Emotional

Another dinner over, guests have departed back to their rooms in a jolly mood, washing up done apart from a few glasses and everything ready to go for breakfasts in the morning. It all sounds as seamless and sorted as every other dinner but actually it was all a bit problematic today.

It started badly because I forgot to set my alarm last night (first time ever) and woke up at 8.30 when I was supposed to be delivering the first breakfast of the day. It was a bit of a rush but they had it by 8.50 and the other went in at 9.00 as it should have done - I'm not happy with myself, but the guests were happily telling me this evening that breakfast was wonderful so clearly they were OK with it - what a relief.

The problem was caused by Debrah and me having a couple of drinks and working our way through some old songs from a recently opened box of CD's - Blondie, Abba, Madonna, Santana, The Doors - all classics of their day and not heard in these parts for a good while.

After the breakfast rush, I decided to try out my new iron and Debrah retreated back to bed with her book. Sad isn't it, when I'm trying out new household appliances on a Sunday morning - it's a new steam iron - one of those ones attached to a large water reservoir - and I'm hoping it will do the business on the sheets and pillowcases. My life now revolves around this level of domesticity.

So I was 'merrily' ironing and watching a bit of Olympic action on my computer when Debrah emerged from the bedroom in an absolute flood of tears - real proper big crying. It appears that she had got to the end of the book and was overwhelmed by it's sadness, and happiness and that it was a true story. Women and emotions - that's a big mystery to us men. All I could do was put my arms around her and let her cry until she got control again.

Then this evening turned into a little bit of a rush because we were out at lunch for so long. Debrah wasn't feeling very well with a bit of an upset stomach - not caused by lunch, we don't think. She decided that she wouldn't eat with us all but would help with the preparation in the background and then somehow she dropped the tray of fig tarts that she had been so carefully preparing. It wasn't a disaster and it was clearly just an accident but it was the first time we had found ourselves in a potentally panic situation of not having a dessert when guests were just about to arrive for dinner. It wasn't a disaster because there were more figs and there was more pastry and there was time before the dessert was due to prepare more tarts.

In the middle of the day, Denis had insisted on taking us out to lunch - so off we went to Domaine Gayda. At this point Debrah was feeling OK and the sun was shining and the view from the terrace looking out to the Pyrenees was absolutely breathtakingly fantastic - the food was delicious and the wine was a sumptuous 'la liviniere' and the company was just grand. A finer Sunday lunch one couldn't have hoped for. We just didn't need to be doing that before a guest dinner in the evening because it was too much and they both ended up detracting from each other, which was a shame because both were excellent in their own right.

So a day of learning really - remember to set the alarm, lunch and dinner on the same day is a bit much and look out for those emotions because you don't know when or how they are going to strike!