Recognition

I have sent many guests to several of the restaurants in town and you always hope that they will recognise in some way the value of the business sent their way.

The charming owner of La Roulotte gave us a lovely three bottle case of wine at Christmas for that very reason and so, last night, instead of sending guests to him we decided we would take ourselves out for a treat and as we don't get to eat out much just on our own these days, we both made a bit of an effort and got dressed up.

I had sent guests there last Friday and just assumed that the restaurant would be open yesterday too. I should have called. I should have called anyway because the French much prefer it if you do rather than just arrive unannounced. But I was lazy and didn't call and of course they were closed for a one week holiday.

Many of the restaurants in Carcassonne are closed at this time of year and so we were all dressed up with nowhere to go on a damp and chilly evening.

The other restaurant that we send lots of people to in winter is L'Ecurie. It is a restaurant in an old stable block and has plenty of charm. Debrah and I ate lunch there on the day that we completed the purchase of the apartments - very nearly four years ago (where does the time go?).

So L'Ecurie it was - hoping that they had a table available. We were greeted by Christophe and even though the place was quite busy we were given a table for four rather than one of the smaller tables for two, which was a nice start. However, as the evening passed and our various courses came and went we were feeling more and more underwhelmed by the experience and the food - it was good food but just not great food and for the price we expected a lot better.

It's a problem we encounter more and more and not just in France - it's the same in London too. If we feel that we could cook the same dish better at home then we feel a bit cheated. It's the middle ground restaurants where this occurs most. If you know you are going cheap and cheerful with a price to match it's ok (like the €7.50 lunch at 'Chez Felix' in the square) and if you go top end where they produce exquisite food that needs an army of chefs working all day on it then you are happy to pay because you know you couldn't reproduce it at home in a domestic kitchen (like the Michelin starred 'Le Parc').

So, to be honest we were disappointed and wondered if our guests were left feeling the same despite their many positive comments back to me in the past.

There was one final surprise to the evening though - the bill. It should have been close to €100 but when it came it was €0 - it was Christophe's way of saying thank you for all of last years clients sent to him - how marvellous.

It wasn't a great evening but it finished on a high - merci Christophe.

Happy days

My Scottish guests left yesterday on the same flight that brought Debrah out to Carcassonne. From March onwards they would have been able to fly direct from Edinburgh, rather than have to travel via Stansted, but I am grateful to them for coming here in January. The new Edinburgh flight opens up a whole new market for us, so very welcome it is too.

My guests managed to find their way to 'The Celt' Irish bar every night for a wee nightcap and were treated as regulars by the time they departed.

It's good to have a 'pub' back in town. In Winter most of the bars here are closed by 9.00pm so at last there is an all week option, which is good for my guests and for me. As I still haven't invested in any form of satellite TV it is also the place to go to watch any decent sport and good sport is always best watched in a crowd.

There are downsides though. The old Irish bar always kept terrible beer and so I always drank wine, which we all know is the cheapest drink available in France. The new bar keeps good beer and serves as good a pint of Guinness as I have drunk anywhere except Dublin. There are two problems with that. Firstly, as Debrah pointed out on arrival, I am re-establishing my Guinness belly, which I lost when I left London for France and secondly a pint here costs €6 which these days, with the exchange rate nonsense of the last three months, is the equivalent of £6 - about double the price it is in London. Clearly I need to ration the Guinness and get out on my bike more often for the sake of my bodily and financial health.

Actually having Debrah here will help no end because she's not that keen on pubs at the best of times.

There are no guests this weekend but the upside is that we have the place to ourselves with no client interference and breakfasts to do.

This morning we ventured down to the market seeking some inspiration for supper this evening. We eventually decided on some veal for a 'blanquette de veau', a dish I had never cooked before. Just before ordering I realised that I had left my wallet at home - doh - and so dashed back whilst Debrah put in the order. As with all good butchers anywhere we just had to mention what we wanted to cook and for how many and he immediately knew what and how much we needed and how to cut it up ready for us to use.

Not only that but he virtually castigated me for running home because as a regular customer he would happily have given me credit - I could have paid him tomorrow 'sans souci' (literally 'without worry' but best translated as 'no problem') which is a fantastic level of trust that you don't see very often these days and will of course mean that I am much more likely to go to him again. Actually I need no more incentive to visit M Campaci because his beef and veal is some of the best I have ever tasted and, as I have written before, it can be traced back to the very moment of it's birth - probably to it's conception! That is food scourcing at it's very best.

