I’d really like a week where nothing happens. One where I don’t have to do anything but potter around the garden and snooze by the pool. Instead, I seem to spend most of my days fixing, glueing or cleaning out something disgusting and I can’t even blame the woofers. It doesn’t help that, apart from a one minute sprinkle on Friday night, we haven’t had a drop of rain so I’m still dragging the hose around the garden every morning before sun-up. Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live but I do wish those pesky Gods would let up every once in a while.
Having said all that, I did get to actually go out beyond the village walls this week with friends. Like everywhere else in the world (almost), Carcassonne was back in post-Covid festival spirit and hosting a few weeks of summer concerts. For those that don’t know this area of France, Carcassonne is most famous for its medieval citadel, known as ‘La Citié‘ , which is perched above the town. If you ever watched Kevin Costner in ‘Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves’, that castle is the one inside the walls. The citadel is filled with shops and bars lining narrow paths, sort of Harry Potter-ish, filled to the brim with tourists over the summer months and in the heart of it all is the amphitheatre where concerts are held. Our girl, Pip, had managed to get us front row seats to see a number of these shows and the first on Monday was John Legend. Now I will admit to only knowing a couple of his songs but this man really knew how to wow an audience, I thoroughly enjoyed myself even if the queue to get out of the car park afterwards was almost as long as the concert itself. We had chosen to swing our hips on the night before the Tour de France left Carcassonne.
If only the rest of the week could have kept me humming along but no, that would have been a miracle. Knowing that the rest of the family would be arriving for their holidays and the pool in a few weeks, I rang Laetitia up at the vineyard and ordered a few cases of wine. Her place is only a couple of kilometres up from us so I dutifully hopped in Josy Jeep and drove up the hill to collect my purchases. Laetitia has become a great friend so we chatted for a while before she asked me to bring the car up to the door so we could load it up. It was at this point that Josy decided to tell me that she had a puncture in the back wheel, she has one of those posh dashboard screens that tells you everything even if you really didn’t want to know. Laetitia was mortified as apparently I wasn’t the first visitor to pop a tyre and her protests had fallen on deaf ears at the Mayor’s office. I assured her that I would call Denis as soon as I hobbled back home which I did and after having removed my wheel under the scorching heat of the afternoon sun, he took me down to the local garage to order a new one. Now, I don’t miss much about London but where is a Kwik-Fit when you need one? I hadn’t even realised that my Jeep didn’t have a spare wheel (I had assumed that it would be under the car) as it is a new model and they just don’t make them like the used to and guess what, my particular tyre wasn’t available anywhere until the end of next week. After several phone calls and my temper on the edge of doing something similar to my tyre, Jeep promised me one by Wednesday. And since, Louise my neighbour, knows their boss, I don’t think they’ll let me down. In the meantime, poor Josy is sitting on a jack in the driveway looking very sorry for herself. I would have gone for a swim to cool down in the pool but the current water temperature is 32 degrees so not exactly refreshing for the stress levels.
Louise’s 16 year old dog died yesterday. She came over to tell me, tears rolling down her face. He died in her arms at home which must be a little bit of comfort and Denis will bury him in the field opposite where all of Louise’s other dogs now rest in peace. The only problem for Louise was what to do with his body until tomorrow but we found a solution and he is now safely bundled up in a bag and boxed in our chest freezer – it was the neighbourly thing to do.
Having had a wild night yet again at Le Petit Bistro Friday night knees-up listening to Felix’s fabulous harmonica duets with the local guitarists, the drains blocked up again yesterday. The driveway stank so I had to don the Marigolds, lift up the manhole covers and remove the disgusting debris. Again. Unfortunately this time my efforts were in vain and we ended up having to call out the professional de-cloggers who having been successful, told us that there was a problem but they didn’t know where in the system so need to send a camera down. I for one, will not be viewing the footage……
“Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it” (Lily Tomlin)
Widow plus woofs 