Busy

This weekend was the start of an extremely busy two or three weeks - which is obviously good but also means I will need to be very organised to deal with the number of same day changeovers that are coming up - or I will need a bit of help.

Chris and I had a bit of help from Gary on Saturday afternoon. We had tried to organise the self-drive rental of the Tridome van during the week but Saturday afternoon was the only time available, unfortunately clashing with Debrah's arrival from London. We needed a goodly amount of plasterboard and a shower base and a toilet and numerous other things for Denis' renovation project.

Gary turned up here just in time to help us move it all up the two flights of stairs and very grateful we were for the assistance. It's been a couple of months since I had to put my back into a bit of manual labour of that sort and I am still feeling the effects a bit.

I took the van back as quickly as possible to cut down on the rental time and hopefully keep the cost to a minimum. I think I succeeded as the total rental cost was a massive €3.90, which was actually less than the cost of the 2kg of strawberries that I bought in the market that morning (€4) - another ridiculously fabulous bargain. I think it had something to do with the just under €500 worth of materials we bought at the same time - which didn't include the toilet we needed because it was out of stock and on order only. Funny then, that when Debrah and I went in to place the order today, we were told that it was in stock - arrived this morning! - sometimes things do fall into place when you need them to.

Saturday morning was a bit of a rush ahead of the materials purchase with one breakfast to sort out and two airport pick-ups and the market shopping to do for the rooms, for us and for the guests dinner on Sunday night. Poor Debrah was left to fend for herself as I rushed off to Tridome - no lazy lunch in the square, no love and attention lavished on her. So she put some soothing classical music on the ipod and pulled the chair up to the sunshine by the window and spent a happy few hours with the newspapers she had bought with her, curled up on the chair like a contented pussycat while the men sweated their way to getting 21 sheets of board up the stairs.

It helped enormously that the weather was just fabulous - well, it helped Debrah, who had just seen rain all week in London. It was far too good to let the chance slip by - so having sorted our guests and despatched them off for a hot march around the Cite for the day - we went off for a Sunday drive out into the countryside and a bit of exploring places anew. We found ourselves in St Chinian just before midday and caught the end of the morning market before finding a shady courtyard full of families and bikers and a simple brasserie lunch - superb it was too.

We emerged to find that the temperature had gone up a good 10 degrees in direct sunlight. Nonetheless we headed home over the mountains, with the roof down, being beaten by the sun and the breeze, being amazed by the beauty of the poppies and violets and primulas covering the meadows and the roadside verges and stunned by the ever changing scenery. What a great drive and a great day out. We even got back in time for me to calmly sort the prep for dinner and for Debrah to have a little after-sun lie down.

Then we had one of our get all the guests around the same table and have dinner with them convivial evenings that seem to be going down so well with our visitors. Keith entertained us with stories of things he had 'found' on site during his career as an electrical contractor and his many house and business deals and the day that 'they opened the case and it had a sawn-off shotgun in it'!. He and his lovely wife have a house in Southern Spain - enough said really - but a great evening and very very entertaining - they can come back anytime.

More of the same over the next few weeks please.