Temperature is rising

wow! it's been over 30 degrees now for the past two weeks with one day the car showing over 40. The locals all mutter to me "c'est tres chaud c'est tres chaud" I am not sure if they actually think it's unseasonally warm or they believe that that is the only thing in French that I understand.
The cafe is moving on a pace. The web site is up and running, although only in a basic format as yet ( www.champniersbar.fr). We have a beer supplier, food suppliers, and an "official" opening date and guest of honour. This is of course the mayor, king of all they survey in France. We had a meeting with him, we met by chance crossing the road and stopped mid way to chat for ten minutes. It seems so strange, 3 months ago when we left England, we would run across the road in fear of our lives, here we have a meeting in the middle of the road and it seems normal!
The pool table is on order as are the terrace tables and chairs, the bar is being decorated next week and we have decided on a menu. We are most probably down to under a 1000 spiders now and we have been pleasantly suprised to find that a number of darkened windows were actually transparent once the dirt was removed.

And we are practising!!! we made gaufre yesterday. Mixture in, turn it over, Nutella ready ( have you noticed how when you have something like nutella you just have to have a rather large taster first to make sure its still ok?)
Four minutes, we open the machine and our first slides out in liquid form. Not what we had anticipated. Another 4 minutes and the next one also has the viscosity of a thick olive oil. " Of course the machine is faulty. It will have to go back"
And then the moment of realisation, as it is noticed that the knob has two ends, and the one that should be pointing to setting six is actually pointing to number 2
Everything in France is hot except our gaufre machine.

we have a lot to learn and less than 3 weeks to opening and c'est tres chaud



A quick update on my previous ramblings.

Alliance and Leicester answered my letter. I dont think they had actually read it but they answered it anyway, with the normal cut and pasted bullshit. "We love our customers, and will do everything for you as long as its not what you think we should do" They gave me £25 compensation and kindly gave me instructions on how to log on to their internet site. Patronising bastards, they now have another letter and another claim to deal with.
BT they gave in on the friends and family contract and gave me back my money
Saga No more post, no more claims.