A good weekend

Happily, the forecast cloud and rain for this weekend arrived during Saturday evening and had gone by Sunday morning. This worked out very well for us because by Saturday evening we were both extremely weary from a day of painting and shelf building. So much so, we tucked ourselves up in bed with a movie soon after 9pm.

Naturally we had managed a quick visit to the market in the morning, but with so much to be done we didn't hang around and certainly there was no thought of a casual Saturday lunchtime beverage. Instead we hurried home with our shopping and got on with the multitude of jobs still to be done before our Christmas guests arrive in three weeks time. It would be great if Debrah could stay for the week and help out because we certainly get on much quicker with two pairs of hands and it is just so good to be here together putting the finishing touches to things - we haven't spent enough time here, just the two of us and it was so much nicer to be sharing the joy and the pain - the joy of seeing the final elements coming together and the pain of aching limbs.

At least we now have an operational bathroom to soak the aching limbs and Debrah duly set up what seemed like a hundred candles and a litre of bath foam to create the correct ambiance - we have decided that we didn't quite get the lighting right in this, our own bathroom, but we will sort it out.

We set to work again this morning but I could tell that we were feeling the effects of what has been an arduous few weeks for us both in our different ways and a change of view would be invaluable before another busy week kicks in. So we stopped just after lunch and cleaned ourselves up and took advantage of the lovely Autumn sunshine. Normally we would have started up the trusty Audi and gone for a drive into the beautiful Aude countryside but for a change today we went for a walk around the town.

There was good reason for this. In the car park at the top of the hill there has been a good old fashioned fair in place for a couple of weeks so we set off in that direction to check it out. We were met by the usual sights and sounds of any fair the world over - inappropriate rock music blaring out above the usual collection of dodgy air rifle and floating duck stalls, dodgems, house of horrors, crepes and churros and 'le barbe du papa' (fathers beard - a sort of lollipop that you dunk into flavoured sherbet type stuff) and kid's carousels. Except that - hold on a minute - that carousel is being operated by four real live shetland ponies, each with a saddle on it's back and pulling little carriages round and round! Only in France could you still get away with that. It bought a very big smile to Debrah's face though and she even sat down for a minute or two on a dodgy plastic chair to watch the sad looking little ponies walk round in circles with equally sad looking little children on their backs or in the carriages behind them.

We rather easily resisted the temptation to waste any of our money on any of the stalls or rides and wandered down the Boulevard Barbes past the big wheel, which we decided to save for Christmas, towards the exhibition hall, the 'Salle du Dome'. We had read that there was a dog and cat show there this weekend - or to be more precise a puppy and kitten show - and there is nothing that Debrah likes more than a puppy or a kitten and the excitement was getting too much for her as we approached the doors.

Debrah has always wanted a dog. We had one unfortunate dog owning experience for three months about six years ago with a mad greyhound that liked eating chocolates and squirrels in equal measure - it's nose rooted out the chocolates at home and it's speed caught squirrels in the park - both proved to be too much for us to cope with at the time.

The time isn't right just now either with us both flying back and forwards between France and England, but it might be if the business get's going soon and I am based here more permanently. Anyway, those considerations didn't get in the way of a very happy hour stroking and petting and saying hello to puppy after puppy on stall after stall. The Weimeraners proved to be a winner, as did the french bulldogs and jack russels and the setter and the dachsund and the german shepherds and every single dog there as well as a few cute bewildered looking kittens. Debrah would have taken them all home, which would have been interesting, not to say expensive, but common sense prevailed for now. We'll see what happens in the coming year.

We walked back via the Place Carnot, where overnight all the wooden huts for the Christmas market have been set up and the ice rink is well under construction. Christmas officially starts here next Friday, the 7th (so just over two weeks before the big day) when the market is opened and the lights turned on, a far cry from the two month onslaught in London.

Debrah said "Thank you for making me go out - I had a lovely time", which is why we should be together more often.

To finish a fabulous day I cooked Debrah's favourite chocolate pudding for dessert.

I spoil that girl - a warm moment shared early on followed by breakfast in bed, ponies, puppies, kittens and a chocolate pudding - all in one day