Wednesday

Afternoon outing over the border to Bossost for a spot of lunch with the lovely Jonny and Cressida.

I have a co-worker today, a little yellow ladybug 🙂 After work there’s more happening in the garden/greeen house as we try to get everything growing and ready to look good for the wedding, with Meow being typically helpful as always. Still plenty more to plant and grow.

Next off to help Matt with the flooring in the bathroom. Seems we need a protective cover layer before we put the vinyl down but we’re cracking on. Well largely Matt is but I was there to lend a hand and plenty of helpful advice but it’s quite a small space to both be scrambling around in so most of it was from the doorway.

[29 March 2023]

Thursday

It’s mum’s last day and the whole thing has been a bit short and sweet, not that there is anything wrong with that. Matt and I do have to work, both for our jobs and to get the house done. There’s always a whole lot more we wish we could have done and time we could have spent with mum but sitting around while we work also isn’t much fun. I guess the weather helped though.

Anyway, we decided that there was time for one last trip; the trip that personifies a vacation here – we’re off to the Brico before she leaves. We couldn’t get the placo from Bricomarché so mum got the joy of Mr Bricolage too – pretty exciting!

Back home for mum to finish packing and Matt to work on the bathtub. We’re so close now. Before he puts it in however he needs to do the sealant which I helped tidy up. I now need to take mum to the train station though while Matt finishes up here.

When we got to the station we only had 7 minutes due to the slowest driver possible (20kmh under the limit – mum wouldn’t let me overtake due to the short passing lanes) and then a truck. At the station the machine wasn’t working and we had many people in front of us (the crazy lady was meant to be the help staff). Eventually, somewhat perturbed, mum got on the train with a message I sent her to show to the guard to buy a ticket – buying a ticket on the train here isn’t unusual, ticket offices often don’t have a lot or any staff and machines don’t always work. It’s not the case in the UK though and understandably uncomfortable.

Next stop for me was Lidl. I managed to find a nice rose arch, perfect – I need another one for the wedding. A few more seeds, another couple of good pots and I’m off – to collect some wine on the way home.

Back at home and we have dinner left over from last night. The cat is a bit mental and very much enjoying Matt’s rather stinky boots.

Matt is then testing out the new bath. Sadly he forgot to mention the idea of buying bubble bath when I was at the shops. So I’ve let him have the first bath, tomorrow it will be 10x hotter and bubbles to the sky for my bath. We do however now, finally have a use for the penguin bath bomb we fought over years ago in the card game when we didn’t own a bath – but now we do!

Time for a bit of more work then planting, TV, and blog. But now for bed.

[30 March 2023]

Friday

I got as much work as possible done this morning before Matt and I had to head up to the laboratory to check when they could do his bloods and PCR test, Monday morning, before then heading over to the hospital to meet the anaesthetist.

It was all pretty straightforward and Matt passed his ECG with flying colours. Since we were already up there we decided to try to drop in to Isosol to see if our tiles were in yet as they were due two weeks ago. Unfortunately they were closed for a stocktake apparently.

A quick drop in to Action and Noz before heading to Super U on the way home. Just as we came out I got a call as I was late joining a meeting. So I jumped on the call from the car while Matt picked up some food from McDonalds for lunch. It’s the last day before he has to start his very boring pre-op diet so he’s making the most of it.

Meeting done and time to head home. After a bit more work it was time to have a few drinks as Matt also can’t drink from tomorrow either. So we stayed up late, had a nice bath and just chatted. It was very nice but also got much later than planned before we went to bed as we were watching TV with the cat.

[31 March 2023]

Saturday

Having a very lazy day today. The weather is rubbish and neither Matt or I feel up to doing very much today. We did however manage to take a run up to Isosol to go and get a quote for some tiles but no decisions quite yet. I have also completed the Declaration Travaux to go up to the Marie on Monday so that we can get André to approve the external works on the house before they start later this month.

Matt went to bed early while I stayed up checking what plants need to go into pots soon and then got on with the updates to the blog before going to bed.

[1 April 2023]

Sunday

You can only have one day off a week. Time for us to get on with it. Obviously that means Matt starting before I do and he’s already managed to get the lighting working in Room 7, which with the poor weather is rather helpful as it is pretty dark up there currently.

After a bit of a lie in I was up cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes. Then started to think about doing some of the potting up. I was soon called away however to start getting things ready for Team Steve. Room 3 is a mess and needs to be cleared ready for the last wall to be taped and joined and for the ceiling to be painted. At least the weather is starting to clear up.

