Sunday

A simple day of rest and relaxation after all the guests and excitement it’s quite nice to be able to sleep in and do nothing all day apart from a bit of cleaning up.

[1 August 2022]

Monday

Meow is not the best business cat but she’s apparently trying. Better when she is behind the laptop than on it though.

Delivery arrived today. Our new TV for the living room has finally arrived. It’s a bit late for our visitors to watch but at least the dog and child can’t knock it over and break it. We clearly don’t have a good plan for it right now or anywhere to put it.

With the TV set up it’s chicken caesar salad for dinner, but it’ mine, all mine I tell you and I’m not sharing! Matt had to have a burger instead.

[2 August 2022]

Wednesday

We had a few meetings but it was definitely getting hot today so had an early swim. I had a later meeting and Mr Smiley is due this afternoon. I thoroughly expected him to turn up during my meeting with something Matt needed me for, thankfully he arrived just after.

They ‘might’ come next week to do the margellles around the pool first, then they will do the grouting and filling, he’ll come back about the sealant. With the weather they will only come in the morning as it is too hot in the afternoon – fair. He did however fix the pompe a chaleur (heat pump) and, after a demonstration of the cover, going to replace the winder and check something else that wasn’t right [I can’t understand everything at this stage].

Anyway, with Mr Smiley done it’s time to get Matt off to the airport. I’m going to miss him, I’m not ready to be tout seule (all alone), no choice though as the boy is off. A quick trip to Lidl and I have replaced my deserters (Jonny, Cressida and Matt) with some new Callas. Have to be honest, they don’t seem to drink rose and aren’t great conversationalists so they’re not fantastic companions.

Matt – As usual the lounge at Toulouse airport is closed again so it’s going to have to be an overpriced burger and giant beer from one of the restaurants. However the bar at the gate is open, although a beer was tiny, mostly foam and crazy expensive.

Always a nice sunset from the departure gates at Toulouse though.

Meow isn’t a great bed companion, to me at least – she loves Matt. But she finally came up for a cuddle which was nice.

[3 August 2022]

Thursday

Matt has left but I still have work to do, and a lot of washing of sheets and towels from our recent guests, but this is going to take some time – despite them having kindly stripped the beds for me. I’m no good at eating alone, however there are a few bits and pieces in the fridge that need to go so caprese salad it is. By the time I finish work it’s time to hang out the laundry, I quickly realised that our current set up will only allow for me to do one load per day, with the Salon fulfilling the idea that we have ghosts. What the house needs is a big retractable line to lay out lots of sheets in the summer – what it should not be is a gift for me, I want a ring not a washing line. Anyway, back to the day job.

After work it was time to go to Intermache, the steak I bought earlier was apparently now off and even the cat didn’t fancy it – must be bad. Looking at the shopping I feel as though I am back in my 20s and trying to steal the neighbours cat. I could feel the temperature dip, and wished I had a barometer to confirm it, but a storm was coming. Better bring everything I can in. I was right, bit disappointing though. It mostly went around us, I think we only got about 2cm if you trust the bowl i put out.

Since I couldn’t do much in the garden I decided to take my skills inside. Before dinner I made a couple of ‘test holes’ in Room 6 [Tonia’s Room]. They went well, although we definitely should have moved the bed and furniture before Matt left. Time for dinner though as I’m getting grumpy – it’s the only way I know when I’m alone and don’t have Matt here to feed me at regular hours.

A few episodes of rubbish TV and I decide that it is now or never. Time to head up to the second floor and crack on. Of course I have to change first and then realised I was missing half the kit. Seems that our buckets are still in the shed and we forgot to take them to the dechetterie last time. I worked around it though and made good progress, about 1/3 down and mostly cleaned up too. Definitely time for a shower.

Tonia rang, then mum, then Tonia, then mum – I have no idea how to cancel/transfer calls. Good to catch up with mum though. Now time to fix the replacement tie attachments on the cabana, well at least try to. Meow has turned up and is rather interested in this, she is however incredibly unhelpful as she keeps grabbing onto it and thinks it’s a game so I couldn’t finish.

