Well what a week. Without internet we were also without radio. So no news, no Archers! Thus thrown upon the mercy of ....Daytime Telly and BBC news channel... to find out what was going on. Blimey, thought I was in a John le Carré novel, so intriguing. I love a good spy story- there are so many theories and you can bet I came up with some winners.
The somewhat chilly weather here meant we spent a good many hours gazing at hitherto unheard of presenters on their breakfast couches and stoic reporters stationed outside Salisbury charity shops.
Inbetween, there were a couple of lovely days full of warm sun. We ate out at Roaix, took a long walk up behind Beaumes into the Dentelles, shared coffee in Malaucène with N Ireland. Not a bad few days.
All is not well with infrastructure here in Sablet. The streetlights have gone out on Fortuné Bernard, the church clock is chiming erratically. We blame the new presidential palace, aka La Mairie, at the bottom of the road. All our taxes seem to have gone into its beautification and we see there is to be a public meeting about the Local Urban Plan next Sunday.
Yesterday we settled down in an enclave of Ulster to watch the ritual thrashing of England. Adrian took some Guinness.
Our hosts made Irish Stew and delicious mini potato farls with ‘Irish Tapenade’ - a genius mix of boudin noir aux pommes and Irish Black Butter (see jar in pic). We had a great time in front of the roaring woodburner piggybacking on their wifi. And during my idling through the emails I discovered that Orange had reconnected us already, four days early!
Violas have been planted despite the devastation that greeted me on the terrace when we arrived. It seemed that something had been digging for victory over the winter. Soil all over the place, bulbs scattered, drain blocked. As we have new neighbours I suspect they have A Cat. Louise recommended a deterrant spray so I got one and administered it liberally. Seems it is basically mustard gas in spray form! Vladimir would approve of that. Anyway, touch wood, it seems to have worked. But Constant Vigilance will be my watchword.
And this morning we achieved wifi connection. Livebox was plugged in, instructions followed and adapted to our peculiar circumstances. ie, we have no mobile phone so could not receive SMS access code, no internet until connected, so could not receive email with code. All a bit Catch 22. But I did have a bit of paper with id and connexion info and ipad and macbook had already got themselves online and shared the password between them with no help from us.
Just in time for The Archers Omnibus.
