Press Release

Live Blogging

On Saturday Jan and Simonne with their 3 dogs (1 mum and 2 puppies...6 months old now....., can you 'spot' the difference) came around to have a drink and a bite to eat. Jan and Simonne are from Belgium and Franca knows them from 'blogging' http://blog.seniorennet.be/Bas_en_belle/ for more than 2 years now. It's not the first time we've met each other and hopefully not the last time either. The weather was more than gorgious as was the rosé, the Chablis was fresh light, and the white asparagus (here they actually call them violet), was going down a treat; so we couldn't ask for anything more. It has once again been a very very good night out....literally, in the garden, the dogs were on their best behaviour, and the humans weren't bad either.

Thanks for the pressies Jan & Simonne and a great evening...

Fleur wins Bronze...

Now which country will she represent in the 2016 Olympics, well maybe I am being a bit over ambitious, but it was school sports day yesterday and out of the blue our six and a half year old daughter won a bronze medal following a quintathalon , well she did well enough in 5 different events to come overall third, making mum and dad very proud, especially as it was unexpected. Fleur is always running around and dancing and jumping, so she is certainly fit enough, so all that exercise paid off for her WELL DONE!! from a proud mum & dad.

It was a tough day as the emergency services were required not once but twice to attend to injuries, luckily the injuries were not very serious. So you see there was none of this politically correct, everyone must get something, it's the taking part not the winning that seems to abound in the UK, this was a competition with winners. From the podium you will see that it was girls 2 boys 1! The medals were presented by a representative of the Mayor of Sigogne.

how not to get to you flight on time

Our last trip to Limerick on business typifies what often happens to us, not on every trip but quite a few.

The 3 of us leave the office in time to get the correct train from London Liverpool St to Stansted.

We arrive at Liverpool St, 2 of us have got our train tickets Doug hasn't, and he has not got his reference number to collect his pre booked ticket, so he buys another one, and we get on the train to Stansted, to arrive in time to get the flight... Just.

We walk into the airport and Doug says have you guys checked in yet, yes we say, waving our boarding passes at him, oh bugger he says I haven't. Then Doug asks us if we have luggage to check in, of course we haven't, showing him our carefully measured and weighed cabin baggage. We looked over at the very long queue for the bag drop and laughed, you'll never get your bag dropped off and your self through Stansted security in time to catch the plane.

Doug was busy firing up his laptop to get his booking reference number off it, but he has so many things loading on the desk top it took a full 5 mins before it started up. At which point we left him trying to sort himself out, whilst we raced off to catch the flight. For once we chose the right queue in security and got through in time for a quick wizz round duty free, we are just walking out of duty free when we spot Doug walking towards the gate. Our flabber was well and truly ghasted. How did you manage to do that we asked in amazement, Doug said he put on his lost little boy look when a female check in person asked him if he needed help?. We think he parted with hard cash to get through!

So we are standing in the priority queue waiting to board and Doug suddenly disappears, the flight is called and Doug is still missing, just as we get on the plane he reappears at the back of the priority queue, saying, I just went for a quick drink at the bar... WHAT?

So began another team trip to Limerick with my esteemed colleagues, and a great bunch they are too most of the time....

Cognac region suffers a devastating blow

In the Charente a Little before 6 p.m.on the 11th of May , the area was literally struck by hail storms with hail stones the size of 'large pigeon eggs', testifies Christophe Veral, a local wine grower.

In the area around Rouillac, clusters of almost 50 centimetres of ice were formed. The local function rooms and many houses were flooded. But more importantly damage was noted everywhere around, in the vineyards. The hail ruined any hope of harvest for 2009 and probably 2010. The bad weather also touched the areas of Rouillac, Merignac, Fleurac and Jarnac. The soil of the wine growing areas of Barbezieux has also seriously damaged.

This was a report in the local paper following storms last night all around Sigogne however it appears vines around Au Bellefleur appear to have been spared major damage, however for the local wine growers and the associated Cognac/Pineau industry it is a serious blow.

A bit of a strange (but profitable) weekend...

Starting on Thursday when we, or should I say Franca, had a football team staying, so that meant that Fleur and Franca had to camp in our living room as we rented out all our rooms for the first time. I made it home on Friday afternoon and headed home after picking up 2 doors from the DIY store which almost fitted into the boot, so I drove home with the doors sticking out of the boot. Not really what you would associate with driving a Jaguar, but it handled it well.

On Friday and Saturday we had a lovely lady from Hawaii staying for 2 nights, whilst she was going house hunting with our favourite estate agent... Saturday night we had 2 Parisiens stopping over on their way to their holiday in St Jean de Luz, very nice, but they started their holiday with us and finally left around 12:30 so no time for me to do any work on Sunday. I managed to install the two doors I brought but no further work was possible.

Fleur does not like it when I leave on a Sunday so she will be pleased that I have booked a Monday flight back next weekend, Franca likes it too when I stay longer and so do I, its my boss in the UK who is not so keen :-)

Mission accomplished

Its ready just in time, we have a working downstairs toilet, pity it is in the middle of a building site, but I guess beggars can't be choosers as they say...

The bathroom so far

Well here is two days work, if I get the photos right No1 shows day one, it does not show too much as most of the day was spent plumbing but you can see the new ceiling rails, I still have to put the isulation in before I fit the plasterboard to the rails (the rails are the metal bits going in the opposite direction to the wooden joists).





The second shot should show the large sections of plaster board ceiling up, in France green means waterproof, I still have the little bits to do and you should also be able to see the frame of the toilet dividing wall taking shape..





and finally our builder has made a new entrance to the bathroom, it still needs finishing off, but you can just see he has started pointing the wall on the right hand side, you get a good impression of the before & after in this shot.





If all goes well I'll be able to post a picture of a new toilet ready for use, such an exicting life I lead...