It's a new blog year and I have already been pretty tardy in getting back into the swing of letting you all know what has been going on - so first things first, Happy New Year to all of you who kindly take the time to follow my ramblings here on the blogosphere.
As always at this time of year, there has been a lot of reflection and a lot of new thinking about the twelve months to come - and, as ever with a seasonally based business, a whole lot of paranoia about whether anyone is actually going to make a booking or not for our fabulous luxury apartments here in Carcassonne at 42rvh.
I get the same feeling every January and this is no different. The upside is that it spurs you into action on all the things that you have been meaning to do and vaguely thinking about during the last year whilst you were too busy to do anything about them - like new business ideas and updating the website and not getting pissed off about the people moving into your territory and copying/ripping off everything that you have been doing - the nerve of some people.
I guess that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that is how I am going to deal with it - we must have been doing something right these past two years here at 42rvh or we wouldn't be being copied. I will embrace them all and see how best we can all work to our mutual benefit - I really mean that - there is no point holding grudges or developing enemies. It is also true that no business ever survived by standing still, so we have to evolve and that is what we have been turning our attention to over the past few days.
The website is undergoing a major overhaul to freshen it up and to include our new thinking about what our clients want for 2010 and beyond. As ever, it is part based on feedback, part based on evolution and part total guesswork with our fingers crossed that we are right. It's not ready yet but soon.
In the meantime, our New Year guests have departed, having enjoyed a fabulous five course dinner here at 42rvh on their last night. The minute they departed on Saturday morning I was dashing up to the airport to collect Christian, my poor overworked student stepson who looked like he hadn't slept for about a week.
I love him to bits but we always have our stepfather/stepson issues to resolve for a couple of days before we settle down to liking each other quite a lot - by which time we have always fallen out with my wife/his Mum - aaaarrrrggghhhh.
Anyway, he went to sleep for about 48 hours now that he was back in the company of grown-ups and Debrah and I had a delightful evening with Fabian and Nathalie. They are quite the most delightful French people we know and our only real French friends - because they are very chic, very enlightened, very stylish and completely lovely in all respects. They won't read this but I would be very happy if they did.
Sadly, the weather has been anything but exciting and apart from our beach picnic day it has been grey and damp and cold and pretty miserable, which hasn't helped anybody's mood.
We all need to just hang on in there through the January melancholy.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Monday, 8 September 2008
Long Weekend
I am back in Carcassonne after my weekend of family fun! Everybody just about held it all together but I am thinking only just - I did call one of my sisters-in-law a 'bitch' at one point, but I was leaving the room and maybe it was out of her earshot (although Debrah assures me it probably wasn't - oh well) - I really don't think she's a very nice person so I am not that bothered about it.
I feel a bit sorry for my other sister-in-law because she recognises how hard it is to please my mother and what a strong 'matriarchal' influence she imposes and because she really has tried very hard to fit into our difficult family. On the first afternoon she was very jolly and chatty and out to enjoy the weekend, but she gradually seemed to retreat into her shell, as I guess we all did under the withering glare, which was a shame.
Debrah wasn't exempt and was extremely upset by some of my mothers unnecessary comments about clothes or hair or behaviour. Debrah was brilliant this weekend and I couldn't have done it myself without her and without the girls. We stuck together as a little support team for each other. It would have been ideal to have have been just the four of us away - or five, if we could have got Christian involved too.
It was so good to see my daughters again - it has been too long - and I am so proud of them and the lovely young ladies that they have grown up to be. Amy is just about to start her final year at Lancaster and Isabel is just going off to find herself at Leicester - good luck to you both and hopefully we will see each other again sooner rather than later.
The part played by Anna and Aib, our hosts for the weekend, should not be under-estimated in the slightest. I would go as far as to say that without them the weekend would have been a disaster - I can't wait to see you both again in more relaxed circumstances, which we will do soon as it is Anna's birthday in a few weeks time.
