Toulouse & Party Time

It's been a busy week and what a great surprise there was waiting for me at the end of it. We finally finished plastering the guest bedroom & en-suite & applied the first coat of paint. It's amazing what a liberal coat of good quality paint will cover. Although we haven't got round to applying the gloss paint we have plenty in stock. When we headed back to the UK before Christmas we were laden down with wine & duck breasts. We returned with gloss paint & Branston pickle which is a fair swap when you consider how expensive both commodities are out here. Perhaps this could be a little side line & we can open a stall at St Antonin-Noble-Val selling Dulux & Crosse & Blackwell's best. Stephané Regourd was back on Tuesday to fit the shower cubicle in our en-suite & said his father & brother would call early on Wednesday to do the second fix which would then enable me to fit the final piece of plasterboard (whoopee) & tile it. All went well until it came to grouting. I weighed out the grout left over from tiling the shower enclosures & then opened the new pack that Barbara had bought the previous day & poured into the bucket. I should have checked the label first as the new pack was a lovely shade of gris! So it was off to VDR for a pack of blanc grout.

On Friday Barbara had been invited to attend a meeting of French & English women to listen to a talk on reflexology. It was an enjoyable afternoon and a great way of avoiding doing the painting. She also found out some information about the French lessons for foreigners held in VDR, a course we really must attend. Next week she's off to a gathering of French & ex-pats from Portugal, Holland, & the UK to build her French language skills.

I have a very special birthday coming up and Barbara had arranged a night away in Toulouse. We'd decided to take the train & arrived at Najac station just before 9:00 on a cold & frosty Saturday morning & 90 minutes later we were in la Ville rose. Although we'd already had breakfast Barbara insisted that we should head straight for 'Paul', a patisserie at the station & have coffee & croissants. It was then time for a visit to the toilet which was hardly surprising given the amount of coffee we'd consumed. Barbara now wanted to go & check the return train times, this despite having already asked the guard if the trains would be running as normal on a Sunday. By now I was beginning to think we were going to spend most of the weekend in the train station. It soon became clear why there had been some delaying tactics as two very familiar faces appeared in front of me. Rebecca & Matthew had conspired with their mum to give me an early birthday present & had arrived on the morning flight from Gatwick. They'd all worked very hard to keep it a secret & I was in a state of shock for a least the next couple of hours. We were all staying at the Crown Plaza Hotel in the centre of the city on the Place du Capitole & had great view of the town hall which, as is normal for French government buildings, magnificent. Barbara had booked us a Crown Club room which entitled us to complimentary drinks & nibbles and a continental breakfast. The hotel receptionist was very helpful & when we asked if we could take guests in to the Club room he said that he was sure no one would object. Toulouse is a busy bustling city & we had a great day wandering round the shops & stopping at many of the numerous cafés & bars. One of the may shops we called in was the Nespresso Boutique and despite asking for coffee in our best French the shop assistant replied in perfect English describing the coffee we'd ordered as 'sweet but with woody notes and ideal for a short espresso which is not too strong'. I know it's a good excuse but sometimes you wonder why bother learning French. We'd all decided that we would try & find a proper French restaurant for our evening meal & after clocking up a few more kilometres we landed at Le Bon Vivre and it turned out to be a great choice. There was an extensive selection of local dishes including cassoulet & of course the ubiquitous canard. The atmosphere was great, the food outstanding, the wine competitive and the waiters friendly & helpful & I would certainly recommend a visit next time you're in Toulouse.

Fortunately, as Rebecca & Matthew's flight wasn't until 9:00 in the evening, Sunday was a lovely sunny day & we were able to take a long walk along the river Garonne, call in at local market and sample plenty of coffee along the way. I did try & get everyone to try out the hire bikes which are located all over the city but, despite it being my special weekend, they declined & we continued exploring the city on foot. Our train back, which was packed with students heading back to college all of them it seemed with PSP's and all of them exceptionally polite, was just after 6:30 and we left R & M at the station having had a really great birthday weekend.

We weren't the only ones working over the Christmas & New Year period. The builder we'd organised to make the window openings in the barn arrived as promised on the day we left for the UK. Thanks to Gilly we knew he'd been working hard in our absence and the photographs she'd emailed to us showed how well things were progressing. Seeing the work he'd done in the flesh only went to endorse our delight at how the barn looked. There was a great view from the opening in what will eventually be the living room & the sunlight flooded through the double doors that will open onto our bedroom. There's a lot of work to be done on the barn but looking at those window surrounds we should some day have a really good looking property. The Regourds had also been busy and both en-suite bathrooms had shower trays, toilets & hand basins in place. It was time to get tiling & grouting. It's along time since I did any tiling but after a slow start both showers were completed by Wednesday lunchtime & we were off to the Regourd's to let them know we were back in the country & ready for them to do the next fix. Friday morning & Stephané arrived to fit the shower in what will be the guest room, it meant that on Saturday morning we'd be able to pull the 'tardis' down & finish the plaster boarding in our en-suite.

