through so the boys had to stay home and comfort them instead. The bbq was originally going to be Sunday but the ladies changed it because they thought the weather would be better. So the four of us had a nice time, eating pork chops, chicken, sausage and potato salad, plus apple tarte with carmel salé for dessert. We had a few drinks and a smoke or two, and left around midnight.
We got our wood delivery from the local guy yesterday, four stere for dried oak. The hanger is now mostly full so we should be good for this winter. We’ve also ordered another six stere, but this will probably be wet so it will sit outside like the same stuff we ordered the year before. We’ll have to fill the gas tank when we get back since it’s getting close to low. Also, we finally received our delivery of loft insulation which Will has moved up to the loft. We’ll roll it out when the weather cools a bit.
The garden is mostly done for the year, although our special crop is finally starting to flower. Two of the plants were males so I recently cut them down and they are hanging in the loft. They have probably already pollinated the females but that isn’t too terrible. We ran out of stuff a few weeks ago, but thankfully a friend found us some in solid form so we’ve been making do with that. Otherwise, we tried some corn for the first time and as expected, it was a bit disappointing. The ears are small and although they look ok, the kernels aren’t as sweet as you’d expect. I used a few in a corn chowder that I made to use up the veg that were left in the fridge. It’s made with cream, cheese and bacon so a fairly tasty number all told.
Lastly, I’m happy to report that we have a working dishwasher again. I had to borrow pliers from Lucien and it required two types. The screw that holds the heating element is accessible from the bottom of the dishwasher, although just barely. After removing the first one, we discovered two more and each one had to be removed in painstaking fashion since there is hardly any room to turn them. We got the new element on, reconnected everything and viola, the dishwasher is risen.
I think that’s all the news from here. There won’t be an entry from us until we return so you’ll just have to be patient until then.