A highlight of the weekend was the wine tasting given by Alex Hall on Saturday evening before dinner. We tasted six wines in total, with mixed results on my part when it came to recognising what I was tasting - the more I learn, and I learned a lot on Saturday, the less I seem to know! It was, though, a great privilege to be afforded the chance to taste a young 2005 St Emilion, which will age wonderfully and comes from one of the best vintages ever, apparently, and an 18 year old St Estephe, from another great vintage in 1990, that would set you back £300 in a restaurant today. Both were fabulous.
It is wine harvest time and that means that the Autumn is on it's way. We awoke this morning in the Dordogne to a heavy dew and mist in the valley but the prospect of a gloriously hot clear blue sky day - mellow fruitfulness indeed. Also, perfect conditions for the development of noble rot on grapes and the wonderful transformation into a golden nectar late harvest dessert wine - I told you I had learned a thing or two recently.
Back here in Carcassonne, the mobile 'fauconnier' introduced last year is already patrolling the streets - another sign that Autumn is upon us - the poor starlings are being scared away before we have any chance to see a display from them - what a shame.
My new guests have arrived - a mother and daughter from Australia. They dropped a couple of surprises on me - not forwarded on by the travel agent in Australia that made the booking. Luckily I am not phased by the late arriving information of no wheat or seafood or peppers in their diet, and not just because of dislike but because they are allergic. I will cope thanks to the wonderful array of produce available here in the fantastically fertile Aude valley and because at 42rvh we can cope with anything.
Even family.
I feel a bit sorry for my other sister-in-law because she recognises how hard it is to please my mother and what a strong 'matriarchal' influence she imposes and because she really has tried very hard to fit into our difficult family. On the first afternoon she was very jolly and chatty and out to enjoy the weekend, but she gradually seemed to retreat into her shell, as I guess we all did under the withering glare, which was a shame.
Debrah wasn't exempt and was extremely upset by some of my mothers unnecessary comments about clothes or hair or behaviour. Debrah was brilliant this weekend and I couldn't have done it myself without her and without the girls. We stuck together as a little support team for each other. It would have been ideal to have have been just the four of us away - or five, if we could have got Christian involved too.
It was so good to see my daughters again - it has been too long - and I am so proud of them and the lovely young ladies that they have grown up to be. Amy is just about to start her final year at Lancaster and Isabel is just going off to find herself at Leicester - good luck to you both and hopefully we will see each other again sooner rather than later.
The part played by Anna and Aib, our hosts for the weekend, should not be under-estimated in the slightest. I would go as far as to say that without them the weekend would have been a disaster - I can't wait to see you both again in more relaxed circumstances, which we will do soon as it is Anna's birthday in a few weeks time.
A highlight of the weekend was the wine tasting given by Alex Hall on Saturday evening before dinner. We tasted six wines in total, with mixed results on my part when it came to recognising what I was tasting - the more I learn, and I learned a lot on Saturday, the less I seem to know! It was, though, a great privilege to be afforded the chance to taste a young 2005 St Emilion, which will age wonderfully and comes from one of the best vintages ever, apparently, and an 18 year old St Estephe, from another great vintage in 1990, that would set you back £300 in a restaurant today. Both were fabulous.
It is wine harvest time and that means that the Autumn is on it's way. We awoke this morning in the Dordogne to a heavy dew and mist in the valley but the prospect of a gloriously hot clear blue sky day - mellow fruitfulness indeed. Also, perfect conditions for the development of noble rot on grapes and the wonderful transformation into a golden nectar late harvest dessert wine - I told you I had learned a thing or two recently.
Back here in Carcassonne, the mobile 'fauconnier' introduced last year is already patrolling the streets - another sign that Autumn is upon us - the poor starlings are being scared away before we have any chance to see a display from them - what a shame.
