Parents in town

My parents arrived on Tuesday - their second visit to Carcassonne and the first staying here at 42rvh. When they last came we were still in the middle of the renovation and the thinking was that it would be better for my Dad in his wheelchair if they stayed close by in a hotel with proper disabled facilities.

The so called disabled facilities at Domaine D'Auriac proved to be anything but, so this time they stayed with me, even though we are on the first floor - once inside everything would be easy with all on one level, huge rooms and double opening doors everywhere.

He can walk a little bit but getting him up the grand staircase was still going to be a problem and so much depends on how he is feeling as to whether he has the strength to make it easy or difficult. And that's how it has been. Arrival on day 1 was easy as was going out on day 2 - coming back on day 2 was a bit more difficult but going out day 3 was ok - coming back on day 3 was very hard because he was tired and hot. We are restricted to one trip out per day - it would be much too much otherwise.

They do appear to be having a great time though and it is a much needed change of scenery and a rest for my Mum and, of course, they get to see me.

We didn't do much on Tuesday when they got here as travelling always takes it out of them and they like to get settled in. Besides, they hadn't seen the finished apartments and I'd had two sets of guests leave just that morning and needed to change those rooms over immediately, so Mum nosed about having a good look into every space and then 'helped' me with the room changes.

"I'll just take this towel through", said Mum
"There are more towels here to take", I said
"I'll come back for another", she replied
'Are you sure you aren't French', I thought to myself - talk about job creation.

Likewise on Wednesday morning - guests out and an immediate room change for new arrivals later in the day. Once that was done we ventured out together for the first time, just down to the Place Carnot for lunch outside at La Roulotte, where we were looked after very well as always and the food was superb and fantastic value at €15 each for three courses. I still don't know how a restaurant offering food that good and that well prepared can survive on those prices. Mum then checked out every shoe shop in town, and there are quite a few, before we ambled home.

Yesterday we went to one of VinEcole's excellent wine tastings and then had lunch on the restaurant terrace at Domaine Gayda. I've done the wine course several times so was very grateful that Matthew changed the wines - it was all new for my parents so they loved it all and I discovered some new wines that I hadn't had before - excellent. It was one of those glorious blue sky Languedoc days and with snow still on the peaks of the Pyrenees the view was outstanding and certainly took my parents breath away. We could see the weather starting to change as we sat and ate and the clouds started to pour over the peaks from Spain.

It was hot yesterday and that's why it was a problem, by the time we got home, for my father to get back up the stairs. Once he was in I knew that he would have a quiet evening and would need a good rest and sleep. As a result, we didn't do much and there was a grave danger of the evening developing into parental sitting (everyone sits in silence staring at each other), so I asked Mum if she'd like to go for an evening stroll around the town - a sort of 'passegiata', if we had been in Italy - which she was more than happy to do. I think she has had enough of sitting with my Dad.

Whilst we were out she asked me if I had noticed any changes in them. I said that I didn't think Dad's mobility had deteriorated at all during the last two years or so but that both of them are more frail generally now and their hearing and memory seems to be a lot worse. Ten minutes later she asked me the same question which just confirmed my concerns.

I postponed plans for today until I knew what the weather would bring and how my dad was feeling once he'd got up. It was grey and cloudy but that also meant cooler temperature wise, so after a very lazy start - by me too it must be said, the first morning for over a week that I didn't have a guest breakfast to do and I slept until 9am instead of usual 7am alarm call - we decided to head for the coast as Mum wanted to see the Mediterranean.

I booked a table at L'Hospitalet, a wine estate situated on the top of the 'Montagne de la Clape', the mountain that separates Narbonne from Narbonne Plage. It was exactly the sort of place that my Mum and Dad love. I don't actually think that the food in the restaurant is all that good, certainly not as good as Gayda the day before, but the staff were excellent and the whole place is extremely wheelchair friendly and my Mum bought herself a watercolour from the resident artist and Dad bought me a dozen bottles of wine from the 'caveau', which was extremely decent of him.

After that we drove down to the beach at Gruissan Plage and I took my Mum for a short stroll on the sand and then drove back slowly via Bages and Peyriac and then across country to Lagrasse and Carcassonne. Despite the overcast weather the whole region is looking fabulous at the moment with poppies everywhere and gorse and hawthorn and all the trees and shrubs on the hills looking all soft and fluffy with their new growth. Sorry, went a bit gay there.

I am pretty sure that I have sold them the whole idea of them moving to the Languedoc - a drier climate will be better for my Dad, a sunnier climate will be better for my Mum, the Mediterranean diet will be better for them both and a change from the routine they have had for 10 years would definitely benefit them - but they will probably find every reason why they shouldn't and not do anything, rather than embracing the positive benefits of such a change. What can you do?

Catching Up

I know, my blog writing has become very, very tardy of late. It's not that I'm not interested any more - in fact, far from it - but a number of things have changed over the course of this year that have made it more difficult to find the time or the subject matter.

My weeks have been filled with guest activity, such that some weeks I am either doing dinner or canapes and cocktails for guests most evenings. I have made the odd reference to guests in this blog but only in passing and never in any detail because I'm not sure it would be right - but if that is what has happened during the day and evening then there is not much else left to write about.

