I can’t believe the holiday has come & gone already! So much anticipation…& now it is all over. We did have a great time though & really enjoyed the cruise very much. We both miss the sea quite a lot, as we were both born & brought up within a few miles of the coast (me in the NE of England & Geoff in the NW) & lets face it the Auvergne has many qualities but it is a flipping long way from the seaside! So, we have had a great time watching (& even swimming in) the lovely sea, walking on beaches, ogling fancy yachts in pretty harbours & just generally loving the boat ballets we saw from high up on the deck as we watched the ship dock in various ports. The drive to & from Valencia in Spain was a bit further than we had thought & was not helped by some pretty duff instructions from Google maps which even took us to the industrial port of Valencia which was a good ¾ hour drive from the cruise terminal port! The ambiance in the car that day was not particularly good I can tell you! However the cruise itself was wonderful, very relaxing, with excellent weather & was just what we needed. Our house & animals were well looked after by the Baxter family who also repainted the shutters whilst they were here – bonus :) So all in all a very good break…but it went so quickly! Now we are struggling to get back into routine & with both of us having arrived home with a nasty little cold (I blame the air con in the ship) we are suffering post holiday blues big style.
Mind you, I am not exactly overrun with work just now. The B&B & the gite are totally empty, much to my annoyance especially as we are still having some nice weather & the autumn colours are truly beautiful. I really hate the French attitude to holiday periods sometimes…July & August only. Such a shame to miss all this beauty “out of season”…but I am not expecting much change anytime soon :( We did have a couple of B&B guests before we went away though which was good. One of the couples were “returners” who had been here in May to do the Trail d`Amethyste & who have become very enamoured with the region. They told us they would like to come back again at Christmas & were a bit disappointed when we said we would be in the UK…but then I had a brainwave! I will need house & animal sitters at Christmas… so now they are coming to do that for us! Good job Bounty was on best behaviour whilst they were here! Sorted :)
Another thing that we got sorted before we went away was the Gites de France inspection of the gite. We had toyed with the idea of joining G de F when we first started up, but had always thought it was a bit too regimented for us really. However seeing as how I am very keen to try & extend our miserably short season here, we have decided to give them a go. We had the usual “fun” of having the gite inspected by a really miserable looking lady who of course, as usual, ignored all the extra & nice things in there, looking only for what didn’t fit their criteria. I hate these inspections with a vengeance! And why can’t the inspectors be a bit more pleasant?? If I treat my guests like that, I would not have any! Anyway, by smiling through gritted teeth, we are to be “granted” 2 epis status, but only after we change a perfectly good fridge (deemed not big enough), change the shower cabinet (again not big enough), put a bigger mirror in the bathroom, & best of all paint all the insides of the kitchen cupboards including the one where the gas bottle (& nothing else) is housed & the space under the kitchen sink (used for storing cleaning materials)! Sometimes you just want to scream! We are now costing up all this but will probably go ahead. I only hope it will pay off in the long run as at the moment the gite is becoming a money drain.
Being so quiet again has meant that we have been able to get out & about a bit. I had a wonderful meal & met up with my good friends Linda & Tottie, at our mutual friend Judith’s house at the beginning of the month. As usual Judith did us proud with a fantastic spread…so much so that none of us felt much like eating again for a few days! That she loves cooking is very obvious :) Geoff & I also took advantage of a free entry visit for people involved in tourism, to a local(ish) ceramics museum at Leroux. It was very interesting – much more than I’d originally thought it would be, & will definitely be going on our list of things to do for our visitors. I keep telling all the local tourist attractions whenever I get the opportunity that it is a good idea to offer these visits as it is only by seeing some of these places for yourself that you can recommend them to visitors. They seem to have started to listen at last!
I also went out for a meal with my art class after the AGM which heralds the re-start of the class after the summer break. Normally these meetings (as is always the case here) drag on for ages with very little actually being decided, but because we were going off to Issoire afterwards to eat, this meeting was blissfully short! Excellent! The meal was excellent too, in a lovely little restaurant which had originally been recommended to us by some of our guests! I know I have said this before but we are so lucky to have so many really good restaurants near here…sometimes we are genuinely spoiled for choice.
So now, its bye-bye to October. The clocks went back last weekend so we are really heading into the winter period now. I hate the darker evenings…it gets dark here at 6.30 now. The weather is continuing to be nice, but there is a definite chill in the air, especially in the morning & evening. We have started to light the fire each evening now as it gets cold when you are sitting watching TV. The garden is also beginning to look a bit sorry for itself too – although we are still picking raspberries every day & there are still a few tomatoes to be had. we are missing our ex neighbour Paul`s pumpkins this year though. He always used to leave us presents of fruit & veg when he had excess & we miss this since he sold his house. No free pumpkin soup for us then this year & for the first time in many years no halloween lantern either :( The leaves are falling off the trees faster than we can rake them up so we have definitely turned the corner I feel. November starts off here in France with a Jour Ferie (bank holiday) which is quickly followed by another on the 11th so we shall see if that brings us any last minute bookings. I live in hope! It would be just the thing I need to put the post holiday blues to rest once & for all!