Guests

Running a Chambres d'hotes can be hard work - all that changing of beds and ironing. Made especially bad when your guests arrive at almost 10 p.m. on a Friday night having booked the Green Room (double bed, shower & toilet ensuiste) to say they wanted twin beds!  John swears Stephen never mentioned that, but as they went out to try and find somewhere to eat (fat chance around here at that time of night!) we quickly swap the beds around. But that made us nervous for Saturday night, because we received a phone booking just before for the one night, and I'd said we only had the twin room left.  What if they wanted a twin, and now found themselves with a double? Hah, John spend the afternoon (after watching the qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix of course) tidying up the Rose room which he'd used as a depository for all his tools etc whilst rebuilding the bathroom, and we had a solution. If they needed separate beds, they could have separate rooms!

Phew, it's not an easy way to earn €100!

Still, it has its compensations...

It turned out that the new people were Aussies, as was the girl who had arrived with her Nigerian boyfriend (but with twin-beds, so I think the 'friend' part was literal) and we all had aperos in the garden. The fact that I got through almost a whole bottle of wine to myself may have clouded my judgement, but sitting there in the sun, with 4 strangers and exchanging views on everything from how crap Vodaphone mobiles are, through the political situation to whether or not the Aussies should still cling to the Queen's Birthday bank holiday when they want to be a republic, it all seemed worthwhile.  Mike & Georgie (the two Aussies) were on motorbike driving a meanering route from Portugal, via Spain and Andorra, to Folkestone.  They actually shipped their motorbikes from Brisbane out to the UK and will be shipping them back next week, when their 3 month holiday is over! I wish we had long-service leave.

An interesting factoid that came out of our discussions on Australia was that they too are increasing their retirement age. This can have nothing to do with saving money as we are all tempted to think is the root of the UK (and French) moves, because the Oz economy is absolutely booming. It really must just be a result of us all living longer.

I tell you something, if this life is what's in front of us for another 20-odd years, you won't hear me complaining - not until we get back to the UK and I have to start commuting into Picadilly again, anyway!

Every two (make that three) days ain't bad

The trouble with keeping a diary is that often you're so busy living life, there's no time left for writing about it.  Or else, it appears so boring when you put the words on the paper - what did I do yesterday? I did housework, gardening, worked on the computer, had apero in the garden, ate, watched tv.  Still, for posterity, and for that novel I may one day write (well if Jordan - sorry, Katie Price - can do it, I'm sure I can). 

So, Monday we had John and Mary round for a meal - they don't like eating late so were due round about 5 p.m., which foreshortened all the cleaning we had to do.  It's great having one of those large farm kitchen/diners, but the problem is they have to be clean and tidy for entertaining.  That's especially hard for us since the kitchen table is also the office (remember, I'm still putting in 21hrs a week on the computer) and repository for all the paperwork we must sort out 'real soon now', and the bag of John's cables etc which are of vital importance, and the empty wine bottles and cardboard boxes that we will recycle 'real soon now'. 



Anyway, a good time was had by all - aperos in the garden since the weather was good(ish), followed by too much food and too much wine. That's what I call life - which is why I'm so overweight, but hey, someone's got to make everyone else on a diet feel good about themselves.

Going back one day, on Sunday there was a fishing competition at the local lake - not that much more than a pond really in a local farm - and in the bar on Saturday night Michel had said we must come.  Sunday morning it absolutely chucked it down, so we thought we'd give it a miss, but by lunchtime it had cleared, so we had a small 'constitutional' walk round to see if anyone had turned up. You can tell we're not fishermen - of course they had turned up! Somehow, quite by coincidence, we managed to make it in time for lunch.


L'Etang

 

Not much fishing going on!



Michel - typical Frenchman with his 'Ricard' belly

We love to go to these types of occasion and see the French at their ease.  I suppose English fishing clubs would have similar days, but you never make the effort when it's at home.  But back to L'Etang du Peche. It's quite embarrassing at these sorts of occasions because we meet people we've seen in the bar perhaps once or twice, but have no idea what their names are. They all know us, because we're 'Les Anglais' with the house next to the traffic lights - or possibly, Les Anglais with the wife who speaks French. Either way, we stick out in a crowd, whereas your normal French person doesn't!

Just for completeness, and for our memories in several years when we look back on these blog entries to see what life was like, what more have we done? 

