Elegance

When we have finished renovating our house, it will be elegant. Just for now, though, the only elegance in the place is contained in the pages of these large stacks of home magazines - mostly Elle Decoration and the like.

Today was a rather full day. First, some planning work for the electrics at the Mad Broken House, then Not Mad but Slightly Broken Mr B had an appointment at the physio for his not quite recovered bad back. He came away with prescriptions for scarily strong drugs - whereas in the UK I'm sure he would just have been told to rest it a bit. Not sure what's best really!

Straight after the physio we headed up to the school for a meeting with the Head and Katherine's teacher to sort out why she is just sitting in the back of the class drawing swallows and trees instead of getting some school work to do. They were very reasonable about everything and we worked out a solution that should do us fine. Katherine will repeat this school year (of which she's only done a few weeks) next year, which is a shame but I think fairly inevitable - next year is the last year before high school, and it is probably fairer on her if she is given more time to get ready for that change. It also means she'll be in the same class as the little group of girls she plays with most often.

Home for lunch, then off to the MBHouse to run a test on the drainage. We found a drainage connection in the (soon to be) laundry room and have been trying to test whether it is actually connected to anything. Yesterday we couldn't find any reasonably priced dye to pour down, so Mr B bought the cheapest Rose wine he could find and we poured that down! That test was inconclusive so today we went back with a stronger coloured dye. Still inconclusive but obviously always a joy to spend 20 minutes standing in the sun staring into a spider-filled septic tank access panel with the delightful aromas wafting around us....

We picked up the kids and raced home to water the plants and get ready to head into Castres for an evening out with our friends there at the Fete de la Musique. Irritating incident on the way when I was stung by wasps while putting some paper in the recycling bin. The local pharmacist was very kind and checked the stings were gone and disinfected them. Dinner with our friends was the joy it always is, despite rain causing a quick relocation of the table. The music festival was a lot of fun - with lots of different bands at various points around the town - so we wandered about and listened and looked until the kids' (mine, not their's) whining got too much to bear. We should of course have gone home for a nightcap then straight to bed....

But of course we stayed up way later than was sensible. And drank way more wine than was advisable. Another great evening, in other words.