Meanwhile somewhere in the Ariège...

....the fan is belting out tepid air into a cold kitchen where I'm sat listening to the shipping forecast for the off shore waters of the British Isles, followed by Big Ben tolling in 6 o'clock there and 7 o'clock here and wondering whether I can be bothered to peel the spuds and would I get away with it if I didn't.
Yesterday evening Jo struggled up the stairs with a lemon tree whose branches were strung with little net bags of miniature gin bottles, solar pineapple lights and a pretty accurate caricature of me painted on a bit of wood.
Emma was feeling a depression coming on and dropped by for company.  We disentangled some of the little bottles and got a party going.
A couple of hours later Emma and Jo were duet-ting to Bat out of Hell and planning a meatloaf party in memory of Meatloaf, where we'd eat meatloaf.
It seemed like a good plan at the time.