After a mad session of kitchen cleaning by me we decided to make the most of the fabulous afternoon sunshine by taking the Audi, roof down naturally, for a little pootle around the Malepere hills. I can still feel the tingling of the sun and wind on my face and Debrah has succumbed to the effects of the fresh air and a hot bath and is now having a little doze whilst I type this and the blanquette bubbles away in the casserole dish.

Happy times and time for me to go and finish things off and get the supper on the table.

What time

You would never have believed from the weather on Sunday that there could have been so much devastation the day before - but the trees lying in the canal and alongside and across the roads told a very different story.

I think the decision from on high to order all businesses to close in order to keep people off the streets was probably a very sensible one. A consequence was that the supermarkets were allowed to open on Sunday morning until midday - which won't have pleased the Catholic church, who have a hard enough job getting people in through the doors these days.

I popped down to Monoprix because I was short of milk and was astounded by the number of people - the queue from the tills went nearly to the back of the shop. I've never seen so many people in Monoprix. I've never seen so many people on a Sunday - not in a shop anyway. I decided to go elsewhere for the milk.

My new guests arrival time kept changing by the hour as the train system gradually came back up to normal-ish service. They eventually pitched up at about 4.15pm, feeling weary, of course. I cooked dinner for them all last night which went on a bit, had 5 hours sleep after the clearing up and before breakfasts and prepping a picnic lunch for the late arrival guests to take to a friend who lives near Limoux.

Their catalogue of misfortune and error continued when they couldn't get hold of their friend, decided not to both go to Limoux only then to find that she was expecting them but her phone line was down so couldn't call. So they had separate lunches, one saw the friend but the other didn't and their picnic lunch was re-packed yet again and taken with them on the train to Bordeaux this evening. Quite remarkably for this day and age neither of them was carrying a mobile phone which didn't exactly help their communication.

At least their late Sunday afternoon arrival allowed me to take my other guests out to the truffle fair at Moussellens. Last year I bought a truffle and I noticed that the price had come down this year by 20% - even so, I kept my cash in my pocket - actually, I didn't have any cash in my pocket.

Beyond the donkey rides and the wine tasting, beyond the fallen trees and the clearing up operation, the snow-capped Pyrenees glistened in the sunlight and floated above the hazy skyline - magnificent in their glorious grandeur. Breathtaking.

Madness over for another weekend.

Strange Day

What a strange day it has been - holed up in my apartment with all the shutters closed fast and the wind howling outside.

Apparently the 'Prefecture' ordered all businesses, shops, cafes and restaurants to close as well as shutting the market early - they didn't want anyone on the street. The airport was shut, as was the motorway and the trains stopped running too. The river Aude is at flood level and part of the town was without power for a couple of hours although fortunately I have been spared that inconvenience. There are broken trees and smashed tiles and shutters hanging loose - who knows what it's like outside of town.

Not everyone obeyed the orders from on high and I was able to find a restaurant for my poor guests - they are from Scotland and used to this sort of thing but even so, you come away for a break from the usual, not the same old same old.

My other guests haven't arrived - their train from Lyon was cancelled - so they are going to try and get here tomorrow morning.

They should make it - it is now eerily quiet, the wind and rain has disappeared and the stars are out - bizarre really.

As I said - a really strange day.

Windy

Last night I was told that a big storm was expected and the French weather service had issued a 'vigilance rouge' - their highest level of warning.

This morning I went down early to the market - it was drizzling and a little blowy but nothing to worry about - just a bit miserable. I really don't like wet market days - it takes all the pleasure out of browsing amongst the stalls and adds an extra element of danger because of the five foot tall old women with umbrellas and trolleys barging their way through everyone.

I returned to make breakfast for yesterday's new arrivals and then waited for a gap in the rain showers before heading back to finish my shopping. I hadn't really noticed that the wind had started to pick up but I certainly did when I got back down to the square.

The whole place was in absolute chaos with umbrellas and stalls all over the place. A decision had been made to close the market because it was too dangerous and the stallholders were already in the process of packing up whilst still trying to sell as much as they could. I made a rapid dash around to find the last few items I needed - it was pretty hairy with cardboard boxes and plastic bags flying all the place.

I bumped into Herve and he told me that the tat market on the Boulevard Barbes had been flattened and Pierre told me that he had heard on the radio that this afternoon they are predicting 140km winds and that the storm has already left a trail of devastation through the south west of France with Bordeaux badly hit and half a million people without electricity.

As I type this the lights keep flickering and I half expect them to go off at any moment.

