Sunday 22 August - Saturday 29 August
Delia went to the the church here in Neffiès on Sunday morning. We did nothing much for the rest of the day. It was very hot.
On Monday again we didn't do very much, except that I ordered a new camera, because the lens movement on the old one no longer worked properly. I'd tried all the suggestions I could find on the internet with no luck. What I ordered (at around 4:40 pm) was a Sony DSC-W350 (14.1 MP, 4x zoom, Carl Zeiss lens etc). I couldn't find a compact digital camera with a viewfinder and just hope that the screens are brighter now than in 2007 when I bought the last one.
On Tuesday we had an appointment at our bank in Pézenas to see the man who looks after our account, to ask his advice about whether we can transfer our existing house loan to another house. The simple answer is yes, although the notaire will need to be involved. We also asked various other questions, but he basically put our minds at ease about our project. We went into an estate agent, the one that Jody used to work from. We met a nice young British woman called Emma Weaver who gave us some sensible advice. We then went shopping at Carrefour in Pézenas, for a change and because it's a bit bigger than the Intermarché. Not a huge success.
On Monday again we didn't do very much, except that I ordered a new camera, because the lens movement on the old one no longer worked properly. I'd tried all the suggestions I could find on the internet with no luck. What I ordered (at around 4:40 pm) was a Sony DSC-W350 (14.1 MP, 4x zoom, Carl Zeiss lens etc). I couldn't find a compact digital camera with a viewfinder and just hope that the screens are brighter now than in 2007 when I bought the last one.
On Tuesday we had an appointment at our bank in Pézenas to see the man who looks after our account, to ask his advice about whether we can transfer our existing house loan to another house. The simple answer is yes, although the notaire will need to be involved. We also asked various other questions, but he basically put our minds at ease about our project. We went into an estate agent, the one that Jody used to work from. We met a nice young British woman called Emma Weaver who gave us some sensible advice. We then went shopping at Carrefour in Pézenas, for a change and because it's a bit bigger than the Intermarché. Not a huge success.
Before dinner we decided to go for a brisk walk, down Chemin de Caux Vieux, left along the Caux road a bit, left at the big house, first left, along to the old water mill and up the pretty path. We noticed some people at the water mill who turned out to be Diane, Nick and Nick's mother Pat. So we had a chat and invited Nick and Pat to dinner next evening (Diane had to stay at home and baby sit) to talk over old Rothwell, because they both used to live there.
So, having arranged for dinner guests the previous evening, we had to do some more shopping in Pézenas on Wednesday. We waited for La Poste before going and to our surprise the camera arrived: what an excellent delivery service, less than 43 hours after ordering on line. We went first to the Bricomarché and bought a French mains extension lead, so we could have brighter lights on the terrace for our dinner guests. It's now quite dark at 9 pm. Then we shoppped at the Intermarché as usual.
The camera seems excellent, with extra clever things like smile detection and panoramic mode, plus even more automatic sensing for things like backlight and macro. The video mode might well be worth a try, but a bigger memory stick would be needed. The 1 GB one from my old camera is only good for 14 minutes, or about 150 photos. They do up to 32 GB now.
Dinner on the terrace worked very well, with two standard lamps providing just the right light. We had Rick Stein's salad, followed by carbonnade Nîmoise, followed by little home made fruit tarts.
On Thursday we went to Serignan Plage, picking some more blue flowers (they are now at their peak) and getting fruit from the stall on the way back as usual. It was almost too windy on the beach: the Windfinder forecast had said between 8 and 11 knots wind speed (10 knots is 18.5 km/hour).
It was forecast to be cloudy in the morning on Friday, so we went for a walk after a late breakfast: Caylus road, up past the pylon, round to the right, goats' trail, through the trees on the ridge and back home (6.7 Km, 1¾ hours). We set out too late really because the cloud cover had gone for the last ¾ hour or so and it was very hot for walking.
Sister Christine came on Saturday, flying from Bristol to Béziers. We spent a lot of the day cleaning the house and getting ourselves ready for her and for our other visitors in September. Christine's flight left late and arrived early, so we were home only a few minutes after 8 pm, when the flight was due in. "Late" and "Early" are relative terms with Ryanair because they allow longer for the flight than necessary. The weather had turned a bit cooler, only about 27°C at 8 pm, so we had dinner in the kitchen: melon, lamb tagine & fruit tarts.
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