Author: Louise Riley

Hi all, this is my 1st publication so here goes. We haven’t posted anything lately but Wednesday the crane arrived on site.  It’s huge but won’t be operational until 3- phase electricity is installed. Fingers crossed this won’t take too long. I spent a ‘happy’ afternoon yesterday discussing our requirement with the electricity supplier. No mean feat I should mention!! This week should see our (unwanted) cave closed off,  thus enabling the ground to be levelled in the vicinity.  Then it will be all systems go!!

So here are the latest photos.

 

 

Everything went well & we arrived home more or less on schedule. The flight out of London had a short delay but it was heartening to arrive back in Toulouse to warmth & sunshine & a smiling Theo waiting for us. We dumped our bags & made sure that we had hot water etc. & then walked down to Theo & Marietta’s for an apèro & a bite to eat.

We came home & were in bed by 22h30 & both went to sleep straight away. Doug continued in this mode until well into today but I woke up about 1am & had several hours awake. Normally during a long holiday I wake up during the night at least once thinking ‘where am I? but that didn’t happen in the States. However, it happened last night & I had no idea where I was. I remember looking at the bedroom door, thinking how strange that we had gone to sleep leaving a hotel room door open so I carefully shut it. I then struggled to find the bathroom & any light switches & when I did eventually illuminate things was mightily impressed that there was a bidet too! Then I think that I woke up & realised where I was so could open the bedroom door again.

One other bit of excitment today was when I went to hang out some washing, I suspected that we had some bees swarming & settling behind the shutters in the barn. This has happened once before when we have been away.  Luckily this time we caught it early & even luckier was that Bernard the local beekeeper was at home. He came round straight away with a mini hive & all his equipment. Apparently the knack is to recover the queen bee & all the workers will follow. He spent a couple of hours persuading them to enter his hive & then he came back several hours later & is reasonably confident that it has been a successful operation so he has taken them away & is a happy beekeeper with a new swarm.

We are just about unpacked & the washing is done, just the ironing to tackle now. We have no food to speak of but the freezer threw out something tonight to sustain us & tomorrow is a another day. 

It has been a great holiday & once again we are grateful to our travel company, Audley, for their skill & expertise. 

We had some difficulties with the wifi in the New Orleans hotel. Ironic really as it was the only time we had been asked to pay, however, after a little word they did have the grace to delete the charges. 

I had been trying to post some last photos of New Orleans but without success. We are now back in London in the BA lounge after two easy, uneventful flights. We have to wait now for the Toulouse flight but at least we can do so in relative comfort. So, I will try once again with the photos. 

We left New Orleans with temperatures of 25* & rising & arrived in Chicago to cold & rain. London this morning is damp but clearing & Doug assures me that the forecast for Vaour is good. We are tired but in good form. 

     

We went down to the river & boarded the Natchez paddle steamer for a 7pm depart. It seems that it really is a paddle steamer, one of only two operating, the other one is in Louisville. The boat itself is 45 yrs old but the paddles are 90 yrs old having been recovered from another vessel. It was a very interesting trip, although in reality there is nothing scenic to see. The Mississippi is a working river & is industrialised either side of the town of New Orleans. The facts & figures that the guide gave were were fascinating together with more information, this time visual, about Hurricane Katrina. We saw the famous levees which do in fact go all the way up to St Louis, a mere 1200 miles. 

The Natchez is quite a big boat & tonight there was a buffet meal provided in 2 sittings. I reckon that each sitting catered for about 200 people & there were plenty of folks who didn’t eat, so I suppose there must have been upwards of 500 people on board. The meal was not haute cuisine but was comparable with most golf club food that I have encountered. The whole thing was very well  organised & a logistical success in limited conditions. 

We wandered back to our hotel via Bourbon St again & this time I had the misfortune to spot of one of the ‘oxymorons’ that I mentioned in last night’s post. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

We are just about all packed & will be settling down soon ready for an earlier start than usual tomorrow.

I’ll round the whole thing up when we get home so keep looking for a few days.

L xx