Raise your glasses for POETS day!
Wednesday
Matt and I were working again so back to Tonia:
Bit of a late start today as once again Anya decided to go for a run after Meow and straight out the door again this morning. This time the chase lasted longer and Mum came to help. Anya had managed to get into the neighbours garden this time and while it looked like she was almost ready to come back, I couldn’t get through the hedge. I tried walking around but the wall was to high for me to be able to bend over far enough without also ending up head first in their garden. I am not sure that my French would have been able to make them understand what an upside-down English person was doing in their garden, so went back to shouting though the hedge, which I am sure they much preferred.
Having been chasing the dog and doing a serious amount of manual labour in the garden, I decided it was time for some nice, low impact jobs in the house. First off, as the kitchen has been a priority before we arrived so that mum had her “workspace” the larder cupboard needed a bit of love. Confident I was the person to provide such a thing, I had put my painting gear on, found the supplies and got cracking.
Staring with some sanding, obviously power tools were out, this was the kitchen and they didn’t want the old paint and dust everywhere, so once again it was Tonie for the manual labour. That done, I thought I had an easy task, a quick lick or 2 of pint and we should be good to go. Sadly, as with most things in the house, these do not go as planned, 20 minutes later, I’d had enough. It seems that the walls are so porous that that water-based paint just gets sucked straight into the blasted things and barely a touch of actual white from where you have painted over.
Having conceded that painting was not the way forwards, I decide that maybe the kitchen is not where my skills lie. There is a massive basement downstairs and if any of the things currently cluttering the dining room are going to be moved so we may have an office for me next week that is where I head. It seems that it was not just the dining room, but also the basement that seemed to be full. As I was soon to discover, a lot of this was actually the wrapping, packing and detritus from several earlier deliveries. A quick 2.5 hours later with the kids finishing their work for the day my magic was complete and it was time to return upstairs.
Looks like mum had fun at Lidl though finding some good, and very reasonable [expensive in French terms] Macon Village wine. Thankfully Tonia and I were on hand to help her on the ‘not so’-dry test run. Time to watch more House of Games and have the lovely dinner mum made – we’re going to miss her when she leaves, we’re not used to eating this well, or indeed this early but Matt is incredibly grateful.
[29 September 2021]
Thursday
Mum’s been pottering around all morning doing what mum’s do best. Yep, today’s job is to ‘give the bathroom a proper clean, not just waving a cloth near it and calling it clean’. I’m sure you’ve all heard the speech, if you don’t remember hearing it for a long time then you’re probably one saying it and your memory’s going a little 😉
Tonia – A slightly easier start to the day in that Anya didn’t escape first thing this morning. Having spent a good share of yesterday hiding in the cellar, I had cleared around a whole bunch of boxes of books which seemed to be home to several mice – judging on the droppings I had been cleaning up the day before. Having lugged the boxes of books into the sunshine and seeing a number of interesting books from the early 20th century (1921 seemed the be the earliest I found) and not a huge number to have been damaged too badly they were back into the basement again – stacked on the floor as there was no way those rickety shelves currently there were going to hold much of anything. [Chan – They’d probably been there for the last 50 years and while the wood is fine the construction left quite a bit to be desired. It’s definitely not the ‘Discordia way’ so I’m sure that Matt will over engineer them at some point.]
That said, it was probably a good plan to move all the alcohol off of said dodgy shelves and also have a snoop into what and how much wine was really hiding down there. Having cleared a lot more space yesterday I had a lovely spot for the shelf unit already purchased. Sadly, there seemed to be no discernible instructions, Matt advised me to look at the ones in the workshop and go with that… guess work here we go!
A couple of hours later, not only have I built the shelves that are spaced correctly for the wine, I have also transferred all the booze onto a much more solid structure which in my opinion was a great result and also meant I had a good knowledge of what they may be trying to hide from me. There was no way now they could claim to have run out of wine in the next couple of weeks.
A quick trip after lunch to the beloved Bricomarche with Matt.
Chan – Manage to get a short break in the afternoon so mum and I had a walk up to the post office to finally get my passport sent back. It was a bit like a comedy however. First off the envelope was too small to attach the delivery notice to, then they couldn’t sell me one the right size for no obvious reason, then they couldn’t work out what needed to be filled in so another lady came to help. This was progress, at least she went and found me an envelope from the desk. After a lot of toing and froing we eventually got there, I am rather worried that they haven’t actually attached the right bits, they didn’t seem overly certain, it’s not important though, after all it’s only my passport!
Tonia – Once back Anya needed to go out again and I found this rather bright little fella.
Finally, there were more wine racks to be build back downstairs, so into the darkness I descend once more. It seems that these were not going to be successfully built today as they need secure fastening to the concrete wall which was definitely well above my pay grade in this endeavour. I popped them out the packets, shuffled the pieces a little and just made the shape where I thought they would need to be secured and conceded I was done for the day.
With an early finish at 4pm there was time for a quick beverage to celebrate. After another beautiful dinner from mum, it was time for some more House of Games on TV – a great game to be played with multiple people, as I have found since returning home, Anya is not quite so fun to play with on her own. Chan and Matt are huddled under their new blanket from Joelle.
[30 September 2021]
Friday
The that Mum has been waiting for has finally arrived, Chan and Matt are committed to POETS day (Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday) and so we have our first trip out as a group. We are off to Spain!
Just across the border we had a stop to look at garden ornaments, some beautiful scenery and me recounting parts of the book I had found myself recounting about the Jews trying to get over the same border we had just crossed – for anyone the book is called “Fake Papers” and the area we were in was featured heavily – we arrived in Vielha.
Naturally with it being 2:30pm there was little open except a few bars, the sun is shining on us so we decide to do what us Brits do best and sit down in the lovely sunshine (in October no less) and have a beer or two.
A quick trip around the shops once they have opened and the only person to have made a purchase was me – it seems Lee had advised Chan on their trip just weeks before of the much cheaper cigarettes – so the full extent of purchases of this was 300 cigarettes. Having seen a lot of people with dogs everywhere we went I was very sad to have left Anya on her own back at the house, but she seemed to be pretty content sleeping on my bed.
Next stop was to the Supermercado. It seemed that 1 trolley was not going to be enough for the 4 of us and the random things that mum wants to buy which extended beyond the typical booze purchase to include table runner/cloth things that she swears are a ton cheaper in Spain.
The shopping done, it was time for some dinner and Tapas is on the cards. Sadly, when we get to Chan and Matt’s favoured and often eaten at restaurant it appears to be closed due to some family event. A quick wander around and we select the one which whilst closest to the road has other people sat outside and we are hoping will be serving food already as at just 6pm it is far too early for the Spanish to be considering food.
Eventually however, after another cheeky beer the kitchen was open and it was time for tapas. It was pretty good to be honest, but nothing quite compared to the creme catalan to finish…
Once we get back, Anya is naturally delighted that “mummy” is home and ready for a walk around the gardens. Once we settle into the living room, she us pretty sure she can smell meow next door and constantly sniffing the door. Once she realises that we are not going to open it she wants to share Chan and Matt’s blanket, before finally conceding that I am the only one who truly loves her and having a sleep with her head resting on my knee. As she hasn’t made it into many pictures, here are a few gratuitous shots of my angel
[1 October 2021]
