Too hot to handle

It's officially quiet in Carcassonne - virtually everyone French has gone to park on an autoroute heading for the beach.

It's also officially damn hot and many an example of a burnt Englishman has been seen trudging around - when will we ever learn about sitting in the Mediterranean sun?

I am very pleased that my English guests, who have been here for a week, don't seem to have had any ill effects from spending each of the last two days out on the bikes all day - the beauty of the canal towpath is that it is both flat and shaded for most of the time. There might be some aching muscles by tomorrow though as they readily admitted they hadn't done much cycling recently!

Sadly they are off in the morning and when I popped in this evening, to check if they needed anything, they were in the middle of packing, which for some reason made me feel rather sad that they were going. I hope to see Phil and Margaret again, but who knows in this business.

It is so hot that I am down to wearing one piece of clothing during the day whilst at home working on my own - in case you haven't worked it out I am referring to my shorts. Of course when I go out or when guests ring the doorbell I will rapidly find my shirt - there are standards to maintain after all.

My first Spanish guests arrived this evening for a three night stay - and a lovely couple of boys they are too. They are following, or rather just beginning, a pattern that is emerging of my first non-english speaking national guests being a touch gay. Pieter and Nico were my first Belgian guests back in April - lovely collection of pastel sweaters.

It was a strange week last week. I was dreadfully distracted by completely losing my temper. Maybe I over-reacted but it didn't do me any good and now that the anger has subsided I can look back at it with a more reasoned thought process. What is clear is that losing one's temper doesn't solve a problem but just makes it worse - that's easy to say now because for three days all I could do was pace about muttering to myself in a slightly deranged way and all through the night too ( I couldn't sleep) - it stopped me getting on with running this place to the point where I was no longer in control but catching up and just getting things done all the time - I think the guests didn't have a clue but internally I was a mess for five days.

You'd think that at my age you would learn to deal with unexpected events and setbacks and take them in your stride - if only that were the case. Anyway - all seems sorted out now, although it isn't because there is a profound sense of being let down on my side and I suspect there are feelings elsewhere being equally masked. Just when you think it's all going well..!

It hasn't helped that Debrah wasn't here for the last week because her presence may have helped to calm me down - it's always the same, the longer we spend together 24 hours a day, the harder it is for us to be apart the immediate following week - so it has proved to be this week. I have felt a bit lonely without Debrah this week and we really need to find a solution to our disparate lives

So it was I found myself going through an old box of CD's that hasn't seen the light of day for several years and spending an afternoon at the ironing board listening and dancing to the clubtastic sounds of Faithless and the mellower but wierder Orb - brought back lots of happy memories, which is a good thing.

We like good things.