bonjour from au petit bonheur: la visite du père

Last week was the arrival of mon pere

We started a massive clear up for ourselves, added impetus that dad was coming to stay as well. Marc did a fantastic job downstairs and i cleared the upstairs half and made our tv room look like a bedroom, all looked very good.

Sometimes i find that you need the arrival of a visitor to kick start you into a mega cleaning action.

However things did not go to plan on Wednesday, dads train was delayed (the euro star part) so he missed his connection from Paris to Tarbes and will have to get the tgv down the following day. I spent the evening worrying although i had managed to contact him on his mobile and he seems tired but fairly unphased by it all, had to cancel Tony who was on his way to pick him up at late at night. He will arrive in the afternoon the following day, so we will go and pick him up.

The next day i checked that dad was on the train and i was relieved to find that he is on his way but major floods in Lourdes and Pau further hampered his long journey turning the whole thing into a bit of a nightmare, he needed a bus from Pau to Tarbes because of the flooding and we picked him up around about two thirty at Tarbes.

Three days before the whole of the Haute Pyrenees was on red alert ie severe weather conditions and when dad was travelling down, mid France was on orange alert, bad enough, so Paris was looking dodgy weather wise

So that afternoon we sat and talked and the day after we chilled also, because i think we were all a tad tired.

Pate and cheese for lunch and trout fillet (from our Wednesday fish van), with fried cucumber and a noilly prat cream sauce, taken from Rick's French odyssey and adapted on the fish front by me.

notre dame de garaison or mini Lourdes

Friday was a dull wet day, although bright with mountains in full beautiful view when i went for a walk with Shirley this morning and cycled over to Larroque at seven. Shirley and i went for a long walk, upwards from Larroque, we had amazing views, cycled back for breakfast with dad (m still coaching tennis) Then dad and i went for some veg, bread and papers. Later I minced and cut up a 4 kilo pack of pork it has made 8 packs for 12c euros, 3 packs of mince, 4 packs of chops and some escalopes. One of my bargains from Ecomarche (small french supermarket chain)

but today was party time and the the longest day June the 21st. signalling summertime and an invitation to Monleon to Marianne and Per's to celebrate Swedish style, with flowers in our hair. Marianne and Per had a very ingenious way of getting people to mingle and to sit with other people than their partners. At the beginning of the evening we were all given lines from a song, the guys had the lead line and they had to find the females with the second line and all the songs were different. So my line was "here we go again" and my male lead had on his card "mamma mia" and Mark had Elvis "are you lonesome tonight"

Most of the atelier, (our school class) and new people that we had not met turned up a nice mix, and a really enjoyable evening. Dad seemed to enjoy himself. Marianne and Per had put the most generous humongous effort over the food and all the trappings. Traditional Swedish food, lots of herring in different guises, right up my street, smoked salmon, and an array of desserts to choose from. In between Marianne was up and down the tables with mini bottles of ice cold schnapps of many different flavours alongside the beer. Topped off with generous cartons of wine for the English gang, who couldn't cope with beer and schnapps. All was still well in swing when we left at 12.30.

I learnt tonight that my post, re Gingembre actually made someone other than myself cry....someone that i had not even met.

Groggy start on weather front, and late start, after a late night, I raced around our market with Marc, but not enough time. Marc went back for our wine from the market and then made me breakfast , left for Ali and Chris at 9.30

arrived to find Ells and Ali already stuck in. Left at one, Marc did what is becoming my fave scrambled eggs with Harissa and my fave salad. Also success because the farine de chiche pois that i had managed to order a few days ago, turned up

This afternoon we went to Notre dame de Garaison, http://fmaquaire.free.fr/Incontournables/garaison1.html

dad and i got picked up for the guided tour by a nun from Brazil. I was happy with myself that i understood lots that she was telling us. It is an interesting place and very attractive in the much needed sunshine

Tonight we had some nuts and snacks outside in the sun, which was great, as dad is not here for long and the weather had been pretty poor for his first couple of days.
Marc cooked pork chops with capers and a cider butter vinaigrette, spinach, tats for the boys and rocket yum.

finished with strawerries and the rest of the apple ice cream

Brighter this morning, Marc went off to coach tennis and I went to plant cosmos, as you do. This morning after brekkie we joined Hugo and Anthony for coffee in Joe's and watching the people walk by. I ended up doing an extended interview with Jessica Ennis??? (but that is another story for later)

This afternoon went to the garden in Thermes, la source which was brilliant, very nice guy …my french is definitely coming on, from the point that i was just trying not just to listen but communicate back and being understood.
Earlier this week a very big triumph as i had manged to communicate to the bank that i had a credit card but without a personal code, that is now sorted, big high five. It is slow but it 's coming.

Rebecca called and we went to see kittens that one of his cats has just had they need to be left with mum for a few more weeks and they are very pretty, more than that they are gorgeous and if they turn out anything like the three previous escapees, cute.
I cooked chicken stuffed with goats cheese and thyme on a bed of toms and courgettes for supper, then dad, Marc and I watched skyfall.

Tuesday a bit overcast , spent the morning trying to find out whether dad's train was running ok..it's not, so we will need to take him to Pau, the other part was trying to find a restaurant open for this evening.Four down we decided that maybe all was shut on a Tuesday evening and we should buy something, So dad bought duck confit and ham from our butcher, and melon and strawbs from our veg lady.

Walked with dad in the afternoon and went to the Ecomarche with dad, presents for cat sitters and friends.

This morning got up at the crack of dawn, 4.30 to take dad to the train station, Marc drove and had researched the trip as we have never been to la gare in Pau before. We got him on the train half an hour before he was due to go. I hope he had a good time ....he said that he had and despite mixed weather, it wasn't cold and we had a few hot ones as well

Nice evening, warm and sunny almost feels like summer!!!

i can lead her up the garden path anytime....purrfect

Before dad arrived, i did some garden weeding with my little ginger helper. He is cute cuddly and adorable and very purry, he tried to hijack my weeding sac or tools, eat the grass in front of me or sit on my knee, lovely but difficult to carry out any gardening. After lunch collected dad who was already waiting for us but glad to have ended a long and protracted journey