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.

Problems

What a frustrating day it has been. I've spent pretty much all day trying to solve my blocked kitchen sink drama or trying to make an inadequate amount of cash keep a business running in London. Happily I seem to have finally solved the first issue, the second may be beyond me.

I leapt out of bed early, determined to solve the sink problem and then get on with the other jobs that still need doing before the first guests arrive in less than two weeks time - eek. At 6 pm this afternoon the sink would still not drain properly and another day had gone by. I was feeling very down about life.

I made two trips to Tridome today (at least the car started without having to whip the battery out and give it a charge which is always a bonus). I thought my Tridome visiting days were over but it seems that I will always be making a little DIY trip every now and again. First off I bought a pipe cleaning tool (a sort of long spring that you push down the pipe to try and clear the blockage) and a bottle of caustic soda (approach number two being to dissolve the blockage).

I took out the trap from under the sink and shoved the coil at least two metres down the pipe - no obstruction and no gunge coming back out. The only thing that happened was that I burnt my fingers and wrist on left over caustic soda from yesterday's attempts to clear the blockage. I decided to put the whole thing back together and try more soda, only I couldn't stop the system from leaking because one of the washers had become a bit mangled - and of course, in all the left over plumbing bits from a year and half of construction there weren't going to be any washers of the right shape or size - so back to Tridome I went.

The sun shone very brightly and warm and the mountains glistened with their snowy peaks and even that didn't cheer me up.

Back home again, I finally got the pipework back together again with no leaking - half a day gone and progress so far - zilch.

This afternoon I poured the second bottle of soda down the sink and then, on the very wise advice of Debrah, as much bleach as I could get my hands on. In fact I poured bleach down every available entrance to the same waste system - toilet, sink and shower/bath - so much so that the whole apartment smelled like a hospital. Finally in the late afternoon, I made one last tired effort with the plunger over the sink waste - first time, nothing - second time, nothing - one last go and hey presto - a gurgling of air and a disappearing of bleachy water - hallelujah!

Another confirmed booking this evening should have made me feel good - but actually I just feel tired and am going straight to bed.

Tomorrow will all be about cash flow rather than water flow - actually it will be about non-cash flow just as today was about non-water flow. Here's hoping for another late afternoon solution to a problem.