It seems Matt has also got back from the pub with Lee and Vicky so updating him on my day. They were soon off to bed though and so I reached out to Rhys – not only is he usually up late, but Matt still hasn’t commented on the ‘Save the Date’ designs I suggested so I’m going ‘Nuclear’. I love Rhys but I do worry he may put more effort into this than he has time for, anything he touches looks beautiful though so there are worse things, and he’s slightly quicker than a French artisan 😉

Bedtime, but thanks for the company Rhys and offer of help.

[4 August 2022]

Friday

Reasonably early start with meetings today, lucky I had Meow finally come up to check I was up. She clearly wanted cuddles, possibly even more than she wanted breakfast, which was odd at 10am local time – she loves to wake Matt up at 7!

Put a second load on between calls and more work. Finally decided that I’d had enough around 3pm but realised I’d forgotten to put Lionel in the pool. After the storm the pool was full of crap so looks like I’m going to have to wait quite a while to have that swim. Pool appears to be making some odd noises too and after a bit of investigation I realised that the filter was absolutely jam packed with leaves. Definitely a rubber glove job as no idea what was going to be in there. Also had to dive in to clear one of the suction jets but it’s all sounding much better now it’s been cleared.

Time to get yesterday’s washing folded so I have space for the next load to go out. Since the cat’s not about I might have a chance to finish the job I started yesterday, attaching new ties for the cabana roof. Pretty, much harder to put back on alone however than when I did it with Tonia and Matt.

Lionel is finally done but when I took him out he dumped a whole load back into the pool. I’m guessing that his filters are also blocked. Seems to be the day for it. Since Lionel can’t do the top of the seating area the waterline as become pretty grimey. Yep, definitely needs a clean. Apparently making a very small amount of paste with baking soda and water works, it’s still requires quite a bit of elbow grease but definitely doing the job and you need the very smallest amount so no way it could possibly affect the chemical balance. Looking much better in my opinion.

Meow was then demanding her dinner and by the time I’d done that I’d pretty much lost the sun so seems like I’ve done a lot of work for not a lot of swimming. No idea what I’m going to do this evening. Matt is out with Lee, Vicky and Jeff but there’s nobody around for me to play with what with the Huxtables away in Lake Como. Guess it’s probably time to update the blog but then what?!

What was next I am sure will blow your socks off, if they’re 100% cotton and from M&S, if it not you’d be forgiven for saying it was boring. The kitchen has been reclaimed from children and dogs, neither of which understand that a freshly mopped floor is the adult equivalent of ‘the floor is lava’. I have also swept the 1st floor landing and stairs and mopped the hall. This evening is clearly off the hook!

Thankfully while Matt is out Rhys has reached out again to keep me company. Sadly Lucy is already asleep but we messaged for hours and he kept me entertained and enriched. France feels that much further away on days like these, but apparently Brighton’s not much different. Moving our of town [London] is a big deal, but at least I have the sun and the snow, and Rhys and Lucy have their growing family. Time for bed.

[5 August 2022]

Saturday

I’d completely forgotten that the cat came in very late last night. I don’t know how she knows it but there was certainly no waking me up at 7am as she does with Matt, she waited until like 2pm before coming up and letting me know she was even here. Sweet as!

First up to get Lionel in then to the vegetable garden. I realised however that I had left the gate open and it looks as though something has been in here. There’s some damage to some of the tomatoes and a couple of the corn which is a blow. I’ve done my best to tie them up, and to tie up the sunflowers which having been battered by the winds which were starting to take their toll and potentially take out the corn surrounding them. I then went to put the watering on. Yes, I know you are meant to do it in the evening but at least the pipes are buried to reduce water loss etc, and the problem with doing that is that I hadn’t realised that only one half was working. I’ve therefore managed to kill a few of the plants and others are suffering. Apparently Matt thought there was something wrong as it reset itself the day he left but forgot to mention it to me. Despite calling him the best advice he could give was to attach the extension and hand water them. Not ideal but at least they’ll finally get watered.

