French rugby clears restaurant

Not too much to report on the building front this week, the builders appeared to have a taking it easy week so there was not too much progress on room 2, though we, Franca and I, have put the first two coats of paint on the walls and ceiling of room 2. Allegedly the builders would like everything finished by Friday this week, well so would we, Franca is not that optimistic though, can’t think why…

We found a really nice restaurant in Rouillac on Saturday evening, it was a bar restaurant and the people that run it were really friendly, the food was great value for money the only problem was it was full of English people, it could have been a case of bad timing because France were playing New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup at the time we arrived. Strangely the restaurant emptied when France began their come back, and when we went to pay the bill we discovered everyone glued to the portable TV in the corner of the bar. I wonder what is going to happen now that England have to play France in the semi finals, will the entente cordial survive the experience?

The most important event of the weekend was Sunday lunch, where Janet and Martyn who rented us a gite whilst we were property hunting a couple of years ago near Saintes, came to see what we had finally bought after 2 years of searching. We were also able to test our cooking skills again and I am pleased to report that everything went according to plan this time, we served what we planned to serve with no major disasters, everyone liked the food, and it was a nice relaxing afternoon, the sun even came out so we could eat outside, great food, great wine and great company, who could ask for more.

Our big fridge tried to influence proceedings by deciding to break down again, I’m sure it knows when someone is coming to lunch or dinner, and just shuts down, but its had its chips now as a replacement has been delivered. Franca ordered it on Saturday and it arrived on Monday, amazing speed for a French business.

I managed to get a Working At Home day from my Boss for Monday of this week as Ryanair were not running their Monday morning flight, so I had to take the evening flight instead. I gave a lift to one of my fellow commuters to La Rochelle airport as she was going to the UK for 3 weeks and that is more than 100 Euros in parking charges, you can buy an aweful lot of wine for that sort of money, and it was nice to have some company in the car for a change, instead of Mike Oldfield, I really must remember to change the CD.

Our commuting club, the 10 or twelve of us who do the trip regularly from London to La Rochelle are in a bit of a quandary at the moment because the summer timetables are coming to an end, this means less flights to our area as the low cost airlines switch destinations for the winter to provide cheap flights to the snow. Poitiers flights are summer only and they have finished now, La Rochelle will be closing on Mondays from the end of October and all the flight times appear to be changing. The folks that fly Friday and go back on Sunday evening are fine for the moment, but those of us that fly back on Mondays are having to seek alternatives. Some are going to Nantes, which is a two and a half hour drive for me, so I am going to try British Airways from Bordeaux again, prices should be back down at a reasonable level from the end of October. October seems to be the month of rumours around La Rochelle airport, so far I have heard that in 2 years time La Rochelle airport may close because they can’t expand it, and the Angouleme rumour has surfaced again, with talk of both BA and Ryanair flying there from the spring, wonderful if it is true, I'm not going to get too exited, I’ll believe it when I see it.