It's been a long time, I know, since the last post, so I can only ask for a bit of indulgence and excuse myself by saying that I just didn't want to bore our one punter by showing the minutae of our day-to-day renovation. I thought it'd be better to wait and finish something and then post it up. Voila, the main bedroom is finished. This has taken yonks because of the intricate work around the beams. We also took advantage of decent weather to work outside whenever possible, so finishing this room has taken a while. The befores show, on the left, the window end of the room and, on the right, the door end.

We bought a set of gates from a mate of ours called Peter, more about him in the next post. Anyway he lives in a village with an ancient church and strict planning restrictions are in force there. He'd had the gates specially made in England but the local mayor told him they contravened planning guidelines. Personally we think he's full of it, but you can't argue with the mayor. So we bought the gates off Pete and have installed one side. Before we can instal the other side, we have to build a small wall to support it. We'll do that when we get some time and weather permitting.

Our mates Ray and Ann made a special birthday meal for us in November and invited our other chums, Rich and Chris. As ever food and company were delightful.

This happens at the beginning of November every year and is held in Eguzon, which is a small town 6 kilometres across the river from us. The fair celebrates all things chestnut from edible to constructable and is a celebration of the produce of autumn. There's apple pressing, log splitting and craft demonstrations and you get a bag of hot chestnuts for two euros. The village idiot posed especially for the camera with his bag of chestnuts - bless.

Christmas was lovely with Mum and Sheila. We did all the usual things - drank too much, ate too much (chocolates) and watched loads of movies. We were invited over for a Boxing day meal at our mate Jan's, full of good cheer and good company. The snow was specially provided on Christmas eve and didn't outstay it's welcome. This is the last Christmas the both of them will be over due to a tectonic rift in relations. Oh well, such is life. Mum's over in June as part of her big 80 birthday celebrations.

The kids have grown up and have had the op, so no more baby production in any of our cat generations. They seem to have recovered well despite running around like lunatics, jumping in lakes and getting caught up trees. We discovered the origins of Mimi, the mother cat. Her ex-owner turned up the other day and explained that him and his wife (now divorced - gossip of the village) found her on the motorway seven years ago and adopted her. Shame they didn't have her doctored because I guess she must have been churning out litters ever since then. Up until last year she lived in the family home with her son, Jean-Pierre, who still wanders over, but who, I understand, isn't a particularly pleasant cat. Judging from the condition of Mimi when she first moved in I'd guess his personailty has something to do with being in a constant state of starvation. Anyway his dad is also George, who fathered our two and is the local freewheeling cat-about-town and Mimi was originally called Janice, after Janice Joplin. We're sticking with Mimi so as not to confuse her or remind her of the lean years and besides, the whole rock chick thing is a bit passé .