Another glorious weekend weather wise, thats 2 in a row, were getting spoilt, and another very wet drive to the airport this morning. It seems to be the current cycle that the first couple of days of each week are wet then the weather improves towards the weekend, and then breaks down on Sunday night or Monday morning.
This weekend we had more visitors, friends Jos and Marian, with Bart and Marco from The Netherlands, they were stopping off on their way to a holiday in the Pyrenees. They arrived on Friday evening about an hour before me, due to the fact that my flight was delayed for 2 hours, because I was supposed to be there before them.
Jean-Luc has installed a new door for room 1 which means we could be sort of be open for business but only on an adhoc basis because of the amount of building work still going on. We might be able to take a bit of overflow from our friendly neighbour who is already operating a B&B, but it is encouraging that we could now offer accommodation to someone if they asked.
Back to the weekend though, I had not planned too much work for this weekend, because its not very friendly with visitors staying to then spend the whole weekend working, but in the end it worked out very well because Jos helped me out by finishing off all the painting in the toilet and the bathroom whilst I did all sorts of little jobs in the bedroom, so in the end we got a lot done and the only major thing left to finish now is the windows, I have 20 pieces of glass to replace, which I shall bring from England because I have not seen a glass merchant in the area yet, I don’t even know what the French equivalent of a glass merchant is…
Fleur had a great time playing with Bart and Marco as they are all around the same age, Bart and Marco just enjoyed the space to run around in, and the adults were able to sit around and relax, chat and enjoy the weather, the food and the wine. It was a good test for us as well as it was the first time that we have had 2 guest rooms occupied, so we could make sure that we had enough of everything to cope, the only thing we were a bit short of was bathrooms, but that is going to take a while to sort out. Also we are starting to get used to having people walking around the house, this does take a bit of getting used to. We are tuned in to listen for Fleur’s footsteps at night when she needs to go to the toilet or get a drink, or just needs comforting, but of course with another family of 4 in the house there were a lot more footsteps during the night.
But, it was a pleasure to have them, and gives us an idea of the good side of running a B&B as everything went smoothly, as indeed it should for most of the time. Not everything went entirely smoothly, Fleur wanted a fire on Saturday night so Jos and I were busy chopping wood when my thumb collided rather dramatically with a hammer, and although my thumb is only bruised my body decided to go into a little bit of shock for half an hour or so, so I had to go and lay down for an hour before I felt normal again, but apart from a rather painful bruise no harm done and we still had our fire in the brazier (Austin, I finally remembered what it is called).
Sunday after Jos, Marion and family headed for the hills so to speak, I had a go at sculpting a small feature to tidy up the old doorway to room 1, which after 3 hours work did not look too bad, for a first attempt. Then Fleur pleaded to go to Hotel Karina, and to be honest she did not have to plead too much, so after phoning to check they were serving food to non guests we headed over to Nikki and Austin for what turned out to be a nice roast dinner.
So here I am back at the airport in the pouring rain and I am waiting for the Easyjet flight back to London Gatwick. Last week being the first day of the service there were only 30 passengers on the flight, however I can see that this week there are quite a few more, so there will be a bigger scramble for seats this week. Easyjet have not had a good track record so far, 2 flights and 2 delays, however since the weather is the main cause I shall persevere with them and see how it goes.
On Friday I shall be bringing the little Mazda down to Sigogne, so I shall be flying though the channel tunnel for a change, I hope the little car will make the trip without too much incident. If all goes well I’ll be arriving sometime between 9:00 and 10:00pm on Friday night, having left the office at 11:00 am, have no fear you will hear all about it in next weeks episode.
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