So here we are again,
back in our second home and thrilled to be here. Our flight from Cape Town to
Paris was uncomfortable – almost as if we were driving over a gravel road all
the way, and neither of us got very much sleep. Then, on the second leg to Toulouse,
there really wasn’t time for any sleep so we arrived feeling pretty exhausted.
We were collected from the airport and driven to our car’s winter accommodation,
adding another hour to our travelling time and then we made our own way to the house.
The little car, bless it, started first time and ran without a hiccup. It was
filthy dirty, having stood either out of doors or in an old barn since we left
last year, so after a quick lunch, we went off to do some necessary grocery
shopping and to give the poor thing a bath. The rest of the afternoon was spent
setting up the telephone and internet connections , and we were both asleep by
8 pm that night.
Feeling completely
revived by a twelve hour sleep, we drove off to Peyrusse Vieille to renew contact with our friends
there. We were just in time to accompany Ady down to the church to ring the
bells where we discovered that her dog, Willi, has developed a new habit – that
of singing along, or perhaps we should call that ‘howling’ along. It’s really
quite funny to watch, as Willi watches carefully as Ady prepares to tug on the
bell-ropes and as soon as she starts, he starts to howl in time to the clanging
of the bells.
By Friday we were still
without a working gas stove and the telephone was proving to be temperamental. To
fix the phone we decided to try fitting new rechargeable batteries, and so far,
that appears to have solved the problem.
The stove was more difficult and the gas supply seemed to be erratic. Although
the days had been sunny so far, the actual temperatures had been just above freezing
and running out to the gas cylinders was no joke. We finally solved the problem
on Sunday after Neels had taken most of the system to pieces and brought bits
indoors to investigate.
On Saturday morning we
had gone over to my cousin’s apartment to install a new bathroom cupboard for
her and on the way back suddenly realised that we were driving through slowly
drifting snow. The temperature had been -2’ when we got up that morning and had
warmed up to 7’ by lunch-time, which was positively warm by comparison with
Sunday which showed well below freezing at 9 am and only registered zero at
lunch-time. Needless to say that we have not ventured very far from the house
today! A short while before lunch time we noticed that it was snowing very
lightly again.
Since we have been here,
a number of parcels of varying sizes have been arriving which has really
impressed us with the Postal Service. Our son Pieter has bought himself a Land
Rover in Spain which he will drive to us here at Espas so that Dad can help him
fit various accessories, and it is these accessories which have been pitching
up here. When we arrived there was a small carton inside the postbox which
completely filled the box, and which puzzled us until we found out that all the
postmen have a Master Key to the boxes for this very purpose. The next day a
van stopped at the gate so Neels went down to investigate and re-appeared with
something that looked just like a house door with a plank attached to it. The
following day a larger van backed into the garden and we went out to greet it with some trepidation,
only to be handed an A4 sized padded envelope! On Saturday when we finally
dragged ourselves out of our warm bed, there was a box leaning against the
front door and later the same day we found another box filling up the postbox.
Considering how rural our location is, we are amazed that all of these parcels
have been delivered right to the door. South Africa still has a long way to go!
The verandah thermometer showing -7 degrees
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