Not much happened early in the week so I’ll skip to the main event. Will’s birthday was Thursday and Anne and Andrew stopped by for an apero after conversation group. This is the one in Milhac that I used to go to, and they seemed to enjoy it. Francoise runs it and they also serve afternoon tea and cakes, which are both improvements from when I ran it. They stayed with us for a drink before heading home, not wanting to leave the cat on his own for too long.
We had a double celebration at the weekend. On Friday, we had Manu & Mathilde, Francoise and Paul over for dinner. Will did well on the booze front: M&M got him a litre of Absolut, Paul brought champagne and I got him raspberry vodka and Kahlua from an online shop. We started with cocktails and nibbles before sitting down to oven-fried chicken, sweet potato fries and roasted sprouts. All that remained was one chicken leg, which pleased me since I often make way too much. Francoise made her famous tiramisu and we all had two helpings. The last guests left around 2, and we watched a bit of telly before crashing.
On the news front, M&M are both well, and she is enjoying her (new-ish) job. Paul heard from Nathalie that her 3rd apprenticeship will be in Nontron at Hermes. This will give her a chance to see what working there is like, and means she doesn’t have to go away, so they’re both pleased. Things aren’t great for Francoise, mainly because her buyers were turned down by the bank so can’t go ahead with her house sale. Her car has been acting up and I had to pick her up from the garage in St Pardoux earlier today. On the upside, Philippe moved out last week, and just needs to come by and collect his furniture etc.
We had a mainly relaxing day on Saturday, except for cutting wood in the afternoon. Anne and Andrew came for dinner that evening. We had invited Richard and Bridget but they were away with their son so didn’t get the message in time. We started with cocktails, chips and guac, and the main was garden veggie enchiladas, with yellow rice. The folks brought a cake that was layers of pear, caramel and sponge that was very tasty. They are both working hard to get the house painted etc before their furniture arrives. This was meant to happen today, but it’s nearly 5 and we’ve had no news.
Sunday was another lazy day, with band practice being the only activity. We were far worse than the previous week for some reason, but still passable. We tried out a couple of new songs and if they work out, will replace a couple of the current ones.
Work is busy for both of us. I got another referral from our partners in Argentina for a small piece of work. I’ve got a couple of sites with updated versions that I’m waiting to put live. I’m waiting on info from my Australian client but that’s still moving ahead. Will got some annoying news today regarding the vineyard site/shop. They don’t want to make changes to their current site (which is horrid) and only want a shop adding to it. It looks like they’ve decided to do a combination where they keep their current site and then link off to a new shop site that we’ll build. So it’s a much less interesting project, and the end result won’t be much for us to brag about. He also did a design for a new site for existing clients, and they were happy with it except that between Friday and today, the entire concept, text and photos have changed so he must start over from scratch. Bloody clients!
Finally, our glorious weather has at last turned more seasonal. We reached a high of 24C (75F) on Wed of last week before turning cooler and clouding over a bit on Will’s birthday. I even mowed the lawn for the first time this year. It was back to 19C yesterday but has since turned stormy with strong wind gusts that have knocked over half a stack of wood. Lucien came by today and trimmed back the hazelnut trees alongside the road that were interfering with the phone line. He also turned over the veggie plot last week and will be back to go over it again shortly. We’re very lucky to have them as neighbours.