Busy Head

I arrived back in France today to an empty and cold apartment - all the heat we had generated over Christmas and New Year has dissipated during the last few days whilst the apartment was empty.

It's difficult at this time of year to keep the place warm - the rooms are so large that they take a lot of heating and our electric radiators not only struggle to do the job but cost a fortune to run - then each time we go away from the place and return we have to start again.

At the end of last week, we took the Renault back to the UK by way of Anna and Aib near Bordeaux and a late night channel tunnel crossing the next day. The French countryside looked very beautiful with it's dusting of snow glinting in the sunlight of a clear day. Thankfully, it was a very dry sort of cold because even though the temperature gauge in the car hit -11C at one point on our trip, there was no ice and the roads were mercifully clear.

It's always a long drive, even with two sharing, and we didn't get back home to bed in London until 3am on Saturday morning, but despite my tiredness from the drive and the late hour of our arrival, I couldn't sleep and was awake and up again just a few hours later.

This is our first 'off-season' for the business and, although we had some Christmas and New Year activity and have one or two bookings for January and February, the downturn in activity since the end of October has been difficult - especially as it has coincided with the 'credit crunch' and the collapse of the pound against the euro. We are now getting a regular number of enquiries for this year and I'm certain we will see our way through the short term issues - I just wish that when I close my eyes I could stop the million thoughts that start up each time. It's very busy in my head at the moment.

I am back in France because we have some guests here on Wednesday so I have the usual round of shopping and cleaning and prepping to do. Debrah has stayed in London because she has to put in a couple of weeks work at the agency to earn some pennies. So, once again we are sadly living our separate lives - not good and something else for my brain to worry about.