Floating in pools

The weather did improve, a lot. It then became blistering hot and after we opened up the pool and poured all the requisite chemicals in it, I have spent the last few days diving in and out and floating on an inflatable ring. And getting a sun tan. I look kinda reddish in the photo but that has now settled down to quite an acceptable brown. I had Cecile over for an afternoon and went round Sarah’s overnight. These two girls are French and we have been friends and penfriends since I was 9 years old and lived in France. We’ve all come a long way since then.

That’s it, the picture above about sums up this holiday, floating around on a pool with my brother. Lovely.

Sunny France

Sunny France

As I write this I am sitting relaxing in the South West of France, there is a pool, the scent of roses floating through the air and the chirruping of crickets in the background. There is also rain, lots of rain. This wasn’t part of the holiday. It isn’t so bad because what I’m actually doing is sitting watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with my brother in the sitting room. THe pool also isn’t ready yet. The winter cover is still on so we first have to drain the water off the cover, then take the cover off,then fill the pool up to the required level and finally put in the chemicals. This takes a day or so so the rain isn’t really depriving me of precious swimming time and it is giving me the opportunity to revisit my childhood. Ah yes, and my brother is here. This is lovely, but unexpected. We drove down last night. We got the ferry over yesterday afternoon and drove the rest of the way down last night. We arrived at around 5am CET. Exhausted, I headed to my brother’s bedroom. Our caretakers make the beds up for us before we arrive and for some reason they always make up the bed in Austin’s room rather than mine first. So I headed to his room. I openend the door expecting to see a freshly made and aboe all EMPTY bed. Instead I opened the door and a bemused, very blond and very tanned young man reared up from the bed. I realised who it was straight away, mostly from the way the person looked indignantly at me when I woke him up, a look I’ve known for a long time. My mother’s look was classic. I have never actually seem someone standing with their moth gaping open in surprise but she took about three minutes to register what she was seeing. It was very much a Goldilock’s moment, who’s sleeping in my bed? THe point is that Austin was not meant to be in his bed, he was meant to be in Bosnia, or Albania, or Macedonia or somewhere. It turned out he had caught the plane from Dubrovnik to Paris, had then got the TGV down to Bordeaux and then on to Bergerac, which is about 30 mile from our house. From Bergerac he walked to Villereal because he had time to kill and on the offchance he might meet someone he knew in town as it was Market day. It turned out he did. He met our Grandmother who was shopping. Apparently he followed her around for a bit because he didn’t want to give her a heart attack, she is 80 after all. After loitering in the background for a bit she started to notice him and eventually came over because she thought he looked like someone she knew. He did. He stayed with her overnight and then waited in the house for us to arrive. So it was a lovely surprise and the prodigal children have come home to the nest.

As I write this, I am sitting relaxing in the South West of France in La Couronne (my parent’s cheesy name for the house). There is a pool, the scent of roses floating through the air and the chirruping of crickets in the background. There is also rain, lots of rain. This wasn’t part of the holiday. It isn’t so bad because what I’m actually doing is sitting watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with my brother in the sitting room. The pool also isn’t ready yet. The winter cover is still on so we first have to drain the water off the cover, then take the cover off,then fill the pool up to the required level and finally put in the chemicals. This takes a day or so, so the rain isn’t really depriving me of precious swimming time and it is giving me the opportunity to revisit my childhood. Ah yes, and my brother is here. This is lovely, but unexpected.

We drove down last night. We got the ferry over yesterday afternoon and drove the rest of the way down last night. We arrived at around 5am CET. Exhausted, I headed to my brother’s bedroom. Our caretakers make the beds up for us before we arrive and for some reason they always make up the bed in Austin’s room rather than mine first. So I headed to his room. I opened the door expecting to see a freshly made and above all EMPTY bed. Instead I opened the door and a bemused, very blond and very tanned young man reared up from the bed. I realised who it was straight away, mostly from the way the person looked indignantly at me when I woke him up, a look I’ve known for a long time. My mother’s look was classic. I have never actually seem someone standing with their moth gaping open in surprise but she took about three minutes to register what she was seeing. It was very much a Goldilock’s moment, “who’s sleeping in my bed”?

The point is that Austin was not meant to be in his bed, he was meant to be in Bosnia, or Albania, or Macedonia or somewhere. It turned out he had caught the plane from Dubrovnik to Paris, had then got the TGV down to Bordeaux and then on to Bergerac, which is about 30 mile from our house. From Bergerac he walked to Villereal because he had time to kill and on the offchance he might meet someone he knew in town as it was Market day. It turned out he did. He met our Grandmother who was shopping. Apparently he followed her around for a bit because he didn’t want to give her a heart attack, she is 80 after all. After loitering in the background for a bit she started to notice him and eventually came over because she thought he looked like someone she knew. He stayed with her overnight and then waited in the house for us to arrive. So it was a lovely surprise and the prodigal children have come home to the nest.

PS: The weather is meant to improve from tomorrow onwards.