Well the cold has certainly set in with a vengeance. It was –11 at 8am the other day. I believe it has become very cold over most of Europe, so we are bracing ourselves. If it’s anything like last year, then it will be half-fun, half-not fun and half-inconvenient.
Luckily for us we have ordered some new windows. These are to be put into the old part of the main house. They were having new windows put in at the Auberge, they looked good and were done for a reasonable price, so we approached the builder. He came down to la Farge the next day, a Tuesday, and said we would have the estimate by the Friday. The next day he personally delivered the estimate, which we accepted. He said that he would be able to start in 11 days. We couldn’t believe how efficient he was. Let’s hope the fitting goes as smoothly. The old windows really are in a bad state. When washing them in the summer, the glass would rattle and bits of the dried up, cracked putty would fall out. I’ve no idea how the glass was staying in. The glass in them is so old that there seems to be a handprint and various other cloudy shapes, stuck inside some of the panes. I’m not very good at cleaning windows at the best of times but these ones really take the biscuit. They make me so angry because not matter how many times you go over them, they still have streaks and to make it worse, the frames are painted with some awful yucky brown stuff which then gets spread all over the glass. I can’t wait for a clean new glass. Anyway, a few days ago, Andy filled the centres up with foam and taped the gaps up to stop the draughts coming in. Since then I haven’t been able to shut a couple of them properly and he had to do it for me. Two nights ago, I asked him to shut the one in the spare room, and as he did, one of the panes fell out and smashed on the ground. Now it has an old cat calendar for a pane! Roll on the 28th!! Yesterday we had an architect visit. He looked at all the buildings, we told him what we wanted, he told us what he wanted and then we told him what we wanted again. Actually he was a very nice and unusual man. Full of ideas of course but he’ll soon forget about them when he hears what our budget is! He will be back in a week to take measurements and get the first stage drawn up. He came with his wife/girlfriend and they brought their 6-month-old puppy with them. I’m not sure what type of dog she was but she was very well behaved, very petite and had a sweet nature. We opened the door to introduce Takeshi to her and although he was twice her size, he ran and hid behind Andy’s legs. But then I think he go a whiff of her, and not having met a female dog before, he became extremely interested in a certain part of her. Up until now, he believed that anything the right size to straddle would be a suitable mate. Amazingly, he was incredibly well behaved for the rest of the night. You see, just like his father! Montoya has been fine since his "Operation". He doesn’t smell as bad and has stopped his disgusting habit, even though his bits still seem to be there. The vet said that they would shrink and if they didn’t, then we would have to go back again. The thing is, we felt so sorry for him at the time that I don’t think we could take him back. As long as it’s worked this much, then that’s fine. Andy has gone off to the UK for a couple of days to sort things out and pick up some items from my sister, Maria’s house. One of which being a nice new warm jacket for him. I got one last year so it’s his turn this year. He is also going to B&Q to get some bits and pieces which are either much cheaper or easier to find over there. He’s left me in charge of the animals. They are all aware of this but seem to pretend they are not. They continue to do their own thing whether I like it or not. I really wish Jack would stop bringing half-dead mice in. It causes pandemonium with all the others. He seems to think this is a good thing but I’m not so sure and neither are the mice!
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