Another Fine weekend…

Flying Easyjet from Gatwick this week put me in La Rochelle at lunchtime on Friday which meant getting home by about 3:00pm Frenchtime, making for a relaxed start to the weekend.

Franca’s mum is still with us and an extra pair of hands for the garden or just entertaining Fleur is always welcome. The weather has finally turned summery with temperatures reaching 38 degrees on Saturday and Sunday in our sun trap, though I have to say it was a bit fresh this morning, which was a welcome break from the heat, as long as it only lasts a little while. In true Charentaise style, Monday is the worst day of the week according to the weather forecast. It happens so often that a fine weekend is followed by a breakdown of the weather Sunday night or Monday morning, and then it builds up again towards the following weekend.

The sun flowers are just starting to reach their peak about now with fields of yellow dotted amongst the vineyards and the newly harvested corn fields. The show only lasts about 6 weeks before they turn from the icon of the countryside into the eyesore of the countryside, as the sunflowers are left to dry out before harvesting. It’s a busy time in the French agricultural business, and that can be seen by the fact that the farmers are working 7 days a week, and all the daylight hours they can.

We had a nice easy weekend with our guests, Porte Bon Heur was occupied by a lovely Belgian couple who have friends in Sigogne, and so they basically used our house as a place to sleep, we did not even have to provide breakfast. Franca’s mum had Tournesol, and for one night only we had the guest from hell, who stayed out all night until 6:00am, Franca had said he could check out at 12:00 instead of the usual 11:00 but still he was late, when he finally appeared, wanting breakfast, it was 1:00pm, No chance, so he had a coffee and went back to his room to shower and was then on his grumbling and moaning way. This guy did not book, he just turned up on spec, and rule number 1 of running a B&B is not to take walk ins, i.e. people that have not booked in advance, so we have learnt our lesson on that one. Having said that our only other walk in were a charming French couple, so there is always an exception to every rule.

Building work this weekend was obviously curtailed slightly due to having guests in the house though I did manage, with Franca and Franca’s mums help, get the old scullery completely cleared, and one third of the ceiling removed to allow me to start to install the new, stronger floor joists to form the floor of the first floor bathroom/ceiling of the ground floor bathroom. It is not difficult work though it is pretty heavy work, so I only managed to install 2 new joists, with the delays caused by waiting for guests to leave, and me figuring the best way to do things, this was the first time I have done anything like this. So next weekend, I will try to get the other six joists installed, but that does depend if Bogdan has cleared the rest of the upstairs prospective bathroom, because he is using the other two thirds of the floor area as a storeroom. My summer task is to get the bathrooms ready for fitting out towards the end of September.

Back at La Rochelle airport this Monday morning for the return Easyjet flight to London Gatwick before heading up to Stansted to catch a flight to Ireland, hopefully there will be no repeat of my last visit to Ireland from France.