Moving on

The week has flown by. We'll be cleaning and laundering tomorrow, and working our way through the usual leaving checklist.  Exquisite light this morning as we came home from a quick shopping trip to the Préfecture town.  The low sun shows up the contours of the land and the texture of the vegetation very well, and the leaves on the vines are starting to colour up nicely.  The village is starting to move towards hibernation: a number of restaurants have now closed for the winter, though there were still a lot of tourists here at the weekend.  Last Thursday was the Toussaint holiday (the village bone orchard is a blaze of chrysanthemums and cyclamens), and a lot of people will have taken Friday off to make a long weekend (known in these parts as faire le pont).

As we approached town, a white van came the other way, towing a trailer.  The driver was rubbing an eye with his left hand, and clamping the mobile phone to the right ear with the right.  So, one eye in operation, towing a trailer, and steering with I'd sooner not enquire what. The carnage on French roads is pretty easy to explain when you've driven here for a few days.  As I write, a fellow just started up his 4x4 across the way, then started backing up the street while at the same time giving more attention to flicking a cigarette out of the packet and into the gob.  Perhaps I'm wrong about all this: maybe French drivers are without exception sublimely skilful,  attentive - and constantly attended by guardian angels.  And perhaps not.  Despite other people's driving and the sloppy handling of the rental car (which I'm starting to loathe) we made it to town and back unscathed.

Next year's agenda here is about building repairs (officialdom permitting) and plumbing.  We've confirmed the choice of new lavvies that I'd seen on the Lapeyre web site.  We'll get them ordered up and fitted next year, when we shall have a short list of jobs for a plumber.  One of  the taps in the cellier has jammed shut, so we're having to use the dishwasher and washing machine one at a time, and the supply pipe is not properly fixed to the wall.  Still, at least our waste water is dealt with by good republican drains, and not by the temperamental septic tanks that afflict some of our friends.  We really do know how to have a good time, don't we?

Tomorrow brings airports, a cramped and under-pressurised Boeing 737 and the M25.  Stand by for an industrial-strength grizzle next time.