Le Couvent Diary

It's hurling rain down in a waterfall. Ali and I have spent an hour mopping up the office which has beautiful, if completely ineffective, doors. These ancient crusty blue doors are full of holes and let in all weathers, but we're loathe to replace them with something modern that will scream at the rest of the house. Idem the windows. So when it really rains we have to circle bearing thick towels, mops, buckets and crossed fingers.

Last weekend was terrific, however. We spent three sunny days doing a fantastic dry-stone walling course just north of Montpellier. It's an hour from Roujan so we had a pretty early start, driving through the sunrise. On Sunday morning there was a huge dead wild boar lying in the outside lane of the autoroute. I doubt it would still have been there by the time the cops arrived. White vans were slowing down, the drivers imagining a long slow casserole for supper. 

Our fellow wall-makers were all French and worked for Credit Agricole bank. They were so charming I didn't have the heart to tell them we'd moved our accounts to another bank after being driven to distraction by CA's inefficiency. Credit Agricole (like all other huge institutions in France) has this excellent system that sponsors part of the cost of such courses for their employees. At least if the bank overcharges you or makes erroneous deductions you can rest assured that their employees will be able to stonewall. 

During the course we dismantled a collapsed wall of around 12 metres and rebuilt it from scratch to it's new former glory. We can't wait to get going on some projects in our vineyards. We have tons of stone, and most of it's flat, making it much easier. Watch out you volunteers, we have surprises in store!

It was a relief that Ali could come dry-stone walling. She'd spent the previous week horizontal after having fallen down the stairs whilst carrying the cat. Gouttiere got off scot free but Ali suffered two twisted and swollen ankles and a badly bruised and twisted knee. Thankfully she's walking OK-ish again now as were off on our hols in two days' time.

We will be flying from Toulouse to Heathrow, then on to JFK New York. We have the lovely Lee coming to dog/cat/hen/house-sit. The dogs adore him as he's around ten feet tall at least, and he plays with them. Unlike me, on both counts. They'll have a very good time, as long as the rain clears up. Thanks too, to all our pals who said they'd box and cox if we really couldn't find a dog-sitter. A thousand thanks to Lee for stepping up to the plate.

Just in case three cars weren't enough, we've just bought another. It was just too pretty to pass by, and I adore driving him. Ali will too, when she can bend her knee enough to use the clutch.

Marcel the Renault is 29 years and 7 months old. The age is important. The French government has just changed the classic car age from 25 to 30, so in changing his registration plates (which you have had to do here on the change of ownership since 1950) he has to have the yukky new-style modern plates for 5 months until his birthday next March when he can have the lovely old type again. Daft eh?