Enjoy the day!

It’s been a while I know. Here’s the update. First we took the TGV down to Montpelier to experience a ‘karting’ weekend with my father. It was a karting competition in Ganges where both my father and half brother were competing, and since it has become such a large part of their lives we figured we should go and check out what it’s all about. It was fun. Lots of revving motors, greasy hands and men fixated with speed, the buildup was long, but the final competitions on the Sunday afternoon were thrilling. Both dad & Lucas did well, I was very impressed. Michelle took the train home on Sunday night and I continued back to Fabrezan with the family until Thursday evening. It was nice, very relaxing, I only had one request to deliver and that was to visit Jacqueline Bories at Les Ollieux Romanis to buy some of her excellent wine which we did on Wednesday morning, and on Thursday evening I boarded the TGV content that I had seen Lucas and all his 8 years, finished reading 2 books, having eaten excellent meals and having drunk some excellent wine. 5 hours later I was home in Paris.

Last week-end was a big one. Michelle got back from Glasgow on Friday morning, and Friday evening we were invited to attend Maxim’s second last evening show. Max has been in Paris performing his one-man show since late September 2006, we met him back in December and today he returns to Quebec. It’s been awhile coming. We’ve been meaning to go for some time, but more often than not it’s turned out we had some fun nights and afternoons here with Maxim and we hadn’t managed to get to the show. We went along with JD & M and all had dinner after the show with Max at Cornelius (who serve a great Cote du Boeuf). The show was great, very very funny and wonderfully for me I managed to understand most of it (being as it was in French) – he’s going to be performing at Juste Pour Rire in Montreal this summer, if you get a chance go along, he really is very funny – just tell him we sent you!

That was a late night, then Saturday we fiddled about in that half-hung-over state before we welcomed Shay, whom we met in Atrani 18 months ago, and her sister & brother who she was travelling with. We had an aperitif here before heading out to the Bistro Victories nearby for a good cheap bistro meal with plenty of house red. Next stop was the Comptoir du Commerce for another bottle of wine with all our neighbourhood waiters, then my favorite after-hours bar Cariatides where we stopped for 1 or 4 ‘petit punchs’ and managed (just) to leave before sunrise. As you can imagine Sunday was another half hung-over kind of day, only we had to be up and about to do the groceries before Paris shuts down at 13h00…. Sunday night C came over for a thrown together pasta dinner and to watch a movie on telly which turned out to be atrocious.

It was a huge weekend. Not one to be repeated for awhile to come.

Then as if we hadn’t consumed enough, Monday night we had a dinner party here for 5 1/2 to farewell Max. All the regular crew plus Max’s beautiful daughter, it was fine send-off and lots of fun, good wine, reasonable food and plenty of Quebec vs France anecdotes, much to Mathilde’s chagrin I’m sure.

Since then I’ve not been doing much. Eyes glued to the screen, trawling the sites for hotel rooms, riads and tourist visits to be done. I’m working my way through the list of tour organising I have to do for our first lots of visitors this Spring….
March: Brittany
April: Reims/Mont St Michel/Paris (possibly Barcelona)
May: Amalfi/Marrakesh/Dijon/Strasbourg/London
As well as Corsica in July…
Then I start all over again for the August & October planned visits.

It takes time, and lots of it. Michelle was in Stuttgart Tue/Wed and then missed her plane home so stayed another night and should arrive home this afternoon before we go out to a Corinne Bailey Rae concert at the Grand Rex tonight, and tomorrow night it’s the weekend all over again. Who says not working is boring?

With any luck things will calm down a bit and I’ll return to being a little more consistent….

We both have that to look forward to!