Non Anniversary

My weekend wasn't really a weekend - they were work days and very busy ones too.

Two sets of guests left on Saturday (one airport drop-off and one at the train station). So two rooms to clean out and market shopping ahead of dinner in the evening for the remaining guests.

They left on Sunday (another airport run) and three sets of new guests all arrived - so all the rooms had to be prepped and ready for them. One airport pick-up, one arrival via the train station and my first ever Italian visitors arrived on a big BMW touring bike after a very hot 5 hour ride across Southern France dressed in leathers - sweaty. Canapes and drinks in the evening completed my working day.

Yesterday was in fact my wedding anniversary and a poignant reminder of how difficult this year has been for Debrah and me, living in different countries for most of the time, getting on with our jobs, trying to earn as much as we can, making the best of things, but finding it very lonely a lot of the time.

Denis insisted on us going out for supper again, but said that he was a poor wife stand-in and couldn't manage the heels! He is a lovely man and if I couldn't have supper with Debrah then I couldn't have wished for a better companion for the evening.

We followed my guests, at a discrete distance, to Brasserie Saint Germain, the only brasserie in town that appeared to be open on a Sunday evening in the middle of August, the day after a public holiday.

As you would expect it was doing a roaring trade - so much so that we had to sit inside because the outside terrace was packed. Not so bad a decision actually - my guests were all outside and the air-con was on inside.

We enjoyed a steak and chips each and a good bottle of red wine between us and chewed the fat and put the world to rights. Very pleasant it all was too but an anniversary dinner it was not.