Another Monday morning and I’m back at Bordeaux Airport waiting for the flight back to London. This is my last time via Bordeaux for a while as BA’s prices seem to rocket in the summer months, luckily Ryanair’s summer timetable kicks in this week and they have a Monday morning flight from La Rochelle, so it looks like I shall be joining the merry band of Stansted to La Rochelle commuters for the summer.
Well we had an interesting weekend, as we normally do, Joy and her son Hugo, who were neighbours of ours in London, came over for the weekend to check us out, and great fun it was too. Friday night Joy’s chauffeur and his friend along with Joy and Hugo all stayed for what we call our Friday night dinner, which generally consists of something easy to make and can be started and restarted depending who is hungry when, or when I (and other weekend guests) finally arrive. It’s a time for sitting round the table with a beer or a glass of wine and catching up on news from the past week and planning for the weekend ahead.
Planning for the weekend normally means what work I am going to do for the builder, and if we are going to fit in any visits to markets or other events in the area. This market visiting is, we are discovering, essential, as it is an integral part of the rural French network, at least in our area and is one of the main ways people meet. There is a fête, bricolage, or some other event almost every weekend, and, in the case of this weekend, it was a ‘fête nocturne’ in one of the neighbouring villages. For us, up to now, going to these events normally consists of arriving, coming across Peter our friendly builder, and then spending the rest of the event in a convenient alcoholic establishment. So, much as I enjoy Peter’s company, it was nice to find out that he was not coming until later and we could have a good look around the fête itself.
This weekend was the first very hot weekend of the year, the whole day had been over 30 degrees and strangely enough I was not feeling much like a beer or a glass of wine, but I certainly was not complaining about the weather, but I must say my cold iced tea tasted great! I was wondering why the village elders had decided to make this an evening event, but with 30 degrees plus during the day it suddenly makes perfect sense. This fête had all the usual things for the children including fairground merry-go-round, Fleur’s favourite game, catch the ducks, and a few others. There were a number of stalls we had seen before (you tend to meet same stall holders as well as the same customers at each fête) but there were a few we had not seen before which makes it a bit more interesting. We managed to pick up some decent Champagne for just over 13€, and some yummy pastries to eat some time later. They also had a restaurant tent, along with a handily placed stall selling red and white wine by the bottle for about 3€, the food was basic but nice, the point being, in this case, not gourmet style food, but being together as a community. Fleur and Hugo got to play on the merry-go-round and I think that Fleur has now got most of the prizes on offer at the catch the ducks game! Just after 9:00pm Fleur and Hugo were getting tired so it was time to head home to put them to bed, just as we were driving out of the village we got a call from Peter and Diane to say they had arrived, oh well we will just have to make up for lost drinking next time…. I’m sure it won’t be that long.
So a brief word about construction work this weekend, it was basically to finish off the ceiling in the master bedroom, which I must say, now it has had its undercoat looks pretty good, so well done Peter & Jean-Luc it is really good. Hopefully they were impressed with my finishing off, which consisted of rubbing down the jointing of the plaster board, filling any little holes and putting on the base coat of emulsion, this will then show up what needs to be filled next weekend before the top coat is applied. Peter thinks I should finish it with a paint that has some fine grit in it, to cover up the imperfections of the plasterbaord jointing, but I think, with a bit more work, we can use a standard matt or satin emulsion after the final filling and finishing of the joints in the plasterboard, I’ll reserve judgement until I check it again next weekend.
Sunday was more overcast than Saturday but it still reached 30 degrees so who’s complaining, not me. We decided to take Joy & Hugo to Jarnac to test the boat trip that runs from under the main bridge in the centre of town, which turned out to be a 1 hour gentle chug down to Bourg en Charente and back, with a live commentary from the captain of the boat, in French only, but that was a good test of my French. The trip was nice and relaxing but sadly as we were heading back to the car Fleur made one of here many bids for freedom and as Franca grabbed her to stop her running across a road Franca fell over and hurt her knee quiet badly, so she is going to test drive the local doctor later today, its nothing serious but its best to get it checked out, we can’t afford for her to be laid up with complications as a result of something so silly. In a way its good that we are not going to the doctor for the first time when Fleur has something wrong with her, at least we can find out now what the doctor is like and if we want to go somewhere else or not.
Well the flight has been called so it’s au revoir Bordeaux until after the summer, and hello to the Ryanair cattle trucks, it must be the modern equivalent of the charabang (sorry about the spelling), that’s the price we pay (or don’t) for living in France and working in London.
A little post script to the knee incident, the doctor thought Franca may have fractured her knee so it was off to the hospital in Cognac for more a extensive check up and X-rays, luckily it was not broken, but there was rather a lot of water on the knee which was making it uncomfortable for Franca. Luckily Joy was still around so she was able to drive Franca to the hospital and back again. The doctor also insisted on a tetanus injection, so she has to go back again today, plenty of rest for a few days and things should be on the mend, luckily Franca's mother arrives in a day or so which will be a big help. The good news is the doctor is great and the hospital was equally good, but lets hope we do not need them for quite a while though. I have not got our medical cover in place yet so we had to pay for everything despite having our E101 cards, so now I have to get on to the British Dept of Work and Pensions to get a E106 form to cover us whilst we are sorting out our proper cover in France. The joys of working in the UK and living in France.
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