As I returned home I could see that my shutters on the front of the building were beginning to take a bit of a battering so I hurried inside and took the totally unprecented decision to lock down during daylight hours. Alas, I was just too late as the wind ripped one shutter from it's anchor with a deafening crash. Fortunately it didn't leave it's hinges and I was able to pull it back in and close it up.

It's quite wierd and a bit spooky sitting inside with the lights on and the shutters closed, listening to the wind thrashing everything outside.

I suspect the airport will be closed so it's fortunate that I don't have any guests coming in that way today. The plane took two attempts to land yesterday - I don't think they will even try today. I do have some guests arriving by train this evening - but I wouldn't be surprised if they get delayed somewhere - I'll just have to wait and see.

It was always going to be a cooking day and I suspect my guests might be checking out the dvd collection.

Frustrating

At the end of last week our first guests of 2009 arrived. They were here house hunting for a few days and before they left they had put in an offer on a place out towards the 'Montagne Noire'.

Before Christmas, The Sunday Times ran an article - well several actually - about all the Brits fleeing France because it was too expensive on account of the exchange rate and the credit crunch. I said to Debrah at the time that it was absolute bollocks and typical one-sided journalism designed to fill media space.

Years ago I used to respect the Sunday Times for it's objective review of the week's events - it's sad to report that it is now firmly within the grasp of the same sensationalist dramatism as every other media channel. One couple, who's pension might be worth a bit less than it used to be, is translated into a wholescale evacuation of Dunkirk proportions back to Blighty, where, of course, things are much better.

Except that that isn't the truth and in fact it's an outright lie. I worked in advertising long enough to know that you can get away with the most outrageous lies if you dress them up well enough - and our papers and TV channels and Government have clearly learned that they can do the same. The mistake they will make is if they think that we all believe it.

So, my guests were ignoring the advice, opinion and dramatics and were still looking to buy a holiday home in this fantastic region of France - good for them - and lovely people they were too - perhaps it was because they worked in the advertising industry themselves that they were immune to all the negative press!

When they left on Sunday, I departed too - headed back to London for a couple of days with Debrah. On a three day lightning visit you want to spend as much time together as possible, so it was incredibly frustrating that on arrival I discovered that the Stansted Express wasn't running and that the replacement coach service only went direct to Liverpool Street, thus adding time and cost until I saw Debrah. Outrageously, I was charged the same price for my ticket despite the massive inconvenience

The theme of frustration continued because my conversations with our banks about a re-structuring of our finances have so far come to nothing and were arduous and long and ultimately inconclusive because of the inertia in the system. I wasn't asking for the world, just a small pebble - but they weren't playing ball.

They got us into this fix and have been massively bailed out by governments ( i.e. - you and me) and now they sit behind their desks doing nothing because they are all traumatised and scared to make a decision.

And so here I am back in France - I've fixed the shower head from the Apartment which had become a bit calcified from the harsh water here and I've caught up with the laundry and the admin - So all's up to date.

Some of us are still on top of our game.

Two numbers?

I visited France Telecom again today determined to get a solution to my permanently engaged landline. All I got was a freefone number to call and instructions on how to get through to someone who could run diagnostic tests on the software for my number.

At times like this my lack of fluent French frustrates the hell out of me, but I gritted my teeth and called the number anyway. To be fair I got through to someone who went out of their way to help me, was incredibly patient with my lack of fluency, repeated herself constantly until I understood what she was saying and, as far as I know, ran numerous tests on the number and the line.

The good news is that I have a solution and it is now possible for me to receive calls. The bad news is that it is a totally different number from the one that I have been using for two years!

It appears that I have two numbers with France Telecom (which is news to me) and the correct one for me to use through my 'livebox' (internet connection) is different from the one that I have been using without problem up until now - confused? - you bet.

So I now have a number that works - if anyone wants to call me in France I can give them a number that will ring in my home and I can answer it and chat away. The problem is it isn't the number that I have been using for the last few years and is on our business website and our business cards and postcards and any other bit of marketing communication that we have put in place for the business - what a complete nightmare.

It is absolutely no comfort that my French friends tell me that they have the same problems with France Telecom and that it is nothing to do with me being English - just everything to do with them being incompetent. That's all very well, but I foresee more head strain and angst until this is resolved.

If anyone wants to call me the number that works is 00 33 977 52 44 36

Go on, try it, just for the novelty value if nothing else.

Training and Exercise

Our friends at VinEcole are registered to teach the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) courses that are one step down from the onerous Master of Wine qualification. Back in December I decided to do the three day intermediate course which they are holding in the first week of February.

