Business and pleasure

Combining these two is, as we know, a risky thing to do. I had the opportunity to book a gîte and whisk Mrs. F and the Fingernails off out of Shitworld for a week, so I took it. The only condition was that I come back three times during that time to monitor the production currently in performance. OK, no problem. We left yesterday morning, half expecting a nice little house half way up a good solid, mountain road but what we eventually found exceeded our expectations. The house was lovely and well-appointed, but getting there was terrifying. It's literally the last house in France at the end of a road which climbs steeply from Melles, just north of the Spanish border and the path there is frighteningly narrow with a sheer drop on one side, often not fenced off. We woke this morning to find it had snowed all night; the fields were covered in a white blanket and the clouds were so low we couldn't even see the surrounding mountains. Talk about nervous; I was terrified of not being able to get back to Toulouse to work and thus incurring the wrath of my employers. As it turned out, the road was pretty much clear but I understand why everyone who lives around there drives a 4x4. I'm just now back at Château Fingers before going off to the show and will leave again immediately after it finishes. It's been quite a week for travelling: pony lessons in the country, fetching Fignernail I from the Dordogne and now high up in the Pyrenees; our little Audi A3 probably thinks it's Christmas, so little has it been used since I bought it in Germany last summer.

Oh well, off to work.