It has been five very long months since we left Les Terraces on a sleepy Sunday morning at the beginning of October and each day that has passed has been quietly checked off the mental calendar.  We didn’t dare consider counting down until we’d booked the flights back, which we did in January.  But then we were still thinking in months.  We’re now ticking off the weeks until our departure, and before we know it we’ll finally be down to days.  Yippee.  There’s so much to be looking forward to.

My parents have just returned from 2 weeks at the house.  They kindly made time to go down so that Robin could rip out the appallingly bad shower installation done by our cowboy contractor and his sub-contractors in the ground floor bathroom.  Even he was stunned by what he found once he started ripping the shower out …… no bedding for the shower tray and drainage that went “uphill” instead of down were the two most egregious failures.  There were many more.  However, the good news is that we now have a bright, spacious and swanky new shower that doesn’t leak into the hall.  Thank you very, very much Robin for all of your hard work and expertise.  Trudi says that the shower is lovely.  Can’t wait to see and photograph it ourselves.

The weather in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande has improved significantly in the last ten days.  I have to say that much as we wanted to be back there sooner we’re not sad to have missed the wicked cold described in the last post.  We will be sufficiently challenged by the wide range of temperatures that we will experience upon our retun later this month with night-time lows as low as -2°C and highs of 21°C.  That’s a pretty wide range and means that we’ll be wearing lots of layers.

We’re heartened by the number of bookings that we have for this year.  We’re far from being fully booked, but we are pleased to have received a fairly steady stream of enquiries …… please keep them coming, folks!  Hope to see you soon.