Dilemma

As this year has progressed and weekends have come and gone, a Monday when Debrah returns to the UK has become harder and harder for us both to deal with. We spent a good deal of this weekend talking about how to solve the problem of weekdays apart from each other without coming to any concrete solution.

I don't think that Debrah is ready to come and live full time in France - she enjoys London and her work (sometimes). She is scared that she will be cut-off from what is new and exciting because that is such an important part of her job. We also have Christian to settle somewhere in his new college life and an apartment whose value is dropping like a stone in common with everybody elses.

Likewise, I would have to start again from scratch if I moved back to London and all that we have achieved here at 42rvh would be lost - and after such a good first year too.

What a dilemma.

So it was that, yet again, I dropped Debrah at the airport in warm sunshine. She arrived in London, where it was raining and cold and the trains were running very slowly and consequently felt very depressed about the whole thing. I came back to an empty apartment here and no amount of sunshine made me feel any less alone again.

So, current guests check out tomorrow morning and then we have a break for 7 days until the next ones - so I am going to London on Wednesday, obviously to see Debrah and also to catch up on jobs and paperwork over there. Whatever needs doing here (and there is always plenty) can wait for once.

Problem solving

Debrah and Mel have returned to London and once again I am on my own here in France, well, except for the guests in the Apartment suite and Chris popping in for coffee as he finishes off the final bits of work in Denis' apartment upstairs.

Chris flies to the UK tomorrow and then on to the USA, so tonight is his last chance to finish the work and give back the keys to me - I know I will have to go up there and clear up and remove the tools and materials after he has gone - great, another cleaning job to do. This last minute rush could have been avoided, but that's Chris for you - the mastic will look fabulous when it's finally done though!

Ironically, given our falling out earlier in the year over the unnecessary removal of my internet connection, Chris will have to come and print out his flight information from this very computer because an electrician has clumsily disconnected the broadband in his apartment - I shouldn't laugh or feel smug about it, but I can't help it.

I forgot to mention that I can finally see what I am typing and reading - Debrah picked up some reading glasses for me at Boots at Stansted airport on her way over here and they are a revelation - and all for the extremely reasonable sum of £25. I have known for a couple of years that my eyesight was getting worse for close up stuff and especially in poor light - not any more - but I'm still getting used to having glasses on my nose.

With a heavy heart I took Debrah and Mel up to the airport this afternoon for their flight home and then who should I bump into but Gary, who was waiting for his nephew off the same flight that Debrah was due to leave on - so naturally I offered them a lift back to town and popped in to see Des too, as I hadn't seen him for well over a month. No change there really, except that Gary's fortune is now going to be made as a novelist rather than as an artist - always seeking the glory solution that boy - he just needs to get a job.

So there we are - it was a momentous day in the world of banking and the refurbishment of Denis' apartment has finally been completed - all of which is a massive relief - but whilst the macro and micro issues have been, hopefully, resolved, Debrah and I are spending another evening apart from each other - and for the moment we are no closer to finding a solution to that problem.