My new guests have arrived - a mother and daughter from Australia. They dropped a couple of surprises on me - not forwarded on by the travel agent in Australia that made the booking. Luckily I am not phased by the late arriving information of no wheat or seafood or peppers in their diet, and not just because of dislike but because they are allergic. I will cope thanks to the wonderful array of produce available here in the fantastically fertile Aude valley and because at 42rvh we can cope with anything.
Even family.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Water of Life
Have just finished the washing up and tidying after another client dinner and was wondering why I feel so tired - it wasn't a particularly lengthy affair and nor was an excessive amount of alcohol consumed - and then I realised that it was the fifth night in a row of client entertaining. It has been a busy week - a really quiet weekend with no stress or demands would be perfect.
Instead of which I have to leave tomorrow for a family get-together and am feeling mildly stressed already about the prospect.
On the surface it should be an enjoyable weekend of celebration (my father's 80th birthday) and catching up ( I haven't seen Amy and Isabel, my daughters, for 8 months and 13 months respectively) and friends (we are holding the event at Anna and Aib's lovely chateau in the Dordogne).
But somehow, my family's occasional gatherings always seem very strained and very hard work. My mother has already told me what to wear on Saturday evening, as if I was 9 years old, not 49. I have very little in common with my two brothers and even less with their respective wives. Debrah is already dreading everything and might go over the edge at some point during the weekend and I think that my youngest daughter has an issue with me but won't admit it and everyone knows and pretends that it's not the case.
My family is very good at pretending things haven't happened.
Which probably means a weekend of politeness and banal chat with everyone avoiding what they really think or want to say - I guess I am as bad as they are because I am one of them too.
Meanwhile I had another mad encounter with M Sire and his scary mother, who own the wreck of a space on the ground floor where I had stored a load of rubble from our renovation. He ranted at me about a water pipe that runs through his space - the water pipe that feeds my apartments, and was demanding that I move it and then in the same breath was asking me to buy the space from him - for €20,000 !! I'd have to think seriously about paying €2,000 because it certainly isn't usable as a residential space.
He worries me though, and the fact that my water feed runs through that space concerns me too. It was there when I bought the apartments and that space looked like an unused and uninhabitable room and for two years the door was unlocked and nobody had ventured into it - suddenly he is throwing accusations about and my poor French puts me on the back foot. I need to take control of the situation to protect my own interests and that is what I intend to do.
Instead of which I have to leave tomorrow for a family get-together and am feeling mildly stressed already about the prospect.
On the surface it should be an enjoyable weekend of celebration (my father's 80th birthday) and catching up ( I haven't seen Amy and Isabel, my daughters, for 8 months and 13 months respectively) and friends (we are holding the event at Anna and Aib's lovely chateau in the Dordogne).
But somehow, my family's occasional gatherings always seem very strained and very hard work. My mother has already told me what to wear on Saturday evening, as if I was 9 years old, not 49. I have very little in common with my two brothers and even less with their respective wives. Debrah is already dreading everything and might go over the edge at some point during the weekend and I think that my youngest daughter has an issue with me but won't admit it and everyone knows and pretends that it's not the case.
My family is very good at pretending things haven't happened.
Which probably means a weekend of politeness and banal chat with everyone avoiding what they really think or want to say - I guess I am as bad as they are because I am one of them too.
Meanwhile I had another mad encounter with M Sire and his scary mother, who own the wreck of a space on the ground floor where I had stored a load of rubble from our renovation. He ranted at me about a water pipe that runs through his space - the water pipe that feeds my apartments, and was demanding that I move it and then in the same breath was asking me to buy the space from him - for €20,000 !! I'd have to think seriously about paying €2,000 because it certainly isn't usable as a residential space.
He worries me though, and the fact that my water feed runs through that space concerns me too. It was there when I bought the apartments and that space looked like an unused and uninhabitable room and for two years the door was unlocked and nobody had ventured into it - suddenly he is throwing accusations about and my poor French puts me on the back foot. I need to take control of the situation to protect my own interests and that is what I intend to do.
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