Nothing particularly exciting to report. Nevertheless, a week of beginnings for John and me …

John and I both joined French classes last week at the Atelier des Cultures in St. Gaudens. Following a rather nervous interview, the school’s director reluctantly placed John in the beginners’ class. Though she said she expected him to quickly move up to the intermediates. I was allocated to the Advanced class, presumably having impressed her with my telephone skills …

In the event, John was promoted immediately and told to come back the following day. I was less lucky. My class had only two students, too few to be financially viable for the school. While we had an excellent 2 hour lesson on Thursday, it will apparently be my last for a while. I could choose, as Malcolm did, to work in tandem with a French student who wishes to learn English. This can sometimes work well, but it is an informal arrangement that relies on equal commitment on both sides and building a certain rapport with the partner student - and there were no guarantees that the school would be able to find two interested students. I could opt for one-to-one lessons, which would be expensive, or I could join John’s intermediate class. The director was doubtful, but suggested that I might benefit from the grammar. Probably very true. However, my feeling is that, with 8 others already in the class, I am unlikely to get much chance to practice speaking, which, after all, is the primary purpose of going to the classes in the first place.

Nevermind. The two hour class paid dividends when, the following day, M. Dufour turned up with an estimate for electrical work and we had a visit from a local architect, M. Barrau. I feel slightly sorry for M. Dufour. He has a knack of turning up early and catching us in our dressing gowns, or arriving unexpectedly when we are just on our way in or out of the front door and have other things on our minds. Being caught on the hop, my conversation skills are rarely at their best. Likewise, yesterday afternoon, having said he was going to be delayed by an appointment in Lannemezan, a few minutes later M. Barrau appeared at the front door just as I was putting the rubbish out.

So, at last, things are beginning to move ahead with the house. Earlier in the week the plumber called to cap off the gas and water on the ground floor. It has only taken them two months. As the weather denied us our Sunday randonnée, we began to dismantle the reinforced concrete air-raid shelter that the previous owner called a kitchen. The worksurfaces were made of 3″ reinforced concrete, supported by cement-filled brittle ‘briques alvéolaire’ (thin hollow terracotta bricks normally used to build partition walls), and finished with a tasteful brown and white tile worktop. Even the melamine door facias were buried 4″ deep in the concrete floor. Ikea this ain’t!

We have also managed to strip the wallpaper in our first floor bedroom. It was the easiest paper stripping exercise I can remember. We only had to turn the steamer on and the paper started to bubble way from the wall. It was just a shame that a lot of the plaster skim coat came away with it … Mind you, however easily it comes away from the wall, even the weakest solution of paste will efficiently cement old paper to the floor. The cats were most unimpressed at being shut out of the room, but it is enough that they are world class paper shredders without adding wet glue to the ensuing mayhem and chaos. If they didn’t eat so much, they might just have been able to squeeze under the door! “Mayhem” and “Chaos”, what excellent names they would be for a pair of naughty kittens.