Ok, it wasn’t the whole week, but since Will’s birthday fell on a Wednesday, we had multiple celebrations. Before the festivities began, we had two very busy days getting the vineyards site live. Their old company turned off their two existing sites on midday Tuesday, so it was a last-minute dash to get everything working. Apart from a couple of minor hiccups, it all went smoothly and the site was live in time.
Will has a tradition of not working on his birthday, so he worked the rest of the day Tues and into the evening to get the French version of the site live. He succeeded, and was able to mostly take it easy on Wed. He opened his presents in the morning, and spent the better part of the day setting up his new iPad. Thanks to all who contributed. Lucien came by around lunchtime for some phone help and I mentioned that it was Will’s bday, so he and Mauricette returned around 6 with a lovely bottle of red, and stayed for an apero. We had dinner home that night and continued celebrating at the weekend.
On Friday, we had Manu & Mathilde plus Marie & Christian over for curry. It was the first time we’d ordered in a number of months, and it was clearly making Sue (the proprietress) nervous. The two couples had met at our wedding, but this was their first meal together, and they largely hit it off. M & C are heavily involved in VIAPL, so there was a lot of discussion around wind farms. For the meal, we started with nibbles, then had onion bhajis that Manu made (his best batch to date) and then curry with rice for the main. I found strawberries at the supermarket, so made my first browned butter tart of the year for dessert. Marie makes her own curry, so wasn’t overly impressed with Sue’s, and we are all in agreement that the evening is more about socialising than the food itself.
M & C left before midnight and M & M stayed for another drink / smoke. Mathilde stepped out for a breath of fresh air and when she came back in, she nearly fainted. She didn’t have tons to drink, but it was warm inside that night and she doesn’t cope well with heat. She had a rest on the sofa for a bit, and really didn’t want to move to the car to go home. After 30 minutes or so, she made an attempt which led to her throwing up outside. After that, she was fine and the two of them made the quick drive home. They were meant to meet her cousin and some friends the next morning at 8:30 to “do the pig”, i.e. cutting up and preparing a freshly butchered pig into pate, sausages etc. Manu managed to make it, but Mathilde didn’t. We got an email from here the next day saying that all was back to normal.
I went to the shops around midday to prepare for Sat night’s meal. We had Benoit and Virginie over, along with Fred the baker, a last-minute invitee. I stopped at the bakery for some patisserie and he was there, so I invited him. He said not to bother buying anything, and showed up with bread, croissants and a load of patisserie. The meal was pan-fried pork loin served with roasted sweet potato, apple and fennel. This was followed by a spinach salad with pecans, cranberries and bleu cheese, then more cheese and finally dessert. As is tradition, this was interspersed with shots of various vodkas that we happen to have in the fridge. Everyone loved the Absolut Raspberri, so we’re hoping to track some down out here. They all left around 12:30 since Fred has an early start, and Will and I stayed up to have a nightcap and a film.
We were both feeling a bit rough the next day. Benoit came by in the afternoon and he and Will went over to his folk’s house to assess what needs doing. Benoit will be able to do most of it himself, and can start next week when Andrew is next over. He also knows someone to do the crepie, so will arrange that. We had band practice that afternoon and despite not feeling our best, we had a pretty good rehearsal.
Apart from work and socialising, there were a couple of other things that happened during the week. I saw the doctor on Tuesday and he agrees I need an operation to repair my hernia. I have an appointment to see the surgeon at the end of March, and hopefully, he will be able to operate quickly after that. I also did a bit of gardening over the weekend including trimming the hydrangeas and a few other plants in the front, and also removed some low hanging branches in the back. Lucien came by and trimmed the small grape vine that he resurrected last year. He also cut off most of the large vine that grows along the front of the house, and has restarted it with a couple of long, smaller vines that remain from last year. And now, back to work.