Good news week..

I am back at Bordeaux airport again after a good weekend. I arrived in Sigogne on Friday evening nice and early thanks to a following wind which put us in Bordeaux 20 minutes early. That meant I was able to get out of Bordeaux just in front of the rush hour, which takes 20 minutes off the journey, or at least 20 minutes off the time it takes to get out of Bordeaux.

There was more good news to greet my arrival in Sigogne, Bogdan the builder has finished Room 3, as far as his work goes, which means it was finished on time, and within budget!! So now it is over to the family Porter to begin the process of finishing the room. So on Saturday morning all three of us, yes all three, set to work on rubbing down and then painting and by the end of Saturday we had the base coat on the walls and ceiling, and it was looking pretty good. Hopefully Franca can put some of the second coat on the walls during the week which will leave me with the skirting boards to buy & fit, the ceiling to paint and a few other little jobs such as fitting a heated towel rail, then we can move the furniture in and the room will be ready for guests. Bogdan suggests we get on and varnish the floor before the first guests arrive, but the wooden floor smells and looks so new I would rather leave it for a few months before doing anything to it. I am not keen on varnish anyway so I am going to see if there is anything else hard wearing we can use.

Even more good news in Sigogne was that the heating was finally fixed, and it is now so efficient we have to have the setting down almost as low as it can go. The house feels so cosy now that the heating is working properly, it makes such a difference to the feel of the house.

Yet more good news is that we have a booking for a week in February, from a house hunting couple via our estate agent Matthew, so the challenge is get room 3, we are going to call it Tournesol, ready for these guests on the 8^th of February. If it is not ready then we may well test drive it, and the guests will get the tried and tested Porte Bonheur. I am pleased that business is starting to come, and from real guests, not just friends.

And finally... even more good news, on Sunday the skies cleared nice and early, and from 12:00 we could sit outside and enjoy some quite strong January sunshine. In the afternoon in our favoured spot in the garden the temp reached 24 degrees, and Fleur was running around in her bathing suit, not bad for the middle of January. I set a bonfire going because we had lots of stuff that needed burning, despite taking lots of stuff to the tip. Unfortunately they do not do skips in France and there is a limit on the amount of rubbish you can take to the tip, so what cannot be burnt for heating has to go on the bonfire.