It's a proper course complete with an exam at the end that you have to pass to claim any sort of qualification. I thought it would have been very useful for our own wine tastings at 42rvh as well as being something I just really wanted to do because of my interest in the subject.

It was, therefore, with great disappointment and sadness that I phoned Emma at VinEcole this morning to tell them that I wouldn't be able to attend - I just can't justify the cost right now - so it will have to wait until a later date when they run the course again.

One piece of good news is that, as a registered French business owner, I am encouraged to do regular training and can get assistance from the government for any training courses that I attend. As the WSET course qualifies, I will make some enquiries so that I am prepared when I can finally afford to go on the course.

Hopefully, I won't have to wait that long. We are still getting plenty of hits on the website and a steady stream of new bookings is encouraging. In fact I have some guests arriving tomorrow for four nights - not bad for mid-January - I just hope they bring some big jumpers and woolly socks with them. I haven't told them yet that we are mostly going to be eating hot soup.

Talking of hot soup, I found the leftover onion soup from last week in a tub in the freezer and had that for my lunch today - delicious - thank you Debrah.

I also took my bike out for the first time in who knows how long. No, it's not a new years resolution - just something I have been vowing to do again for some time and there seemed like no better time than this afternoon - it was dry and sunny if a little cool.

I did the circuit along the river - down to the road bridge on this side, then across and back along the far side until it brings you out under the Cité, back over the 'pont vieux' (old bridge) and through town to home - about 4 miles in all.

The river was very high as you'd expect at this time of year with all the water coming off the Pyrenees and the riverside path was full of couples walking dogs and groups of ladies out for their afternoon constitutional. Everyone gave me a 'bonjour, in that charmingly polite way that the French speak to strangers doing the same thing - be it walking into the same shop or partaking in afternoon exercise.

I passed the mule and the donkey and the ponies and the llamas and got an extremely close up view of a hawk and a jay and nearly ran over a red squirrel - it's a proper little nature trail down by the river.

I expect I will pay for my exuberance with some aching muscles tomorrow.

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.

British Phlegm

It always seems to be the same - every New Year, I get ill.

Two years ago I dragged myself out of bed for dinner with friends after Debrah had had to do all the preparation and cooking and then went straight back to bed when they went off to the nightclub after.

So when I awoke last Monday with a niggly throat and a bit of a cough, I feared the worst and I can't tell you what Debrah said but she wasn't much amused.

My girls had arrived the day before and we had guests leaving and arriving and rooms to change and preparation to do for a New Years Eve dinner and New Years Day wine tasting and supper. I did my best to balance the work, spending time with the girls and trying to rest my illness, but these things generally just run their course anyway and I just hoped I would survive the two evenings in jovial enough mood to fulfil my client entertaining duties.

It's a nasty bug - not really a cold, more of a bronchial infection - there's a bit of catarrh but mostly lots of violent phlegmy coughing that leaves you with a tight chest, a sore back and a lack of breath. Several disturbed nights and a few boxes of tissues later and it finally appears to be easing one week on. I know, I'm not unique - most people I know, in both the UK and France, have either had something similar or have it still. In fact the only person who hasn't is Debrah, which is a relief.

On the basis that nothing gets done if you sit around recovering - even if you haven't fully recovered - I set off at 9.00am this morning with my 'livebox' in a bag and headed for the France Telecom office in a second bid to solve the permanently engaged landline. It was a good move because there was nobody else there and I got to see the technician pretty much straight off. Did it solve the problem? - well, partly.

Apparently I had my system all wired up wrong all along - oh yes. It may have worked perfectly well for two years as I had it set up but that is the reason that it isn't working now. Despite my protestations - and my French was in inspired, if somewhat croaky and interrupted by coughing, good form this morning - the technician assured me that it was certainly just good luck that it had worked so far. A priceless, classic French answer to a problem - it was in fact my fault for setting the whole thing up in accordance with the instructions that came in the box!

Sadly, my French wasn't good enough to say that I had missed the bit where it said that it would stop working after two years and then I needed a new bit of cable and to wire the whole thing up in a different way - he probably wouldn't have appreciated the humour anyway.

At least he gave me, rather than sold me, the new bit of cable that I needed. When I got back I re-wired the system in the new configuration and prayed that it would all come back on line - I really couldn't have coped if the internet hadn't worked. It did and miraculously so did the telephone. At least I can now dial out but when I try to dial in I still have the engaged tone - aaarrrrggghhhhh.

That is just typical - half a solution to the problem - all of which means that I will have to take it all back to France Telecom again tomorrow and show them a bit more British phlegm.

It's got to be just a big job creation scheme - hasn't it?