(Not) Working from Home

Working from home is never easy, but today looks as if it will be even worse than usual as it is 11.49 and so far I have done just 35 minutes work.  I try to keep the balance right by designating certain days as ‘work’ days, and on those days I aim to be smartly dressed (scruffy jeans for ‘home’ days only), and if I have no appointments, am at my desk by 9am.  My ‘office’ is a room in the back part of the house, just the other side of the living room, next to the laundry/boiler room area. I only mention this so you know that I have the minimum of distractions there (far from the coffee machine and no view of the pool), and that my commute to work is not too arduous.

09.00 - At desk, raring to go.

09.15 - Finish catching up on the gossip on Facebook and Twitter and open email page.

09.25 - Finish deleting all the spam (I don’t want my loft insulating, or to help Reverend Mbawe get his millions out of Nigeria, or have my penis enlarged (?!)), and finally open an enquiry from a client who asks…

09.26 - Dogs want to go outside.

09.27 -  Dogs want to come back inside.

09.31 - Cat appears on window-sill wanting to come in.  Apparently not.  Maybe later.

09.32 - Pick up all the papers that have blown onto the floor when window was opened.  Back to the email from the client who wants to know if…. 

09.34 - Cat reappears and seems to be starving to death.  Apparently his bowl is not completely full.  I remedy the situation.

09.37 - Back to desk and the client who wants to know if I can help with renting out his holiday villa.  Google the address and it looks a good property so I start typing a reply with the list of….  

09.45 - Doorbell rings and I fight my way past the dogs who still believe they can get out through a door before it is fully opened.  Postman is at the gate and needs a signature for a parcel delivery.

09.47 - In bathroom running arm under cold water until the bleeding stops and then applying a plaster to the scratch I received when a dog managed to push me into the rose-bush so he could be first to greet the postman.  NB. Possibly not deliberate.

09.55 - Back to the enquiry and I manage to send the reply, ask for a convenient time to visit, send a list of questions, and also to…. 

10.15 -  Partner turns up as he was ‘just passing’ en route to another appointment and thought it would be nice to have coffee together.

10.25 - Spend 30 minutes sitting in the garden having coffee together (see my Blogpost of 12th Jan re not drinking coffee at desks).

10.55 - Partner leaves, informs me that he will be back for lunch.  How nice.

11.00 - Delete two more spam emails then spend several minutes trying to work out how to block them, discover an important email in ‘Junk Mail’ folder, write apologetic email explaining the delay, continue replying to…

11.17 - Go outside to see why dogs are barking crazily.  Remove frog from pool and return it to pond.

11.29 - Finish last email then print out a document ready for a visit this afternoon.  Google ‘Why is my printer not responding’.  Do not understand explanation.  Unplug printer.  Plug printer back in.  Print document.

11.43 - Telephone call.  Apparently it is my lucky day - a technician is in my area and can give me a quote for loft insulation.  I teach them a few English words they may not have heard before.

11.49 - Give up and write blogpost.

My 'Glamorous' life!

Living in the South of France always sounds quite glamorous and I think some of my friends in the UK fondly imagine that I spend my days lying by a crystal clear swimming pool sipping cocktails in the sunshine, or shopping for chic outfits in the designer boutiques in town.  I have just caught sight of my reflection in the patio window and felt it was time to put the record straight!  (My arms aren’t long enough to take a ‘selfie’ of the full glory of what I am wearing and also the more I stretched my arms out, the more wrinkles appeared in strange places, hence just the headgear). Today is a typical example of my ‘unglamorous’ life – I am wearing walking boots, old jeans rolled up to the knees, a strappy top (it is 25°), and finally, a woolly hat (very hot but due to vanity as I had my hair done this morning and it is very windy!) 

I’m sure when the hairdresser asked if I wanted hair-spray applying that she assumed I’d be going out somewhere nice, but the reality was that I was having to attend to a flood in the pool-house.  (And when I say ‘pool-house’, it is actually a small cave-type area down some steps where the machines that work the pool live) (and also frogs).  Sadly the flood was entirely my fault – I had done nothing about the vast amounts of leaves that had collected on the steps so after 2 days of wind and then a tropical monsoon-like downpour last Wednesday, I should not have been surprised to find that the drain was blocked and there was water all the way up to the second step.  I spent most of the afternoon playing ‘hook a duck’ with all the pool cleaning products that were floating on the surface and then digging out leaves with a rake.  I actually got a bit scared when I suddenly heard a mechanical noise start up (it was only later when I finally gave in and called the plumber that I found out there was a pump down there).

