Friday

Thank heavens, it’s finally happening.

With the door widened and the house not having fallen down, we can make a start on the plastering.

I was already awake, watching Casualty, when I heard Matt. He definitely has a ‘Uh, French speaking people’ tone. Thing is he’s actually really good now at knowing what’s happening, he just doesn’t trust himself.

So it’s a nice couple and they’re pretty on it [as far as I can tell]. She’s actually doing the skimming while he does the ceiling. While they were playing ‘Nostalgie’ [a local rubbish radio station – ‘Nos-tal-gie’] far too loudly – they clearly don’t understand we are trying to do conference calls next door too! We had to close the doors pretty sharpish. Matt’s calls take precedence today and I needed to stay close for any questions.

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So we’re moving forward. If they do well there is a lot more plastering work available. They left reasonably early but then it’s a Friday in August so I’m just going to be grateful that they came at all.

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Matt popped off up to Action to get some more plastic boxes so that we can hopefully reduce the number of mice in the larder (armoire) while I cracked on with some more work.

When he got back it was time for a quick dip before we went out. Jonny and Cressida have invited us over for dinner and to meet Cress’ brother and girlfriend who are over visiting. The food was great, the company excellent as always and the wine flowing. A lovely evening had by all.

[13 August 2021]

Saturday

Matt’s been up early on the mower doing a bit more work but realised that the blades are pretty blunt so he’s also been off to Rural Master to get some bits and pieces and picked himself up a new hat to stop the sun burning his ears.

I have obviously suggested that he buys a white linen suit and auditions for the role of the man from Delmote. He had no idea who I was talking about so guess this is new to a few of you so here he is..

Definitely warming up though so time for a dip. The pool has definitely been warming up too.

Next job was to try to fix the lawnmower. Unfortunately, in the process he also managed to shear one of the old bolts off. What I’d rather hoped was going to be a quick job [with the help of his new lawnmower jack] turned out to be a bit of a disaster and we now need to get some new parts so have had to push it back into the garage in pieces.

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The rest of the day was pretty much spent fannying about in the pool, floating around, drinking beer, eating snacks from the floating bar and enjoying life. For the first time since we got here it felt like we were actually on holiday.

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Matt also cooked up the first of the home grown sweetcorn, I’m pretty pleased with it.

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We then spent most of the evening relaxing on the loungers in the garden, making plans and watching the flashes of light (we assume that there was a thunder and lightening storm down around Luchon).

[14 August 2021]

Sunday

I’m having a lie in but Matt is hungry and can’t sleep so he’s up and about.

Clouds have closed in around the house today, we can’t even see the mountains around us. Today we are cloud dwellers.

Watched an old film (Le Mans) and then decided to go to check out the Vide Grenier [it’s basically a car-boot sale] over at St Beat. It was pretty busy with lots of cars around, but if there was anything good it probably went early and certainly wasn’t there when we got there.

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Since we were out we decided to see if there was anything happening over at the Lac de Gery. Again, there were plenty of cars but not a great deal of action. It was nice to sit and people watch for a while though. There’s clearly also some sort of water sports thing they run from here, some kayaks and also the (slightly rubbish looking) crazy golf that we will have a go at sometime.

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Back at the house for some food and to check out the work that Matt has been doing in the orchard. It’s actually looking pretty good, or at least isn’t waist deep in nettles and brambles any more.

Time to run through a bit of work before relaxing on the sofa. Definitely a weekend to do very little. Matt is off to bed early so I stayed up, watched some Holby and am finishing the updates to the blog. Bedtime soon though.

Night all x

[15 August 2021]