Another fairly quiet week as first I had the flu, and then Judy went down as well. Nothing too bad but not very pleasant.
We met the language teacher in Pompadour, a very nice lady who lived in England for 21 years. We will go back to basics and work through a course with her – one lesson a week to start.

We managed a trip into Brive to get Judy her birthday present – she chose a really nice necklace. The lady in the shop then boxed and gift-wrapped it so I can “surprise” her. I have been in touch with an accountant, and taken the first steps in setting up my little business here - “Imagerie de Proprieté”. Once the official start up is underway I can start approaching potential clients and advertising, hopefully just as spring starts and people might want nice photographs of their houses and gites.
Still trying to get some building work done, but as everywhere getting a builder to come is one thing, a quote is another, and actually getting the work done….We are still waiting for quotes from two builders, one of whom – a really nice chap with several acquaintances in common – said that with the downturn there isn’t enough work around, and there are lots of cowboy builders about. He is thinking of going abroad to work.

One of the nicest things here is to be able to look out of the window and over “our land”, even if it is basically scrubby woodland on a 45 degree slope. I often see and hear buzzards, and a couple of days ago Judy watched three deer. The oddest was a squirrel (red here of course) on the windowsill of our sitting room – some 8 metres above the garden – very athletic.

Just had an oil delivery, I won’t tell you how much it cost because I’ll only get depressed again. Anyway it should last us well into next winter, particularly since we had the boiler serviced.

Now we have private top up health insurance we are off this afternoon to settle up our bill for our blood tests at the laboratory, life here isn’t so much complicated as just different!