Back to the potting up and trying to get a few more plants in. I’m still struggling to get my bouquet and key flowers sorted so I’m keen that the white lilies go in asap so hopefully flower at the right time. I already have a few, I put some in a few weeks ago and have put another 12 in today so fingers crossed. I’m also generally planting a whole load of flowers to fill the beds and pots that will be moved into the pottager after the last frosts for cut flowers but who knows if or when they will bloom. Gardening is not an exact science and I’m already a bit late on some.

Matt has been finishing up some of the plasterwork inside, sanding, plastering all the stuff. I did open the door but there was so much dust I left quickly as I didn’t have a mask. I did however hold the umbrella when he was done though while he did the washing up, I’m quite the gent.

Matt is done for the day but I still need to get the plants moved inside to the new nursery. Ok, it’s actually the master bedroom but they are very important and we need these for the wedding to look great so I can sacrifice sleeping in the good bedroom to not have the shutters going up at dawn.

Matt has leftovers from last nights uninspiring dinner while I have leftovers from Eds, I know which we’d both rather have. Matt then went to shower so I put another tray of sunflowers in. Then a quick TV relax tome before Matt reads the blog and then goes to bed.

Time for me to get more blog done and head to bed myself.

[2 April 2023]

Monday

Worked. Must have gone down towards Luchon for something in the morning too.

[3 April 2023]

Tuesday

Next work happening is in Room 7. I however need to go to the Mairie. Or apparently not, the times on Google are not the same as the actual Mairie. It does make me think however that if I was French this would be a pretty good place to work.

After work it’s time for more planting. Hopefully we’ll have a million plants and it will rival the hanging gardens of babylon by the time the wedding rocks around. In the meantime I shall continue to push on and plant as much as possible, even if that does mean making a few adjustments to some trays that I should probably have treated a little better and not left in the sun. But I am determined and they shall be reused where possible.

[4 April 2023]

Wednesday

Off to the hospital this morning. Whoever said that hospital pants weren’t sexy was probably right, but at least you get pants to go with your open backed dress! There was a reasonable amount of waiting but it wasn’t too terrible, I’ve seen worse. Fa, la, la, la, la.. not much I can do while Matt goes in but he seems to have nailed his DoB for the checks against his tags and they’re just going to have to work it out as I can’t go in with him. So I just look at the mountains and make the most of it.

All was good and the longest part of it was waiting until we could be discharged. I did have to ask a number of times, and yes I probably am impatient, but in the UK you’d be pushed out as soon as possible and we had an inherent feeling of wasting time and space. It’s not surgery though so it’s back to sanding for our soldier while I do some work and crack on fixing the mess in the garden.

That’s more than enough for one day so time to relax with a beer and have an early night.

[5 April 2023]

Thursday

Since we had a lot of personal things to do yesterday today is focused on work. We just found time to collect a package for the Ellis’ and I planted a few herbs.

[6 April 2023]

Friday

The lilac is in amazing bloom right now and smells incredible. I’m not sure how well or if they will last inside but there’s so much of it that it’s worth a go. The box hedges also probably need a bit of a trim when I have some time, it’s looking rather scraggly.

There’s a huge big pile of rubbish outside the backdoor, nothing surprising in that, but it is time it was moved. Despite loading up the beast with as much as she can possibly take, which is quite a significant amount, it’s still not quite cleared. It is looking a lot better though.

Later in the afternoon Matt’s main focus is on getting the pipes and wires buried. Obviously I have to help for most of it but when I can get away I take breaks to work on preparing my lovely new planters. Not sure if Meow was helping or not but she definitely wanted to investigate the huge new litter tray. Matt’s also helped me to move a wandering wisteria to see if we can encourage it to climb up the large arch we made.

With the sun about to set it was time to put a bit of grass seed down and get everything watered, including Matt.

[7 April 2023]

Saturday

Job 1 – tidy up the cloud tree.

Jobs 2 & 3 – more preparation for the laying of the base for the summer kitchen and work on the planters

Job 4 – off to St Go or Estancarbon. Not sure what we were doing or going for but since the pics were nice and it seemed very pretty I included them anyway.

[8 April 2023]

Sunday

Need to start reasonably early as we’re going out later. The main job is to start laying the structure that will hold the cement so that we can pour the base for the summer kitchen. Getting this done in plenty of time is vital as it’s a key part of the wedding weekend and we are going to really struggle without it. Thankfully we’re in Matt’s safe hands and he seems to have a good grip on what needs doing so I just follow his lead (as is so often the case).

Thankfully enough is enough and we’re heading over to JC’s for the afternoon in the company of R&R and their friend Nicky. It’s good to have friends, if nothing else just to get out of work occasionally.

[9 April 2023]