Contacts

We were invited to a soirée at Domaine Gayda this evening, to celebrate the opening of their new terrace. We had established contact with them when we visited for lunch about two months ago, had subsequently exchanged emails and were now on the guestlist. It was a chance to meet some new people and hopefully some useful new contacts.

As far as I was aware there were only two people attending whom I knew - Jamie and Greca from the French Entree website - but that was enough to get us going on introductions and, naturally, Lesa appeared, spreading the good word about 42rvh as always and introducing us to the owner of 'Le Moulin' at Trebes, whom I now have to visit to cement relations. He could be a useful contact as his restaurant is just next to the Canal du Midi and is a natural stop-off for any guests borrowing the bikes and cycling off down the canal for the day.

Before we left we stuck our head into the wine production rooms below the restaurant, which led to a meeting with Matthew Stubbs MW, who is in the process of setting up a wine school and seems like a perfect contact for all those guests wishing to do a quick wine course, a bit of tasting or a more full on wine tour of the region. I think I might go along myself.

We had spent all night just missing the canapes trays and then when we did get to one it didn't really satisfy our food cravings. The dozen sausages sat in the fridge back home became very appealing - so we hotfooted back to Carcassonne and had a late night sausage and potato salad feast - even Christian got up out of bed (tempted by the smell and sizzling noise) to join in briefly. Excellent they were too.

The blockaded guests finally made it here late last evening after an all day drive through France and seem to have had a good day out in La Cité today. Our next guests arrive tomorrow morning at 5.30am at the train station after getting the overnight sleeper from Paris - at least 12 hours before their room will be ready - good grief!

Red, Rosé or Champagne

We have had our first red wine incident in one of the suites - one of the guests knocked over a glass onto the carpet. It might have been worse if it had gone onto the white flocati rug but I would happily have taken a broken glass and a spillage on the tiled floor instead.

They were very pro-active in trying to soak the wine out but a red wine stain is the devil to remove. After I had dropped Debrah at the airport at lunchtime, I went off to the DIY superstore and the supermarket and scoured the shelves for a 'wonder' product that might solve the problem. I now own a whole array of products and as I type, I still have a red wine stain on the carpet in the Studio. No wonder.

I don't think it is any coincidence that we held an impromptu rosé wine tasting earlier in the evening. Myself and Debrah and Chris and Alan, the guest in question, sat around our kitchen table and tested four different rosés with the aim of finding something suitable as our house rosé for the summer. It was conducted in all seriousness and most of each bottle remains in my fridge - but rosé has a dangerous way of creeping up on you, even in small quantites - be warned!

As you will have gathered, Debrah has gone back to London - which left both of us feeling a bit miserable. It is only for a couple of days and she will be back on Friday but the place always feels a bit empty just after she has gone.

Maybe that contributed to my awful performance in my French lesson this evening. For the first time, I felt as if I couldn't understand a word that Amelié was saying to me - she did admit that she was pushing me to go on up to a new level - but I felt as if, suddenly, I couldn't speak the language - oh for one of those Matrix style brain implants - 'downloading modern French with southern accent and swear word addendums' - instant fluency but none of the 'fun' of getting it wrong all the time.

This afternoon, because my French is better than his, I helped Chris get a couple of extra keys sorted out for his new apartment in town that he is sharing with Susan (they only had one key between them so had to keep calling each other to be let in). Then we went off to visit Niall in the money pit 'Domaine' to see if we could find a way of doing some work for him. Whilst nothing is agreed, we are making some progress towards working out a schedule and a specification and a price. We shall see.

And then finally, this evening, our first honeymooners booked to stay here, which is very exciting - and another first for 42rvh. All together now - aaahhhhh!!