Tuesday was the end of my holiday so I was back 'in the office' all day. At lunchtime we had to dash round and get the two bedrooms ready for our guests, and John had to finish off the bathroom where he has replaced all the fittings. Our guests (two adults (Chinese) & two children from Kingston-on-Thames) arrived about 8.30 p.m. so it was down with the volume on the tv and tiptoeing around from then on so we didn't disturb them. When we buy our next house we are DEFINITELY going to make sure guest accommodation is not over/under our living accommodation.  Anyway, they seem really nice and don't want breakfast until 8 a.m. which is good - I hate early mornings.

Wednesday was another day in the office for me after sorting out the Chiangs' breakfast, and a stroll along the beach at St Aubin sur Mer (about 4-5 km from the house) before dinner, tv and bed.  What an exciting life we lead!



Eve in the French office



  

Don't know how much work John is doing,
given the computer program he's running.

It's now Thursday and the Chiang's have just left for the day, so we have 1 hr of peace and quiet before I start work - can't wait until someone buys our UK house and I can retire!







Where do they get all the jambons from?

They love their festivals here in France, or any other reason for a get together - but where do they get all the jambons from? Back in June we had the 'mechoui' at a local farm. According to the dictionary, it is 'North Africal style barbecue, lamb roast or spit roast' and about 100+ of us ate a set meal (including copious amounts of wine, of course) in an open barn on the farm. There was also a tombola, 1st prize a 5.6kg smoked ham - and we won it! Then there was another for the orange tickets, and another for the red tickets. . .

The same happened last Sunday - Le Bourg Dun has a Repas Champetre, a rustic meal under tents on the green just behind the bar. It was here last year that I realised I really DIDN'T like andouillettes. It's a barbecue - sausage frites, ham frites, frites frites - and again they had a tombola, with jambon as first prize for the yellow tickets, another for the organge tickets, another for the blue! They just seemed to keep coming out of the refrigerated van - I wonder if the inside of the van was like the Tardis?

Anyway, a good time was had by all, and John and I returned to watch the grand prix (actually, doze through most of it - wine at lunchtime is a killer), decide not to do any work in the garden and basically laze the Sunday away.

Until, that is, I had the absolutely brilliant idea to go for a walk. There is a little path that runs from the back of the Mesnil campsite (where Carole & Martial have their restaurant) down to the sea, and we've been meaning to walk it for years now. So we did it. Very pleasant little constitutional of about 1/2 mile walk each way that took us about 30 mins and we felt very pleased with ourselves for the exercise, until that is we were watching the European Championship Athletics later that evening, in particular the women's 1500m (about 1 mile) which they did in 4 minutes! Still, they didn't stop to pick pea pods, or talk to the cows en route. Why is it that the flies absolutely adore cows? These were Cherolets, the big white cows raised for their meat and very prevalent around here. But on each one you could see the massive black stripe down (I suppose) their warmer stomach, which was the flies. It's understandable that we should get an influx of flies each night when the cows come back to the farm opposite.

Ah well, that's enough blue sky thinking for now.

So, it is tomorrow now and what's happened is it's raining. Just when I've got all the bedding from Ian, Yvonne, Jack & Sally's visit washed and waiting to be dried. Oh well, that's life. I hope it's raining at Hockenheim (the Grand Prix) because that will make the race this afternoon more interesting than it may otherwise be. But I don't want it to be raining in Paris for the end of the Tour de France, it would ruin the spectacle.

Still, we can't complain, the weather here in Normandy has been fantastic for about 90% of the time since we came over at the end of June. Apart from one day (when John was showing Yvonne et al around one of the local harbours and I was tied to the computer at home here - forgetting that I had washing out on the line) it has only rained at night, and by mid afternoon the sun has re-appeared.

I think it will put off any walk-ins for the Chambres d'hotes though. It's sod's law, the only potential walk-ins we had were when Ian & Yvonne were here and when we hadn't got the rooms re-made after they left. Now we are all ready to take money off the hordes, no-one's knocking on the door.

So, given the weather, it looks like a day of armchair sports, and then I've got more work/work to do to get the changes to the e-learning course on the Bribery Act 2010 done and over to India so they can start on the coding SOB their time. It's a shame you don't get overtime when you're freelance! Still, can't complain, working from the kitchen table here in France isn't a bad life. The only trouble is I worry so much that they think I'm not working, that I end up doing twice as much as if I was in the office. I must get a hold of myself and give myself a good shaking and talking to.

I'll try to see if I can upload some pictures in due course.

Bisous