Hello Frog bloggers! I am back from my enforced absence to do my first post in over a month, and I have quite a bit to say. Hope I don’t ramble too much! First off I am pleased to say that my hand is more or less healed now. The wound’s knitted together nicely, is no longer at all painful, and I am free of the bandage at long last. My only issue now is that, having been out of action since December, my hand is really weak and my grip is just terrible. I shall work hard at that over the coming weeks – and playing guitar is my main plan for that. I had a go yesterday and was very disheartened with the result, but there’s some small improvement today, so I shall try and play for half an hour a day every day to build back up to where I left off. Other things I am really looking forward to include getting back into my workout routine, driving, and some more mundane things like showering without a plastic bag on my hand, and being able to open bottles and jars unaided. Sometimes it’s the simple things…
It is a gloriously warm and sunny day today, as was yesterday, and the same is forecast for a few more days yet too which is contributing considerably to my upbeat mood. It will very soon be time to put the bougainvillea and other houseplants outside for the season and to start thinking about the veggie plot etc. I have just come in from outside where I was giving the hand some guitar therapy and was amazed at how warm and springlike it is already. Summer doesn’t feel quite such a remote, theoretical concept any more.
Right, enough rambling and on with recent events. It was my birthday last week and, as we’re back to being unconstrained by mon-fri working hours, we decided to celebrate on the night itself, Thursday. Actually, before I come to that, we also had a social event the night before. We were invited over to Josianne & Cammi’s place down the road for a meal as her lovely daughter, Laetitia was over on holiday. We’d met her before last year so were keen to see her again. We were originally invited over on Thursday, but when we said we weren’t free, she suggested the night before instead.
We thought it was just going to be the three of them and us, but got there to find out we were being joined by Francoise, her husband, Philippe, and Jacqui, so it was a livelier affair than we anticipated. After a few drinks, we settled down to a lovely meal of chicken in a creamy sauce with a side of veg purée. As the drink flowed, the conversation got more and more animated and turned, as it inevitably seems to round theirs, to politics. Once on the topic, it was hard to escape it, and I thought for a while there that Laetitia and Philippe were going to come to blows. As it is, she made it abundantly clear that she was pleased to see the back of him when he left, and refused to give him the traditional parting kiss. The debate was a long one: by the time we were done with digestives, it was around 1.30 and we’d had an impressive range of drinks. None too clever on the eve of a birthday party!
Right, on to the day itself. Matt went out in the morning to see his physiotherapist and to shop for the meal, leaving me to clean the house. This had been overdue for some time, but this was the first time I’d felt up to it. It took a while but I got there in the end. In the afternoon, we had a visit from a boiler salesman that ended up taking around 3 hours. We’re both still somewhat reeling from the whole experience to be honest… We agreed to meet them a few days before because we really could use a new boiler, and were very impressed with their estimation of what they could save us on our heating bills per year. At the end of the meeting though, we got a nasty shock when the salesman proudly announced that we could get loft insulation and a brand new air pump heating system for a mere €15,000!
When we told him that this was rather more than we have in the bank, he offered us a 0% financing option, paying around €140 per month for just 120 months. The financing application has to be approved or the deal cannot go ahead, so for chuckles, we decided to go for it and just see if we’d get approval. Numerous signatures and copies of bits of paper later, the man left us in a daze wondering just what the hell we’d done. So, in a few days, we may well find ourselves committed to paying for a state of the art heating system that we really can’t afford. Interesting development…
I am pleased to say that after this trauma, my birthday began to get far more entertaining. Our guests showed up around 7pm: Lee & Richard, Nat & Jill and Bryan & Carol – hereafter known as the usual suspects. Matt had been slaving away most of the afternoon to put together a delicious meal of fajitas (chicken and beef) with yellow rice, salsa and guacamole. He’s had to do all cooking and cleaning himself for weeks now, but (un?)fortunately, I can now help out again. I did very well on the presents that night, with a lovely bath mat from the ladies, a bottle of voddie from B&C, and a nice sign to hang on the wall, some voddie and also some pants from the boys. Merci à tous!
To get everyone in the mood, we kicked off with a round of margaritas and it certainly did the job. After the meal, Jill and Lee took to the dancefloor and put on a great show, only to be upstaged later by a drunken performance of Dancing Queen by Matt. Photographic evidence of all of this and more exists, and if I am feeling suitably mischievous, it may well make its way on to Facebook imminently. I think B&C left us around midnight, and the ladies an hour or so later. The boys stayed the night, and I think it was 4ish before we crashed, having wreaked havoc on the considerable voddie supplies.
Needless to say, Friday was a non-event. The boys left us around noon, ostensibly to get on with painting their house, but as expected, they weren’t up for it and had a lazy day instead. Luckily, I got a big delivery of Amazon DVDs that afternoon, courtesy of Jan, Suzie & Steve. This was perfectly timed, arriving on hangover day as it did. While on the subject of presents, big thanks also to Mum & Dad, Nan, Dave and auntie Tracey for the Amazon vouchers/money! I have already begun spending 
And that brings me to yet another reason I have to be in fine spirits this year: David Bowie. For any of you that don’t know (where have you been if this applies to you!), David Bowie amazed the world in January by announcing out of the blue that he had just made an album. He released the lead single on 8th Jan, his birthday. I immediately purchased the song and was initially a bit underwhelmed. It’s fair to say, his track record since the 80’s has been patchy at best, so I was trying to manage my expectations accordingly. Fortunately, I needn’t have bothered: Bowie made the album available to stream on iTunes the other day ahead of its release date, so I’ve been listening to it more or less constantly ever since. I have also pre-ordered the CD on Amazon with some of my birthday vouchers. It is definitely the best thing he’s done 1983s ‘Let’s Dance’ and I encourage everyone to give it a listen. He is one rocking 66-year old!
Right, I shall end on work. Not normally the high-point of any blog entry, but actually things are moving along fairly well at the moment. I just finished a Sites for Homes project and should have another one around the corner too. I decided to give the main site a face-lift on the back of this and am pleased with how it came out: a lot more professional looking now. For Port 80 Services, we have had 2 enquiries come from our new english business directory, although it seems nothing is going to come of them. Still, bodes well. I also got a call from a plumber/handyman who was recommended us by Nat & Jill. He wants to get a basic site for his business, so I am going to meet him on Tuesday. Tomorrow, Matt & I have a meeting with our new clients, Vortex Transport. These are the guys who theoretically want to employ us for a day a week, which would be a massive boon. I also just made contact with my favourite client, Amy, who I am due to do another site for very soon. I hope I hear back in the next day or so: I feel bad that the project has had to be put on hold due to my hand so really want to get moving on that asap. Matt also has a few irons in the fire, mainly thanks to Abbey in the States. 2013 might just be the year that Port 80 Services becomes financially viable! Watch this space… Right, time for more guitar therapy. A bientôt, chers lecteurs.