Well, there’s no doubt about it: winter is here. I’ve been in quiet denial for some time about the onset of the cold and the imminence of December, but I can’t bury my head in the sand any more. Temperatures here are dropping daily, below freezing at night and some days, no higher than 3 during the day. We are as a result getting a lot of use out of the log-burner, which gets fired up first thing in the morning. It does take a couple hours before you feel the benefit, especially on misty days when there’s no sun, which up here in the heights of Mazeroux, happens a lot.
There’s also a bit of a balance that has to be maintained between getting the heat up as soon as possible and not burning the house down. The burner we bought is a big piece of kit, and needs to be for the space it has to heat, but it sits a bit too close to the wooden mantle above the fireplace. At the weekend, the mantle started to smoulder and fill the house with smoke when someone who shall remain nameless was a little overenthusiastic with the piling on of the logs. After an emergency call with the parents, we have tacked up some tin foil to the underside of the beam and that seems to be doing the trick. Eventually, we’ll have to either lower the stove or remove the mantle and replace it with a stone one, but this will probably be a Spring job.
Another downside to the change in the weather concerns the cats. Being unable/unwilling to go out means they have a big build-up of energy and murderous tendencies that usually all get expended on the hunt. Instead, it is now being expended on each other, us, carpets, doors and, well, just about anything really. Unusually, they are actually both out right now, so I am taking advantage of the calm to get on with this post unmolested – but the rain is starting up so I am sure I won’t have long. The Smoo is by far and away the worst offender, especially first thing in the morning. Whereas Louis will probably have been out for at least a few hours overnight, Smoo generally stays in and harasses us. Once we are up, an epic cat-war invariably ensues, with long-suffering Louis seeking a quiet place to hide, and the Smoo tracking him down and biting him mercilessly until he hisses and runs off. We often have to intervene to bring about peace (ie, throw the Smoo outside so he can blow off some steam).
The other night, Smoo outdid himself in fairly spectacular style. I’ve just barely forgiven him in fact. For starters, we had repeat nocturnal visits and were both subjected to multiple instances toe-scratching and face-biting. This was followed up with a 4.30am mouse incident in which he managed to let it go in the bathroom whereupon it immediately hid behind the bidet, just out of reach. This meant a full half hour of scratching and mewling, which ensured I failed to go back to sleep. Not to be outdone, Louis chimed in at around 6, just as I had nodded off, with his own mewling and scratching, so that was it for my night’s sleep. I fear it is going to be a long, long winter…
Right, what else to report? Work, I suppose. For Matt, this is currently very frustrating as he is using a crappy system so progress is slow and the work is tedious. On the plus side, he is now on the countdown to the end of his contract and is looking forward to seeing the back of it. It’s unlikely they’ll keep him on, and even if they wanted to, they’d have to make him a really good offer to persuade him to accept. For me, I ended up doing a second site, also a template one, for the carpenter client I worked for last month. He also owns a chalet down on the coast near St Tropez so I put together a bilingual site to advertise the property for rent, which I completed yesterday. I’m also making good progress on the site for the Chateau de Charras. The client, Amy, is an absolute pleasure to work for and I am really chuffed with how the design came out so I look forward to getting that one finished soon, and to working with her in 2013 on another business idea of hers.
Aside from Thanksgiving, there’s not been too much socialising going on, but we did throw a dinner on Saturday. The original plan was to have Nat & Jill over with our friends Pete & Sally, but the latter were not free – and nor was Nat, as it turned out. Nat’s Dad has cancer and is very unwell, so she has been up in Paris seeing him, leaving Jill at home looking after the dogs. Jill was up for a distraction, so came along all the same. We thought we’d invite Carol along as she too was home alone while Bryan was still in hospital. Carol accepted and said her daughter Jenny would join us too- she’d come over to keep Carol company for the weekend. As it turned out, Bryan was released early (“weelease Bwyaan” for the Monty Python fans) so we thought we’d get all 3 Williamses. Unfortunately, in the end, Bryan wasn’t up to it: he is in a lot of pain still and is strictly forbidden to take anything other than paracetomol. Carol and Jenny still came, and the two of them got along very well with Jill. Jenny finds it very amusing that her parents have two sets of same-sex couple friends in the area, and that their names are basically rhyming couplets – Matt & Will and Nat & Jill. This is something that had totally escaped us until she said it.
As expected, both cats have come back in after a far-too-short range outside. So far, I have had my foot savaged by the Smoo and had to shout at Louis for scratching the back of the sofa. Not to be outdone, Smoo then attacked the books on the bookshelf, got yelled at and is now howling in the bedroom and laying into the rug. Sooner or later, they will both crash on the sofa in front of the fire. Until then though, they look set to be very tedious beasts today.
In other news, we have one social activity looming this weekend: several local bands are playing on Friday evening at the salle de fetes in St Pardoux down the road, so we are going to watch that. A similar event took place back in June when Jan was here, so I think we will recognise a couple of the bands. Hopefully it is better attended than last time, but given the weather, that’s probably unlikely. Aside from that, our calendar is empty. We’ll have to remedy that as best we can. Right, that’s about it, I am off to bring in some more wood. I shall end this by saying that my bestest mucker, Anna, turns 30 on the 11th of this month. I shall unfortunately not be there for the day itself, but will celebrate when I see her over Christmas. She gave me a lot of stick when I hit the big 3-0 (in fact, she started when I turned 29 now that I think about it), so now it’s my turn to do the teasing. Bon anniversaire, Babycakes!