Monday 28th April to Sunday 4th May
Monday 28th April
Author: Jack
My bad day was followed by a bad night. I woke up countless times, each time after a bad dream. I particularly remember two dreams, both of which involved me sinking in a car. Only once did I recall that I managed to escape. Hope this wasn’t an omen.
Despite being up early we were still late for school. The school bus was just leaving but the driver very kindly stopped to let Rebecca on. I blame the clock on the cooker myself – definitely slow.
I had to go to Marmande this morning to get my VAT return sorted out at the ‘Centre de Gestion’. I was late there as well! Needless to say the calculator played a vital role but all went very smoothly and efficiently. The lady kept all my receipts so that she could fill in the return for me, and that was that. Amazingly simple.
After lunch it was straight out into the vineyard to carry on the removal of the water shoots. I spent about three hours doing this and by the time I was due to collect Rebecca I was totally exhausted. It’s going to take a long time to do the entire vineyard.
As I was soaking my feet in a bowl of cold water to try and soothe the aches and pains Anthony appeared in the guise of the pool man to give me my pool management lesson. After two hours the pool had been hoovered, I had had some basic instruction on what all the pipes, knobs and dials were for in the pump house and a lesson in what chemicals to use and why! By the time we had finished, the pool was much cleaner and I felt more confident about what I should be doing. However, time will tell.
The evening ended with a massive thunderstorm and lighting that lit up the entire sky. Could mean my day in the vineyard tomorrow may be in jeopardy.
Tuesday 29th April
Author: Jack
To save any further embarrassment with regard to my timekeeping we decided that I should run Rebecca straight to school today. I had to go to Terre du Sud anyway for yet more pool chemicals so it seemed to be a good idea all round.
Although it looked like it might rain again I decided, as there is so much to finish in the vineyard, to go out. I spent the entire day rubbing off the unwanted growth from the bottom of the vines. Absolutely exhausting, especially on the feet. Jen (my sister) suggested that I wore a different pair of shoes to spread out the areas of pain, so I wore my wellies – didn’t help at all. The sore bits from yesterday didn’t get any worse and I finished at the end of the day with a whole pile of new sore areas. So once again my feet ended up in a bowl of cold water. Must say this is very refreshing, especially with a whisky and dry ginger to hand!
Feeling refreshed I decided to tackle the sprayer again. I couldn’t
believe it could be that difficult. However it certainly was. However
after about an hour Beck and I managed to work it out. We filled it
up and I was off, sprayer safely strapped to my back. Death to all weeds
in the garden!
That evening there was yet another of those ‘get a new life’
programs on TV. This one was again focused on France, in fact somewhere
not far from us. I no longer find these programs that interesting and
especially when the people on it don’t seem to have a clue. They
couldn’t speak French at all, didn’t have jobs; no house
- so were renting, and three children! Brave or foolish? Iain phoned
while it was on. He’d been watching it too. He pointed out that
at least one of could speak French and one of us had a job! Not sure
that makes us any more sensible though; maybe just more cautious.
Wednesday April 30th
Author: Jack
We’re off to England tomorrow for a three day break so decide that, whilst I should be in the vineyard, as Beck is off school today, that I will work indoors. So I spend the morning turning up the hems of the new curtains in the utility room. And then decide to give the house a good clean so that it is nice and tidy on our return.
We finished the jobs by about 6.30 and then went off to Eymet for a meal at the Italian Pizza restaurant with Anthony and Jane. Food was excellent once again.
Thursday May 1st
Author: Jack
Our flight is 12.40 from Bergerac so we don’t have to leave till 10.30. Gives me plenty of time to get all the ironing done and ensure everywhere is spick and span. Give the new plants a good watering and hope they’ll survive till Sunday.
Bergerac is less of an airport, more of a second world war flying club. We leave the car on a grassed area near the helipad. No parking fees though! Not much to do when you’ve checked in apart from sit in the café and have a drink. A ten-yard stroll gets you from the café to the security check area for the ’departure lounge’. This consists of a small room with about twenty seats and a loo. We are unable to find a seat so pick a spot on the floor near the window. Unfortunately we, along with the other hundred odd passengers, have to spend two hours longer than expected in these conditions as the plane is late. Eventually they decide to open the door to the tarmac and let us out into the fresh air. We all hang around outside and eventually the plane arrives, we board and we’re off. Not a very good start for Ryanair’s first flight from Bergerac.
Sunday May 4th
Author: Jack
We arrive back at ‘home’ around 1 pm, home in quotes because I am not sure where home is at the moment. We have just spent three days back in what was home and which I still do call home. I am at a loss as to how to express the disorientation that I feel and I am not sure how long Iain and I can go on with this disjointed and snatched family life we now have. Rebecca, however, seems much more resilient. She has had a fantastic time back in England and thoroughly enjoyed herself. However she is not at all unhappy about returning to France.
First job was to remove the snake that greeted our return. Yippee, just the sort of thing I like doing. It was only very tiny, about 1 foot long and the thickness of an artists paint brush. Think it was an adder but have yet to verify this. It took me some time to catch it as I wasn’t planning on getting too close to it. I eventually managed to snare it in my state-of-the-art snake trap, our yellow dustpan, took it outside and threw it as far as I could! Beck watched from a safe distance the other side of a closed door!
First real job was to check and water the plants. They have all survived the three day drought. And then it’s on to mowing the grass. This is the first time that I have mowed the grass. It takes me about two and a half hours and by the end of it, even though it’s a sit-on mower, I am exhausted. Working in the heat didn’t help, nor did the less than efficient route that I took help. However practice makes perfect as they say. I was going to strim everywhere as well but decided to leave that pleasure for another day.
Beck and I then settled down to watch Lilo and Stitch and have a rest. After dinner, as it was quite cool, I decided to give the pool another sweep so that I could hoover it again tomorrow and hopefully end up, at last, with a fully operational pool. And remarkably when I checked the skimmers there wasn’t a dead animal to be seen, although plenty of dead flies. And there was just one dead lizard in the pool. Progress at last.
