Not much to write about this week. We seem to have spent an awful amount of time getting to grips with the idiosyncrasies of the house and the appliances in it. To say nothing of the complete day spent watching videos! How totally decadent!
Last week while doing some ironing, I thought that the iron was performing rather badly and then discovered that it was getting cooler rather than hotter. Thinking that I had overheated it, or something, I put it aside meaning to return later and try again. Well, later became the next day but before I tried ironing again, I thought I would put in a load of washing. I also thought that that I could remember how to operate the washing machine but, try as I might, I couldn’t get it to switch on. Time to call the Handy Man! In no time at all he had established that the earth leakage fuse had tripped, probably something to do with the water in the steam iron, and the washing machine was soon sloshing away with vigour. The iron, without water, also worked, so that chore was completed too.
Next thing to misbehave was the gas stove. We are used to cooking with gas and are not afraid of it, but found it very mystifying when the stove would not light, in spite of having been used a number of times since we arrived. Perhaps the pipes had frozen, we thought, although by now it really wasn’t cold enough for that. However, the Handy Man came to the rescue again and took all the pipes apart but could find nothing wrong anywhere. Still no gas supply to the stove though. Eventually we pulled the stove away from the wall and found a sort of manually operated valve behind it. This was twiddled a few times and, hey presto! We had gas. Since there was no rhyme or reason for any of this, we didn’t know if the ‘cure’ would last, and as Sod’s Law would have it, it didn’t. The next day we had to twiddle the valve again, and again on the third day. Since then everything has worked in the scullery and in the kitchen.
The next to go was the television set. We had been lent the DVD of ‘Downton Abbey’ which I had been looking forward to watching since before our arrival. We switched the channel from normal television to audio/visual and suddenly we had nothing – no picture and no sound. Anxiously, we pushed all the buttons on the remote in turn but nothing happened. Suddenly, after a few more frantic stabs at the buttons, we had sound. Sound, but no picture. We were now getting really worried. After all, we are only borrowing someone else’s house and belongings and really didn’t want to have damaged the TV set. Or to have inadvertently changed some vital settings. There was nothing for it but that the Handy Man had to crawl in behind the set and see what he could see. He moved some wires and there was a flash of picture! So he laboriously took out all the plugs, cleaned them and put them back. Hooray! We had sound and picture. Then we were too nervous to watch the DVD!
Meanwhile the small TV set in the main bedroom had also gone on the blink, but as he was now so good at fixing these things, Mr Handy Man had it going again in a flash. We had spent the better part of a day getting everything working as it should. The next day we spent the better part of the day watching all seven hours of ‘Downton Abbey’ and didn’t feel at all guilty!
Earlier in the week we had been very honoured to receive an invitation from our friend in Peyrusse Vieille, Ady, to have lunch with her. Did she ever do us proud! She had laid the table beautifully and had even fanned the table napkins and put them in the wine glasses. It all looked very pretty. We started with a generous glassful of the local aperitif, Floc, which is a bit like sherry. With this, we had some thin slices of a salami-like sausage topped with a blob of what could have been feta cheese. Then the soup was served – a clear vegetable broth with plenty of vegetables cooked in it. There were beans, carrots, potatoes, onion and garlic. After the soup there was a magnificent roast chicken served with wild mushrooms, picked by Ady herself. I admit to being a bit nervous about them but they were simply delicious and we all still live! Ady has a wonderfully careless, medieval attitude to carving a chicken and it was not so much cut as torn to pieces. Who cares? It was yummy!
All the while our glasses were being filled and refilled with a delicious red wine, until we just had to decline. There was still another course to come – dessert, and an enormous chocolate tart appeared on the table. I estimate it could have served at least eight people but Ady thought otherwise. She quickly quartered it and handed a huge piece to each of us. Of course, it was delicious, but wow! What a meal for the middle of the day. Finally she gave us tiny cups of black coffee which was good idea after all the wine. When we took our leave a short while later, she made it quite plain that she was off to have a few zz’s. We, poor things, still had to drive home. At least we didn’t have to walk it!
Oh, and by the way.......if any of you have tried to Skype us without success, we are not ignoring you. The company from whom we bought the data bundle for our modem seems to block Skype calls, no doubt hoping that callers will use their mobile phones instead. When,and if, we get different internet access, you will be the first to know!
The pictures I have include this week are of a delightful inn sign in Saint Mont; a general view of the countryside at present; and a novel use for the lower section of a water reservoir
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