I woke early to follow the AFL game between Hawthorn and Brisbane, but I needn’t have bothered, as for the second time this year the lowly-ranked Brisbane trounced the Hawks, tumbling them out of the top-eight. Unless they have an immediate turnaround in form, these two losses will be the reason for them not playing in the finals this year.

I then went up to La Maison to meet Nico at 0900h, since we were going to be doing some work at La Maison in the Lightwell while the Lozat’s were away on holidays. There has been a constant problem with leakage around the windows, which has caused staining on the wall of the Lightwell as the water drips off the stained timbers under the glass floor. So the main job was to seal the areas around the windows with expanding foam and silicone, and then repair the frames around the windows that had been damaged by the leakage. We also needed to seal off some large gaps between the walls and the ceiling at both ends of the Lightwell. It was an all-day job, and it was interesting working with Nico and watching his attention to detail. Near enough was not good enough for Nico, and he would spend extra time getting it “just right”. I now understand why the overall renovation was of such high quality, except for the Lightwell windows which were done by other contractors.

Unfortunately, it would be a gross understatement to say that it was HOT in the Lightwell room, with glass on all sides and a baking sun outside. Many litres of water were consumed during the day, followed by a couple of beers at the end of the day. Nico didn’t want any payment for the day, so I bequeathed him the steel and leather rocking chair that he had so enjoyed when he was living in La Maison. Good to see that Nico and Massa were soon enjoying the chair on the deck at their house in Puycornet.

During the afternoon, Belgium defeated England 2-0 in the World Cup semi-final, which led to a number of gloomy faces around the port. To celebrate the completion of work on La Maison, we went to dinner at La Fromagerie with Nico & Miyu and their two boys, plus Rita’s music friend Valerie. It was amazing to see how 1-year-old Ioli interacted with the guests on the next table, and before long he had them in the palm of his hand. He also enjoyed the music from the concert at the Parvis, clapping along to the music and then joining in the applause at the end of each number. One-year-old and already has a great sense of rhythm!

As we sat in the restaurant, listened to the music with good friends, and gazed at the wall of the Abbaye, we realised how lucky we are to be living this life.