Catching Up

I know, my blog writing has become very, very tardy of late. It's not that I'm not interested any more - in fact, far from it - but a number of things have changed over the course of this year that have made it more difficult to find the time or the subject matter.

My weeks have been filled with guest activity, such that some weeks I am either doing dinner or canapes and cocktails for guests most evenings. I have made the odd reference to guests in this blog but only in passing and never in any detail because I'm not sure it would be right - but if that is what has happened during the day and evening then there is not much else left to write about.

In addition, Debrah and I have been trying to spend as much time together as possible to reduce the impact of our separate London and Carcassonne working lives - and, as I started this blog as a way of communicating and, hopefully, amusing my wife when we were apart, it's 'raison d'etre' has been somewhat diminished.

So it is that the last week has gone by without so much as a peep from me. Well, here in summary is what has been happening.

We hosted dinner for our honeymoon couple last Wednesday evening and then I drove both sets of guests, somewhat squashed in the car, down to VinEcole and Domaine Gayda for a wine tasting and lunch, whilst at the same time Debrah boarded a first class French railway carriage on a train to Bordeaux that took 3 hours and cost her only €32 - remarkable - "like travelling in a Mercedes train" is how she described it. She was met by Anna and they proceeded to 'go shopping' in Bordeaux because it was Anna's 40th birthday.

I went to a meeting of gite and chambre d'hote owners which was organised by a chap who sends out a fortnightly newsletter called the Aude Flyer. The newsletter serves a good purpose and I applaud it but after an hour of the meeting I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of it and made a client excuse and left. A chap with a newish big silver Mitsubishi 4x4 had to move his car to let me get my battered 16 year old Audi out of it's parking spot. "Somebody must be doing all right", he said, looking at my roof down 'flashy' car as he got into his 'tank' that must have cost him at least 8 times what I paid for the Audi and, no doubt, consumes considerably more fuel. It's amazing that people with with no taste or ability judge people with flair and style entirely by appearances - and judge them incorrectly - he confirmed my need to distance myself very quickly from a bunch of run-of-the-mill gite owners. We are way out of their league.

At the weekend, for the very first time, I was going to leave guests in the suites whilst I went up to Bordeaux for two nights to join Debrah at Anna's birthday celebrations. Guests left Friday and Saturday and I turned both the suites round and greeted the first of my weekend guests on Saturday lunchtime before I left but I couldn't hang around for the second set and so roped in a friend to check them in during the afternoon and out again on Monday lunchtime. I'm very glad to say that the whole thing went very smoothly - guests were very happy - David, who helped me out was also happy and I think glad to be involved and keen to help again whenever needed. So that adds an extra dimension and possibility for Debrah and I to plan time away from the business next year, which is a good thing.

The weekend was a laugh, the weather was fantastic and the company was very entertaining. The chateau guests did rather split into two camps though - those without small children, either because they have none or they have grown up and aren't hanging about any more, and those with a crying, moaning little monster or two. The look-alike Stepford wife blondes bonded to talk about childcare and needing a bigger home whilst the happy-go-lucky brunettes on the other table got on with behaving badly. Obviously we were in the behaving badly group - top weekend.

Before I left, Anna kindly let me gather some flowers and herbs from her vegetable garden which prompted a couple of comments about French lifestyle advertising as I drove off with the roof down and the smell of dahlias and basil filling the air - everyone loves and is jealous of that Audi.

So that brings us up to date. I picked up new Irish guests today who are very lovely and ever so happy to be here. They have already bought me a box of chocolates and offered to buy some wine for dinner tomorrow night - stop it - you've already paid to come here!

Aren't some people lovely.