In addition, Debrah and I have been trying to spend as much time together as possible to reduce the impact of our separate London and Carcassonne working lives - and, as I started this blog as a way of communicating and, hopefully, amusing my wife when we were apart, it's 'raison d'etre' has been somewhat diminished.

So it is that the last week has gone by without so much as a peep from me. Well, here in summary is what has been happening.

We hosted dinner for our honeymoon couple last Wednesday evening and then I drove both sets of guests, somewhat squashed in the car, down to VinEcole and Domaine Gayda for a wine tasting and lunch, whilst at the same time Debrah boarded a first class French railway carriage on a train to Bordeaux that took 3 hours and cost her only €32 - remarkable - "like travelling in a Mercedes train" is how she described it. She was met by Anna and they proceeded to 'go shopping' in Bordeaux because it was Anna's 40th birthday.

I went to a meeting of gite and chambre d'hote owners which was organised by a chap who sends out a fortnightly newsletter called the Aude Flyer. The newsletter serves a good purpose and I applaud it but after an hour of the meeting I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of it and made a client excuse and left. A chap with a newish big silver Mitsubishi 4x4 had to move his car to let me get my battered 16 year old Audi out of it's parking spot. "Somebody must be doing all right", he said, looking at my roof down 'flashy' car as he got into his 'tank' that must have cost him at least 8 times what I paid for the Audi and, no doubt, consumes considerably more fuel. It's amazing that people with with no taste or ability judge people with flair and style entirely by appearances - and judge them incorrectly - he confirmed my need to distance myself very quickly from a bunch of run-of-the-mill gite owners. We are way out of their league.

At the weekend, for the very first time, I was going to leave guests in the suites whilst I went up to Bordeaux for two nights to join Debrah at Anna's birthday celebrations. Guests left Friday and Saturday and I turned both the suites round and greeted the first of my weekend guests on Saturday lunchtime before I left but I couldn't hang around for the second set and so roped in a friend to check them in during the afternoon and out again on Monday lunchtime. I'm very glad to say that the whole thing went very smoothly - guests were very happy - David, who helped me out was also happy and I think glad to be involved and keen to help again whenever needed. So that adds an extra dimension and possibility for Debrah and I to plan time away from the business next year, which is a good thing.

The weekend was a laugh, the weather was fantastic and the company was very entertaining. The chateau guests did rather split into two camps though - those without small children, either because they have none or they have grown up and aren't hanging about any more, and those with a crying, moaning little monster or two. The look-alike Stepford wife blondes bonded to talk about childcare and needing a bigger home whilst the happy-go-lucky brunettes on the other table got on with behaving badly. Obviously we were in the behaving badly group - top weekend.

Before I left, Anna kindly let me gather some flowers and herbs from her vegetable garden which prompted a couple of comments about French lifestyle advertising as I drove off with the roof down and the smell of dahlias and basil filling the air - everyone loves and is jealous of that Audi.

So that brings us up to date. I picked up new Irish guests today who are very lovely and ever so happy to be here. They have already bought me a box of chocolates and offered to buy some wine for dinner tomorrow night - stop it - you've already paid to come here!

Aren't some people lovely.

Birthdays

It's been nearly a week since I last got around to writing anything here, which is a bit rubbish, I know - but it's been busy and the days seem to have flown by.

Last Friday it was my birthday - just another forty something birthday so not that important but it is now less than 365 days until my first fifty type occasion, so I better start thinking about how to make that a bit different next August. As for this one - well there was an airport pick-up to do after getting a room ready - and the plane was late so there were two trips to the airport and no lunch opportunity as a result - and then canapes for both sets of guests - then the heavens opened just as we were all about to wander out for dinner in different directions. So, actually, it was a bit of a working birthday and then when Debrah and I did get to dinner we ended up having a very serious conversation about our life and our future and our children - which was all relevant but not very light-hearted or celebratory.

To be honest, I was very down about everything after that and still feel a bit upset about it.

A barbecue 'chez Nathalie' on Saturday evening helped to cheer me up. Naturally, it was extremely frustrating trying to talk French to the assembled friends (all lovely and all doing their best to help us with their English) but we had a good night with the more sophisticated crowd that Nathalie always invites and whom we would love to know better if only we could speak and understand the lingo!

There was a Sunday night dinner with our guests and a Monday lunchtime departure for both couples, which took us neatly around to Anna and Aib's visit for Debrah's birthday, today.

Actually, they arrived on Tuesday and we spent a lovely evening at the 'Jardin en Ville' - very relaxed, very chilled.

Debrah's birthday treat was a wine tasting at VinÉcole followed by lunch at Maison Gayda. For some time we have been meaning to try the new wine school run by Matthew Stubbs MW and what a fabulously informative and entertaining two hours it was. I highly recommend it and we will be trying to get our guests to try it too because I think it's just the sort of thing they will all enjoy.

We went on to enjoy a delicious and long lunch well into late afternoon looking at the stunning view of the Pyrenees from the open terrace. Matthew joined us too so we carried on improving our wine knowledge as we ate. Perfect.