Yep, you guessed it. After all, we are in France and the tradesmen are notorious, as well all know. Our builder didn't appear on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ...... He's now nearly 2 weeks overdue. John and I keep popping around the corner to the square to see if his Bobcat was there and the men diligently heaving the new beams through the windows. No such luck. We are getting a little frustrated, but having said that we know he's a great builder and will do an excellent job, once he gets started that is.
Anyway, we've been hunting him down. We've been to his depot three times and missed him every time. Once he was driving his truck in the opposite direction so we did a U-turn as soon as we could but lost him in the traffic ahead. Not to worry, we walked to our square this evening and there he was sitting in the corner of one of the restaurants. John pointed 'pointedly' at him through the window and I got him in a headlock when he came out. We both thought he was looking pretty sheepish. "Vous-commencez demain Monsieur Freitas?" "Non, mais je vais commencer lundi et j'aurai tout l'équipe la, et pour tout le semaine!" (You will be starting tomorrow Mr Freitas? No, but I'll be starting on Monday and have the whole team there for the entire week). His slightly feeble excuse was that the restaurateurs in the square didn't like his bobcat coming in and potentially messing up their table seating for lunch. That didn't quite stack up when the restaurant owners he was talking to told us they had no problems with it! They are on our side. Anyway, everyone is now happy and we can hopefully look forward to a definite start on Monday. That means no work on the place tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday but John will spend the time working hard on computer stuff.
We have a number of friends arriving in town next week so it will be good to try and get ahead of our work a little if we can. One couple is from Aussie (ex-Rhodesian) and two are English couples. Everyone is here at some point over summer but this is the first time some of them will be here for the cherry festival. It is a big draw-card.
I have to say we've had a wonderful time with friends here. We very often catch up for drinks at Bar Pablo or at someone's place. Yesterday we entertained a couple here for lunch at 12.30 and we finally wrapped up a great time together at 5pm. They live much further up the valley and have lived there semi-permanently for the last 12 years (instead of London). This was the lovely couple we were supposed to spend New Year's Eve with last year but we had to opt out because we had horrendous colds.
Other than socialising John and I have had a pretty quiet start to the week. On Wednesday, after seeing the builder wasn't going to turn up, we jumped in the car and headed to Girona in Spain. It's only 1½ hours away by the normal roads or one by toll roads and for a week in May every year it turns on an amazing floral display, or so we were told. When we arrived we were expecting to see lots of fresh floral displays but it turned out to be more floral art, i.e. using all sorts of media based on a floral theme.
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Girona is a gorgeous town in its own right and we spent a wonderful time wandering along the old city walls, peeping into little courtyards and generally enjoying the flavour of the place. Because of the floral festival the place was absolutely packed with visitors but, as you do, we happened to spot our friends from Céret in one of the streets just as we arrived. We ended up spending a great time with them, including a lovely leisurely Spanish lunch in one of the main squares. It was a lovely relaxing time, and just what we came to Europe to experience. Il était parfait. (It was perfect).
Now back home, a beer in hand and relaxing. We stopped off at a Spanish supermarket and stocked up on a few essential items before we re-crossed the border. Cans of beer (in a 24 pack) cost only 32 centimes (less than NZ60c). It makes much more sense to drink these at home with friends than go to Bar Pablo and pay about €2.80 for a tiny beer. We also stocked up on the odd bottle of wine at €1 a throw. Not sure what it will be like but surely worth the punt?
