Monday

Busy day. Work, ANAH and preparations. Work calls. Then M. Julien came round, he’s very nice and clearly when he arrived the penny suddenly dropped. He’d been wondering why the quote for pellet boiler was so large and the spec on the alternative quote was for two air source heat pumps, it had seemed rather over specced until he saw the sheer volume of the house.

He was grateful we had all the plans already printed and just needed to add the windows, upon which he realised how very many of them there are and how expensive it would be to replace them. As we checked each floor and explained what we’d done/were doing he was very kind and said beautiful it was – I suspect he also thinks we’re mad. ANAH will provide up to €30k, means tested, then we have to go to ‘Ma Prime Renov’ for additional support. So we went through a long list of possible options/scenarios and he’ll come back with the energy report for us maybe tomorrow (ish). We still need to get some more quotes from companies that are more local although we had explained that we’d tried with no response so he gave us a few numbers of local artisans he recommended that we call. One wasn’t able to do it but we got another booking in which is something.

Time for more work. After work it was time to give the car a clean so hopefully the cameras can see and it can do most of the driving tomorrow. Then down to Lidl to pick up some wine for mum.

Back at the house and it’s time for dinner and pancakes for desert. I mistakenly thought that we’d be missing pancake day but got the month wrong. According to my facebook memories we were also cooking pancakes this time last year, clearly there’s something wrong in my brain.

Next up it was time to pack. We spent forever trying to find my work pass and can’t find the bag anywhere! We even rang mum to check if it was there but no joy. Another half hour of looking and I was going mad. Guess I will have to leave without it unless I have a wonderful dream and remember where it is. Meanwhile the cat decided that she wanted to come too and curled up in my bag. I know we’re taking the car but she is not coming with us!

Anyway time to tidy up, water the plants and have a quick shower. Matt’s in bed to prepare for the morning while I’m writing to you. And so I need to get to bed as I have a very early start.

[31 January 2022]

Tuesday

Ugh, I was not made for mornings. On the road by 8 (7am my time) and back at the house by 8:07, seems I forgot my scooter. Whatever you may think of it, it is the most efficient way to get around London and has limited use in rural France, particularly when they don’t have dropped pavements. We were very quickly back on the road, although Matt managed to close the cat’s paw in the door. She made a big deal about and I felt awful for her but she soon ran off and was fine on it so I’m sure it’s nothing.

Time for the longest drive of my life – at least in the front seat anyway, we drove much further to ski holidays but at least we stopped overnight on the way. One year they broke into our car and stole our travel bags with my walkman and genesis tape – anyway back to this story.

Leg 1: Marignac to Toulouse.

Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of pics from the window. These were the last of the mountains though.

Leg 2: Toulouse to Brieve-la-Galliarde

Leg 3: Brieve-la-Galliarde to Limoges

Weather started to close in a bit but at least it was just very overcast, for this bit too. But we saw the Loire..

Leg 4: Limoges to Chateauroux; and, Leg 5: Chateauroux to Orléans

It was pretty miserable from Central-Northern France and rained all the way. Slowed us down and took more battery than planned. Did come across the biggest toll that I’ve seen though. [Yeah, I know, it’s weak but what do you expect from a 14+hr drive..?!]

Leg 6: Orléans to Senlis – the Paris section

Route planner sent us round the East side of Paris so saw a bit of the 13th and, of course, the Seine. It seems we managed to hit both big cities right on rush hour. Paris was therefore a bit stop start but nothing compared to the M25.

At Senlis we had a pretty long stop to get us to Calais and it was definitely time for dinner. Since there is a MacDonalds within 300ft it seems reasonable to take that option.

Leg 7: Senlis to Calais

Squeaky bum time, for the whole 2hrs 45mins. While we started with 10% battery to arrive with it rapidly reduced. We were in the tricky position of deciding whether we chose speed or battery. Unfortunately we had an excess of neither. We finally arrived at Calais 1 minute before they closed check in and with 1% remaining on the battery. I don’t want to know what happens when it gets to 0%. Either way we got to the charger and could grab a quick 10mins before I hassled Matt onto the train, I didn’t want to get stranded. Turned out there was only about 5 cars on it so sure we could have stayed longer but I’m confident we can find a charger on the other side…

Leg 8: Folkstone to London (finally)

We managed to get the app sorted and find an Ionity supercharger very close to the port. It was 3x as expensive as the Tesla ones but at least with a few minutes we knew we’d get to Maidstone and then up to London.

Arrived about 1:30am to unpack and squeeze into a parking space but it was close enough for the time of night and at least the wonderful Mr Ward had some parking permits. We’ll deal with it in the morning, but for future reference – if your back tires are dead on the line is that in the space or not?

[1 February 2022]

Wednesday

And so it starts. Back into work from 8:30. I’m afraid it’s back to back meetings all day for me, most of them at Guy’s, including my Board meeting, then over to County Hall to go check out the event space for the launch.

On the way home I needed to take some photos that we might use for one of our promotional videos. So here’s some pictures of the Southbank and hospital.

Back up at Farringdon I can drop off my scooter and have my final meeting of the day. Obviously it’s late but at least I am meeting the best colleague I have – Mr Ward – yippie!

[2 February 2022]

Thursday

Another early start, who decided that early morning meetings were a thing? At least in France the local time is 9am, even if I don’t start till 10 am when in France. First calls done and it’s down to St Thomas’ again. Time for some more pictures of the Southbank.

Matt’s picked up some lunch on his way from the office and sadly seems he’s also found a dead fox by our fence when he got home.

Next meeting was a tour of an office building we might use, nice views. A quick lunch on the wonderful Lower Marsh before heading down to Brixton for meetings for the rest of the day.

Turned out that the East side of the Northern Line is closed forever – or until May, whichever is sooner, probably forever – so I had to get bus from Brixton to London Bridge. Obviously I couldn’t bear it for too long so I had to race the bus on my scooter and beat it by a million miles, or at least it never overtook me.

Time to meet up first with old and new colleagues [from Laing to Guy’s] and wait for friends (and family) to drop in. Thankfully however I had the sense (ok, just enough sense) to call time on myself and Matt got me out quick enough to get back to Pete’s 10mins before the best Chinese closed – he’s my hero! He also carried my scooter as I couldn’t be trusted to just carry it – probably sensible, I was very keen to be back before the takeaway closed and would no doubt have hit a curb.

Definitely time for bed.

[3 February 2022]

Friday

Another early start. I’d forgotten how challenging it was to have back to back meetings all day and a massive backlog of emails to deal with. Thankfully I have this afternoon off to tidy up here, pick up things from Matt’s, drop into my flat to check how well it’s looked after [very, although the crappy old flooring in the kitchen needs to be replaced] and Booker for the essentials [1,100 teabags; 5L of Lea & Perrins; and 2.5kg of Bisto]. Finally heading back to Sussex to see Rhys about our launch event, and Lucy, because it’s Lucy, and then dinner with Mum and the Smiths.

Had to have a quick run round to Steph’s to see her new kitchen; it’s lovely, her island is massive and love the grey and copper wall.

Back to mum’s and it’s time to say goodnight to our guest and mum. We need to be up very early tomorrow to head back home after a whirlwind visit.

[4 February 2022]