make a start on 2014……. Happy New Year

An automated phone message came the day after the last blog to say that the gas tanker would be with us the next day. I then had to juggle the money and logistics of having the tanker dump a thousand Euro worth of gas in our tank.  In the pouring rain the tanker backed onto the drive and I had to explain to the driver that I only wanted half a load as I was not given enough time to get a money transfer over so he obligingly gave us half a load and much like when the wood arrives we had that comfortable feeling that it can now snow until March and we will be OK.  The driver left me a delivery note and drove off to his next ­customer leaving me with no idea how much I owe so  I looked forward to the invoice to notify me of the price  to make sure that the money was in the bank ready for the standing order that Butagaz insist on if you want to buy gas from them.  You can imagine my alarm when I checked the bank on-line for a completely different reason to find that Butagaz had taken their money without sending me notification…..mad ?…I was spitting feathers but Mike just looked at me and asked if they didn’t do this every year ? don’t I always have a gripe like this every time they deliver. He was quite right.  Butagaz upset me every time they deliver and like snow I am never prepared and will never learn that I need to call them and tell them to go away until I am ready for  them to make their expensive visit.

 

Our Hens were so pleased to have us home and as soon as I opened the poly door they ran in like possessed poultry and hunkered down into the dry mud and cooood and clucked in a huddled group until they had completed their beauty program.  One of my girls is behaving and we have had one egg a day since coming home and for that I am grateful.

  

 

 

 

 

Mike and I found a few jobs to do  in the poly and HOSS just keen to be with us found a dry spot out of the wind and rain to watch over our activities and be a gorgious and attentive doggie. The cat and the Hens just carry on around him and at one point we were all in the poly and it just made us chuckle at the harmony we manage to surround ourselves with…without trying.

 

And then it was New Year’s Eve all over again and this year we were rescued from needing to keep the sofa from escaping by friends Trevor and Carol who called to say they were having a bash and we were cordially invited. We set off at 5:30 in the camper to park up and stay over. As we trundled along the N13 we were aware that cars overtaking us were flashing and waving at us so we pulled over to discover that we had no lights showing except the number plate light and on such a blustery wet night we decided to go home on the intensity rear lights. I was ready to abandon our night out but once mike has a fault to find he is unstoppable.  We then started scrabbling through the French owner’s manual to try to suss out what they might call the back lights fuse and where it could be.  You might think we were looking  for feux arriere , but no, they were marked up as feux de possition , oh my goodness it took us an hour to find that out by elimination. I called our hosts to say we might not make it but mike decided we had until midnight to get there so off we set out again. Three hours after others had dutifully turned up we got dressed in our best bib and tucker as the dress code was very smart and I smeared  a little makeup on and Mike put his blazer and tie on. We felt great and stepped out to have a good time.

The Karaoke machine came out and as Trevor and Carol are ex pub landlords  were  specially skilled at getting us all up to sing our hearts out , even Mike got up to do a group song with the blokes and frankly though it was appalling singing,  it was a lot of fun. 

 

We did the French bon annee at French midnight and filled our glasses with champagne again an hour later for the English midnight and we would have gone on all around the world but that can get complicated.  At 2:30 we all traipsed over to Trevor and Carols neighbours who were having their reveillions and were all sat at the table with the main course just finished at 2:30. We all wished each other happy new year and at 3:00 we sat down with them and shared their dessert. I did whinge a little and say that I could not possible eat at 3 in the morning but the French have an uncanny way of suggesting they would be very offended if we turned them down so we ate ice cream washed down with white wine and I sat at the top of the table and Mike and the other end of the table until I could not make any more small talk and our hosts wanted to dance. It was at that crucially embarrassing moment that Mike and I made our excuses and went back to the camper to apologise to HOSS for leaving him unattended for so long and then we cuddled up in our camper sleeping pod until 11:00 on New Year’s Day.  We woke up to a serious storm and whilst our hosts slept off their fabulous party we broke camp and came home to get the calendar up and the diaries updated the fire lit and make a start on 2014……. Happy New Year

 

 

 

 

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