If anybody out there has missed me, I’m sorry for the absence. After a week of fighting my back ache, I found an osteopath who would return my call and see me the following day; she contorted me and tied me in knots and left me feeling worse than before. No wonder she could see me so quickly! I’m now recovering from her less-than-tender ministrations and have taken her name off my list.

Nick, however, has been busy. The room that will, one day, be my work room is now plasterboarded, as is the entrance hall; he’s also tiled the chaufferie floor where the water heater is going.

Olivier has put down the chape liquide, so in a few weeks, when it’s completely dry, we’ll (and I hope that will include me!) be able to start tiling the house floors.

We were very impressed when the tile shop phoned, on time, to say our tiles had arrived. The big square tiles had arrived, the small square tiles had arrived, but where were the rectangular tiles? They’ll be here on Friday, they said; so I phoned on Friday, but there were no tiles for us. Ring Pau, they said, the shop where we placed the order; so I did, but no-one knew anything; the man who took the order would ring me back……. but he didn’t. It was beginning to feel very South-West France-ish. Then this morning the man from Pau rang to say our rectangular tiles hadn’t left Italy till a week after the rest, so they’d be here next week……… Five minutes later the Mont de Marsan shop rang; “Your tiles are here”. There’s no point fighting it, it’s just the way things are!