The ‘uniform’ of jeans and walking boots is quite normal for everyday life now as most days involve a walk round the vineyards or to the village for bread or just playing ball in the garden with the Loulou the dog.  On the days that I go to work she looks depressed the minute she hears the sound of heels clattering across the tiled floor as she knows that ‘noisy shoes’ mean I will be leaving her!  And when I say ‘heels’ I don’t mean stillettos – many of the streets here are cobbled and taking clients to view houses often involves walking around gardens and up slopes so the ‘sensible heels’ that my daughter used to laugh at me for wearing are now the norm – as are trousers (all of us in the agency have learned the hard way that you don’t wear short skirts on viewings as many properties have strange staircases, if not ladders...)

Actually on reflection I admit that life here can be glamorous – just the other day I had a lovely lunch next to the beach at a sea-food restaurant in Collioure and there are many occasions where you will find me lying on a lounger by the pool – but just remember that before I have poured the cocktails I will have cleaned the pool (of frogs and dogs), balanced the chemicals, cleared the poolhouse of leaves (HaHa) – and I bet nobody feels sorry for me!

Animals of the Pyrenees-Orientales

On my way to the garage the other day I spotted two llamas and a camel tied up on the roadside.  I managed to take a quick picture but it was only as I was filling the car that I looked up and spotted a trailer containing 3 lions parked next to the pumps!  The circus was in town so while this is not ‘the norm’ for the area it made me think a bit about the different kinds of wildlife I have come across since moving here.

Wild pigs were my main concern but I have had very few sightings – one I saw lying dead by the road and I heard one snort and run off as I walked along the country lane to the village so I’m guessing it was more scared of me than I was of it – if only it knew!  I’m still not sure what was coming into the garden and digging holes around the fruit trees a few weeks after we moved here as there was only a very small gap under the wire fencing at the bottom of the garden but, once we had blocked the hole with a plank, something was making a lot of banging noises trying to break through the barrier so I assume it was a very cross Sanglier.

Reptiles have never been top of my list of ‘cute’ creatures and I would still love to meet the first Frenchman who looked at a frog and thought ‘hmm, that looks tasty’.  We have a lovely pond in our garden with everything a frog could wish for and yet they still prefer to jump into our pool and we regularly have to scoop them out with a net which can take ages as they are very clever at holding their breath and hiding behind the pool alarm mounting.  Perhaps we are luckier than our friends who live near Toulouse and have to deal with snakes in their pool.  Readers of a nervous disposition should perhaps skip to the next paragraph - the only encounter with a snake in our garden occurred last summer when I called my husband to watch a frog jumping around in front of the hedge, and then screamed as it was chased and caught by a snake.  I’m ashamed to say that I had to ignore the whole episode as I wasn’t sure whose side I was on...  I have recently come across 2 more snakes – one of which I couldn’t avoid running over as it was crossing the road.  In the rear view mirror I could see it was still wriggling but I am still wondering, why did the snake cross the road....

And still on the subject of reptiles, there are the lizards.  I don’t mind the little normal ones who tap-dance their way across the terrace in the heat of the day but the Geckoes with their big sticky feet make me feel a bit uncomfortable, particularly as one seems to be living above the polystyrene false ceiling in my office.

Which reminds me, I am literally suffering from ‘empty nest syndrome’.  In March a very determined bird (apparently a Redstart) insisted on flying into the house and making a nest in the boiler room next to my office.  At first it was quite amusing as the female soon realised when the patio door was shut or not but the male was regularly to be found shocked and stunned (as was our Son when he came to visit as being 6’3” tall he often found himself directly in the flightpath).  Luckily the birds soon found a new access – through the office, via the Salon, through the bathroom window, into a Verandah and out through an opening around the exhaust pipe connected to the old generator (every home should have one!) and we no longer had to keep the patio doors open for them.  Now the birds have flown the nest and we no longer have to duck when moving around the house.

And finally, to dogs and cats.  I always assumed they were just cute pets but here there are many wild ones.  Apart from the fluffy little dogs that are carried around in handbags in the town centre, many dogs here are ‘working’ dogs and spend much of their time roaming around protecting their territories.  Just the other day two dogs rushed out of a field by the roadside and attacked the car as I was driving.  In winter we have to be very careful when walking around the vineyards as the hunters don’t seem to pay much attention to the ‘no hunting’ signs and if we hear barking and the sound of bells (which are tied to the collars of the dogs so the hunters don’t shoot them by accident) we turn and go home.   The cats aren’t much better as there are so many abandoned ones that they turn feral.  On one occasion we had stopped at a roadside fruit stall and a wild cat suddenly shot out and attacked the dog!  Luckily the stall owner had a bottle of water to hand so after being drenched with water and beaten with a plastic bottle it ran off hissing.  Just another day in the French countryside!