Last night was our first chance to sleep in La Maison for over a year, and it felt good (and very quiet). The street lights filtering in through the shutters at night are always very calming. As we grabbed a late breakfast, we noticed that Ginger and the new cat (we'll call him/her Whitey for the moment) were quite happy to play together in the garden.

We checked the mail left for us by the renters, but couldn't find anything about Rita's Visa Card or the car insurance, so Rita walked down to the bank to make enquiries, and was told that we could expect them to arrive at the house in the next few days (hopefully before we leave next Tuesday). But we did find a reminder letter about getting a Control Technique (roadworthy) Certificate for the Scenic, which arrived last month. So Rita phoned them, and they booked us in for early next week. While Rita was at the bank, I made a start on a little maintenance job that was long overdue; cleaning the ivy off the belvedere. I normally don't mind ivy, but when it is covering a building that we paid lots of good money for to get built, I make an exception. The ivy (from the neighbour's yard) had taken over three sides of the building and was making a start on the fourth side. So rather than wait for the entire building to disappear. I decided to take some action. It took several hours to rip most of the runners off the building, and the before and after photos show the difference. If the building itself had been ugly, I would have left the ivy, but I much prefer the look of the "naked" building. Comments from passersby later in the day confirmed that they also preferred the building in its uncovered state.

The only remaining job now is to finish picking off the little remnants of dead runners and the suckers that have attached to the woodwork and brickwork, and that is a tedious task (confirmed by a quick Google search on how to do it). While I was doing this, Rita got back down to some study. In the evening, we headed up to Puycornet to see Nico and Miyu and the two boys. As soon as we got there (after having been led astray by Google Maps, who wanted us to cross a paddock to get to their house!), we could see that Nico had been busy on re-constructing the old stone building, which will be their next home. Lots of progress!

We saw that Nico had also been busy preparing for Miyu's early birthday party next weekend, with a dual rotisserie, big enough for two sheep/goats. It is a true Rube Goldberg machine, with bicycle wheels, belts, gears and chains, all powered by a windscreen wiper motor (but not from my car this time).

Once we learned the party was to be next weekend, we decided to stay in Moissac a few days longer and return to Montbeliard after the party.

We had a great time with them and the boys tonight, and returned to Moissac some time after midnight.