I feel like last week zipped by in a flash and I'm not sure where it went. After swimming, we got home and got into some serious baking for the last bake sale of the year at Marca. I've been rather remiss this year at contributing, so I pulled out the stops with some lemon and vanilla cupcakes. I was secretly delighted that it was giving me a chance to use up a load of random ingredients that I had lurking in the cupboards, but I was even more pleased with the outcome (even though I was struggling to keep the icing from melting in the 30°C heat)! It was funny seeing the parent's oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over them when I rocked up with my box on Thursday morning. I hope they weren't all just style over substance.
I had a much needed catch up with Leesa and Odel at Pyramid after drop off then hopped on (Iain's) bike down to the Stade Nautique as I've resurrected the Pink Ladies Swim Club. Hannah G joined me this morning and I'm not sure who enjoyed it more?! It's just a beautiful place to swim.
The rest of the day was spent industriously battering through retrospective posts on both this blog and TGFW. The plumber was in in the afternoon to finally sort out the boiler. What a palaver that's been. He didn't seem to impressed with the "service" that had already been done on it. So I'll need to get that done again in the autumn. You live, you learn. I went to collect my newly serviced bike from Velo Station in the afternoon and managed to get drenched in the process. Ahhhh, springtime in Pau...
Friday morning saw us at the gym and me weighing in at my lowest fighting weight in over 10years: 70.7kgs. Of course, I'm pleased, but I just want to break that sub 70kg mark! The rest of the day was spent pottering in the house and writing up lots blog posts. I'm really on top of both now, with the family one now up to the end of Oct. I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel and once I bridge over Nov and Dec, all posts will be done in real time. Or that's the idea. Anyway, just keeping on with them. On Friday night I went out for dinner at Passage with the rugby girls for a last hurrah before Elly leaves. It's going to be so weird without her, or Courtney, or Alisha here. Especially Alisha. The ever revolving and evolving world of rugby, eh?
On Saturday morning, William and Iain went off to tennis and I stayed at home, pottering. We had an early lunch then William and I went to Auchan for a big shop. Turns out that its quite a good time to do it - the place was very quiet. Once we got home, it was a relaxing afternoon with movies, Britain's Got Talent and Iain made Moules Marinère for dinner. It was amazing.
After a monstrous thunderstorm on Saturday night, we got up on Sunday morning to find a a leak in the laundry room, and water all through the electrical fuse box. Brilliant. Hopefully it's just the tarpaulin that the tradies had put on the roof during the rendering process. In the afternoon, we ended up getting swept up by the absolute madness that is the Pau Caranval. Normally held late winter, early spring, this year's event had been postponed (probably covid related) so this was a little scaled back, but it's still nonsense of the highest order:
William hated it when we went to the last one in February 2020 but he got right into the spirit of it this year, pulling me into the procession, and dancing with me like I was a big carnaval puppet attached to him. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.
Monday was yet another bank holiday and Iain and I had a few jobs to get done whilst trying to keep busy. It was a classic tag teaming act to let me get an application off in the morning, and him write the next chapter for his PhD. They went biking in the morning at Gelos and played some football, whilst we went to the Lons skatepark in the afternoon followed by some errands at Leroy Merlin, Lidl and the carwash. Didn't we do well?!
This week has been just as busy. I actually began writing this post at swimming on Wednesday, didn't finish it, and haven't had a chance to complete it until now (Sat morning). It's been a week of trying to do chores but being hampered by the tradies in the square mixed with: job applications, tradies checking out the leak in the house, sorting medical appointments for Iain and his veins and his ruined knee, helping at sports day on Wednesday morning, taking William swimming on Wednesday afternoon, making dinner for Luke and Claire, and Luke's parents (Brayden & Caroline) on Wednesday night, swimming with Hannah G on Thursday, collecting keys from Luke and Claire to look after their house / pool while they're in Africa (yasss!), trying to keep some sort of gym/training regime, getting William a new bag and waterproof jacket, and trying to file a claim with our house insurance for the leak. The language has really tested me this week and although our life here is idyllic in so many ways, the trade off is definitely the inability to just express yourself. Anyway, here's some shots and footage of William doing his sport things:
The week has ended on a bit of a surprise. I threw my hat in the ring for another job at the University of Edinburgh and they've only gone and asked me to interview for it. As soon as I read the email yesterday, a wave of sickness came over me, and it's still not really gone away. It's on Thursday but I have a lesson plan to submit before then so I'm going to be heid doon, bum up prepping for it all week. I suspect next week's blog post will be rather sparse. Eeek!
Lorna.
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