Our week exploded with a bang on Thursday when Tilly arrived
to spend a week with us. Up until then everything had gone along very sedately
and fairly slowly. Then on Thursday we had to go and register with our new GP
who is divine! He had been recommended by a couple of people, mainly because he
spoke English, but apart from that he turned out to be charming and sympathetic
too – just what I want a doctor to be. Unfortunately, he is very popular and
probably overbooked most of the time, so we had to read the magazines in the
waiting room for quite a while which made us quite late leaving and in the end,
Tilly got to the house in her hire car from Toulouse, before we did. But it
wasn’t as if she was a first-time guest, and was prepared to sit and wait until
we got home. It was lovely to see her
again and the evening passed quickly, chatting about all sorts of things.
On Friday we went into Villefranche as there were a number
of matters that Tilly had to attend to that couldn’t be done in Mallorca (Spain) and there
was shopping that we needed to do, all of which we managed to get done before
lunch. Aah! We thought. A nice lazy
afternoon. Oh wow! Did we ever get that wrong!
I had vaguely mentioned at some stage that the two
downstairs rooms were in the wrong places and needed to be changed around.. I
knew it was a huge job as it involved moving all the heaviest pieces of
furniture from one room into another, and the doors are not extra wide. Anyway,
Tilly somehow heard about this idea and thought it was a good one, and next
moment it was all go! We heaved and hauled, huffed and puffed until the job had
been done – almost. Tilly, being who she is, was not content with just moving
the chairs and tables around. Oh no! The carpets were apparently also wrong and
had to be moved, or rather turned, around, which involved a lot of planning
ahead. Eventually it all started to take shape and by then end of the day we
had a lounge where the living room had been and a really stunning dining room
where the lounge had been. You will see from the pictures that it all looks very nice now. And
seems to have created masses more space.
A few things had escaped being moved on Friday afternoon, so
on Saturday it was back to the grindstone to finish off. Then it was all done
and the end result is delightful.
Saturday evening was the rugby game between France and
Australia and we had been persuaded that we just had to see it on the big screen
in the pub in Villeneuve, which sounded quite exciting, so off we trotted in
good time to have supper first and watch afterwards. There was no rush, as the
game only started at 9 pm. The pub was crowded but not really noisy which
surprised us. No loud cheering when France scored or boos when the Wallabies
did. In the end , France lost by two points which was a bit of a let-down, but
it had been a good evening out. Strangely enough, there had been only one
English voice shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’. I wonder who that can have been!
On Sunday, we had arranged to go to a village ‘do’, a
dinner, in fact. Thank goodnesss Tilly was with us and we didn’t have to face a
hall full of French-speaking strangers on our own. The poor villagers though, couldn’t
make our relationship. First they thought Tilly was Neels’ wife; then they thought she was our daughter; then
grand-daughter and finally because of a grammatical error she ended up being
our daughter-in-law! We didn’t even try to explain until a bit later when she
met the mayor outside, and he had realised that she wasn’t our daughter-in-law,
but assumed there would be a wedding soon and offered her the use of the Salle
de Fetes for the reception!! How we chortled.
Apart from this small misunderstanding at the start, the
event went off splendidly with plenty of speechifying and explaining where all
the money has gone that they have collected over the year, with much jubilation
at the fact that we have money left in the kitty. Our tickets for the meal cost
us all of two euros each, so we didn’t know what to expect but in the end we
had a wonderful meal.
It started with us being offered pieces if quiche and/or
pizza and an aperitif. And again. And again. Until we wondered if there was
other food coming. There was, but before that the mayor came and stood next to
us, to make a speech, we thought. What he was about to do though, was to
introduce us and another family threesome to the other inhabitants of the
commune. At that point, Tilly had slipped outside for a moment, so missed the
moment that she got introduced as our daughter-in-law! Oops!
Then we all took our seats and helped ourselves to a crisp
salad with a delicious dressing. Wine and water was on the table and it flowed
easily into the glasses and down the throats of the assembled crowd. The huge
salad bowls were removed and replaced with giant bowls of the most delicious
cassoulet we have ever had. Baskets of
home-baked bread were dotted around on the tables and it is definitely the done
thing to wipe your plate clean with a chunk of bread!
Cheese came next, and more red wine. Our new found friends
said it just wouldn’t be right to eat cheese without red wine, so what could we
do but comply.
Dessert was custard filled profiteroles accompanied by
champagne. The choux pastries were melt-in-the-mouth good and although they
were initially rationed out at two each, the trays came around again and anyone
who still had space could have more. By which time we were all so full we could
barely move. Our neighbours from behind us were there and sat next to us and
were so friendly and chatty, that we were pleased of the opportunity to get to
know them.
The final course of the meal was a fruit course and two little girls came around with baskets of clementines and everyone could help themselves.
All in all it was great chance to meet other people from
around here and to be recognised by them.
Lots of fun, but thank goodness for Tilly who smoothed our
way by translating where necessary which was often.
.
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