Gin n'll Fix It!

Timeline: Friday 6 April. After an intensive period of bathroom fitting out, we’ve now got the new guest bathroom finished and operational. When we eventually got the shower screen assembled following the ‘one size fits all’ multilingual graphical instructions, none of the sliding doors stops lined up and the doors wouldn’t meet in the middle! Shortly thereafter, we realised the fatal flaw in the instructions and that roughly half the people assembling these screens would install the top rail on the bottom and the bottom rail on the top! No mention of this in the instructions, so new holes drilled means no one will ever know!

Saturday tomorrow and the bride arrives with my sis and bro’ in law Roger, with some essential supplies and to be our first guinea pigs. 

Fortunately, the tribe were taking the pretty route down to Saumur, which was just as well, as the two new beds reckoned they would keep two people busy for 45 minutes building them. Phaa, we’ll see about that! The timings obviously accounted for not reading the instructions carefully enough, but I had both beds up and in good order in just over the hour and the bed linen next to them, if beds not actually made.

The pretty route turned out to be the remarkably scenic one, giving us the time to put loo paper, towels and cushions out and then there were sounds of triumphant arrival outside the gates. Hugs all round as the contents of two cars emptied into the kitchen and office and the first of several bottles were opened and we descended effortlessly into a relaxed state of happy dishevelment.  

The first bottle to lose its top was one of a sufficiency of Tanqueray gin and it’s amazing the damage that five healthy G n’Ts can do to a bottle. The magic of merriment took over however and cooked food appeared as much wine disappeared and the new shower was pronounced a marvel. The next morning demonstrated just how close our baker really is and despite how slowly one walks, the round trip, even with a queue, struggles to last more than three or four minutes and the feast of oven cooling bread and croissants, with real butter and fresh coffee always reminds you to smile.

Roger wasted no time in wiring up the heated towel rail and mirror lights in the new bathroom and we took the bride’s new left hand drive Beetle for a spin to the local Bricoman.

My next door neighbour, having helped a few days earlier finish our last bottle of local red wine, took me five minutes up the road for fresh supplies and I repeated the happy process with the tribe. Monsieur remembered me and we again sampled the product and bought several 10 litre ‘bag in boxes’ of the Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon at €24 a box and he threw in a cadeau of half a dozen bottles as well. Most of the haul returned to the UK and I understand the Sauvignon put up little resistance when required to perform.

Sis and Roger made me open my early birthday present, which still makes me smile every time I slide one of the Sabatier knives from its block, which is every day and they make the pleasure of preparing a meal even more enjoyable.

The bride fortunately approved of the carefully chosen bathroom tiles, which spurred me on to choosing the ones now lining the floor and walls of the other bathroom, which she has not yet seen, but I know she’ll appreciate, as Paul and I already do.

The visit ended far too soon, but we sorted the design and distribution for the new electrical supplies and Roger will be back to make sure everything goes in its proper place, as soon as EDF provide the extra juice.

One last sleep with the love of my life for a few weeks, as we are welcoming several dear friends to Le Clos de Rose together in June, hopefully bathed in the rich warmth of the early summer.

Friends and family, they are critically important to well being and I love and cherish them all.

A bientôt,

LC