Finally Lionel is done so I can have a quick dip. Then watched a bit of TV on the ipad however the cabana got a bit dangerous if you put your hand in the wrong place…

Of course it wasn’t long before the clouds came in which was a shame. It was still warm though and so I sat outside. The cat is hilarious. She’s quite fascinated by the pool and ocassionly likes to drink from it a little – it’s salt water so we don’t encourage it and I got her some fresh water – but not until after I’d watch her try to reach the surface. It’s gotten lower with Brandon’s bombs and Lilja’s spraying everywhere so she can only just reach it without falling in. I have to admit that I was rather hoping she might do it today, at least while I was watching and able to help (and take photos while laughing).

Time for dinner. We had two burger patties left but I’m not a massive fan of burgers. I am however a much bigger fan of steak hache and frites. Much better plan.

I’ve been pretty busy though and so time to just relax in front of the TV this evening. I did have a chat with Tonia and Mum though which was nice. Things appear to be getting crazy back in London/Hertfordshire though. Time for a nice kebab on the way home apparently!

[6 August 2023]

Sunday

Another lie in, well kind of. The cat was definitely out last night, however it seems that I didn’t lock the back door properly so the damned thing got in. She therefore came to wake me up at about 9:30am. Of course I quickly went back to bed and to sleep after giving her some food though.

F**k, looks as though I forgot to turn off the water at the source yesterday and the connection has blown so there is water everywhere, I’ve no idea how long it’s been running. I’ve been trying so many ways to conserve extra water the past few days and all of it wasted. We really need to sort this out, I’m so frustrated by it.

Quick swim and then the clouds started to come in again. The winds also really picked up so time to take the covers off the cabana so my new ties don’t get broken before Matt even gets home. Since it’s cloudy and cooler however it seems like a good time to get some other garden jobs done/started.

I had a look at levelling the area at the end of the pool but with the high winds I’m not sure if all I am doing is loosening the dirt so that it can end up in the pool. Time to change plans. I’m off to the ‘games lawn’ to start preparing it, well making it marginally better – it’s a huge job. Before doing anything however I needed to move the branches that Matt and Tonia had removed from the Bay so that they were out of the way, to give me some space to put the rocks/stones.

With the branches out of the way I made a start. Being quite sensible however I decided that if we were going to potentially make use of these we’d probably need stones of different sizes for different things and one large heap would be pretty unhelpful. I’ve therefore decided on a slightly arbitrary approach that splits them into: boulder, medium, small medium and pebbly.

While I was doing this however I got quite the shock. A ‘young’ man (probably mid 30s) suddenly appeared (and not unattractive) came around the corner shouting ‘Bonjour’. Now while usually this would have been appreciated and I’d have liked a chat, I was rather startled and simply screamed ‘Jesus!’ at the top of my voice. It seems that he’s a neighbour and wanted to know if we had lost a tortoise. Of course we haven’t and if I hadn’t been so surprised then I might have been able to hold a decent conversation, introduced myself etc, but that wasn’t how it rolled. So now I just look like a crazy person who spends her days sorting out rocks into size order. At least I had some clothes on. And my tortoise isn’t missing.

I’ve done as much stone sorting as I can manage for a day without having a drink and I have a couple of jobs that require driving. So I’m off to get the recycling done and drop a letter in to the owners of the big gite up the road to see if we can reserve it for the wedding. Annoyingly I can’t get the printer to work so ended up having to handwrite it. As usual, once I’ve done this Matt let me know that the printer seems to have it’s own network that I needed to connect to – great to know once I’d written it.

I got to the house and saw a lady pottering about, looked like she was tidying up. Turns out that she is the owner so we had a quick chat and she invited me in to come and see it. All was good until I told her the date. It seems that they have an annual booking for the whole of July every year. She had the letter though with the dates and our contact details and would let me know – it’s the very end of the month so there’s an outside chance. Maybe the handwritten note wasn’t so bad, it feels a bit more personal. I would have dressed better though if I knew I was actually going to speak to someone as I was still in my gardening outfit.

Back at the house I’ve managed to get Matt’s login to AirBnB and I’ve started to email all the local options. The aim is to get a list that we can send out with the save the dates. After about an hour or two however I was over it. Clearly Matt is off having fun out on Clapham Common though.

Time for dinner and quick exchange with Lucy. Then onto fixing the sheet that randomly ripped when it was being hung out. At least it split along the seam though so an easy fix. I’m done. I need to watch TV, have a rest and update the blog before bed.

[7 August 2022]