back in Couze from Switzerland and Germany

Very late Wednesday, July 8

So we got back today from the trip to Switzerland and Germany. And it was fun, and I think Phil actually enjoyed doing all four talks, but OMG the train trips were a what? Too long, too many changes of train (accompanied by dragging luggage up and down stairs), too much on the go food, too much sitting down for hours at a time. I’m tired.

I do love being back in Couze. And the plumber Jeannette found repaired the leak downstairs. However, he hasn’t fixed anything else, and because of the leak, we need to repair/replace the dry wall and insulation down there, because it is soaked. I will look into it tomorrow. And I will also try to manage to talk to the appliance guy in Port de Couze (it’s across the river from Couze) to get him to fix both the oven (maybe) and the washing machine (for sure). I’m planning to investigate prices of new fridges, as the one here, which was supposed to be new when they renovated the cottage, isn’t. I also need to see if I can find somebody to fix the wall downstairs, not to mention repair the rest of the plumbing.

And, we need to find somebody to handle rentals of the place; it’s silly not to try to rent it out when we’re not here, and we’re never here at the peak vacation times. Rowena something or other was a serious prospect here, except Brian, her roommate and long-time companion, died last year. Not only is she not working; she is trying to sell her house and (I think) move back to England.

Martin is supposed to arrive tomorrow, however, he managed to miss his flight from Boston to CDG, because the flight from Cincinnati was late, which means he will also miss his train from CDG to Bordeaux. This all means a LARGE number of phone calls, in addition to the ones we’ve already had. Welcome to air travel in the 21^st century. And Martin doesn’t deal well with surprises, does he.

We were gone for only a week, and the spider webs have taken over. I will have to spend half a day getting rid of them, and then there’s the floors, the laundry, the fridge, etc. I need Evelyn Korn’s nanny; she is part housekeeper, part nanny for their son Johannes. And clearly she is wonderful. I wonder if I could get her to come live here?!?

On other fronts, I have decided (for about the fifth time in my life) to learn German. And since I promised Johannes that I would, I suspect I'd better do it this time. Phil has recommended a series of CD's he's used to study French. I bought a couple of (I think) basic cookbooks. Hey, what do I spend the most time doing? reading cookbooks. And the German cookbooks use the metric system, just like the French ones, so maybe I'll be in business once I learn a few things about grammar, verbs, etc., and acquire a decent dictionary, as well as those tapes or whatever they are...