The thought of finally having our own bath spurred us into action & by 10:00 the temporary shower cubicle we'd been using since May was down and in the cellar ready for the next project. Now all that was left was to plaster the hundreds of joints in the plasterboards, some of which were anything but flat. We'd managed to do quite a bit of work in our en-suite already & after just a little patching up Barbara was able to rub the plaster down & apply the first coat of paint, while I continued to plaster the guest bedroom and en-suite.

I did find time to go to the recycling site with all the plasterboard offcuts and unlike the numerous trips I'd made to the tip in Tunbridge Wells I was greeted with a 'Good & Healthy New Year' and hand shake. I was then helped to unload the trailer and place the items in the correct skips, a complete contrast to the gentlemen in Kent who said 'put it all in there mate'. Sunday morning was glorious & we couldn't resist taking an hour off to pop in to Najac for bread, a coffee and a croissant. We were a bit taken aback when we entered the local café, there was a distinct lack of smoke. The ban on smoking in cafés, bars & restaurants had come into force on 1st January and we were surprised to see everyone abiding by the law. Despite it being pretty cold there were half a dozen people smoking outside, all of them English!

Must go, Jamie's 'Incredible roasted shoulder of lamb with smashed veg & greens' is on the table waiting for me and it's accompanied by a rare treat in France, a bottle of Rioja. Aldi's best at €3.76 per bottle. Expensive!

Back Home

After one month and a day and over 3,700 miles we're finally back home. We've had a hectic few weeks and a really enjoyable time but we are looking forward to spending a night in our own bed. Hope you've all recovered from the excess' of Christmas & New Year and are all back hard at it.

We spent Christmas at Rebecca & Alan's in Ealing and it was then up to Manchester for New Year. On the 27th December we'd arranged a night out with some friends we used to go to a pub quiz with. It was good to catch up and we visited a local restaurant that has been a legend in the north west for over 40 years. It's over 15 years since we were last at Smithills Coaching House in Bolton but little had changed. Even the prices hadn't moved all that much & Mr Pickwick's mixed grill of a pork & lamb chop, liver, sausage, rump steak, black pudding, gammon, mushrooms, peas & chips was excellent value at only £12.50! With that under our belts we didn't need to eat again until 2008 but on Sunday we did a little more visiting & had an excellent meal at R & J's with some of their friends, another great night & now all that weight we'd lost working hard was back on. Thanks to I & J where we had a great New Year's eve and for putting up with us once again. As always they made it like home from home & made us very welcome.

New Years day and it was off to sunny Blackpool to stay with Barbara's mum for a couple of nights & was informed on arrival that she had a small job for me. I'd been sending copies of the blog to Beryl in the post but she decided that it was time she got on the information super highway & bought a laptop. Off to the computer store it was to buy a computer & set it up ready for broadband which she'd already organised. So hopefully by the time this gets posted Beryl will be surfing the net! Another lovely meal at J & D's on New Years day. Wednesday it was a flying visit to the dentist in Bury and then it was time to head south again. The appointment was late in the day and it would mean that we'd end up getting to Tunbridge Wells fairly late so we took the opportunity to stop off on the way & visit Oxford. First time we'd been & although we only spent a couple of hours wandering round it's somewhere we'll definitely visit again.

Holiday over & it was time to return to the flat in Tunbridge Wells & get on with some plasterboarding & painting. What a change! So we could spend the limited time we had available working we decided to stay at the flat and although the facilities were basic our first night went reasonably well it was only on the second night when the inflatable mattress sprung a leak & had to be re-inflated every 90 minutes. What a wonderful nights sleep we had but it did enable us to finish off the work and head back to R & A's on Friday. It was my Aunt's 80th birthday and we were attending a surprise birthday at Chez Gérard in Convent Garden. It had a superb menu & we had one of the best French meals we've had since moving to France. Back to Tunbridge Wells to finish off & then it was time to head for the channel.

Typical of French motorways they were very quiet & we made good progress and we spent the night at a €30.00 hotel where you check in by putting your credit card in a machine & getting a printed slip with your door key code printed on it. It was good value and lying on the bed (there were no chairs) watching the film Magic in French made an excellent end to our road trip.