Goodness, I had been trying to write that last post all week, but it's got quite busy round here suddenly. Kitchen stuff has been arriving, we now have all the inox tables and sinks, the 'pizza unit' which is a very handsome long low fridge with a marble top and a higher fridge unit where you have little pots of ingredients to put on salads, pizzas, etc. I realise this is a completely inadequate description, but I shall post a pic to make up for my inability to describe it! The freezer and pizza oven are here, plaque induction there. It sounds as if we are going to be doing pizzas, but the oven is to heat the hot stones - only pizza ovens heat to the heat required. One of the lads is off now making us a unit to fit my 'normal' oven with the pizza oven underneath. Who knows how that will turn out!

Olivier bade us farewell yesterday evening. I spoke to him further about his problems, it turns out he has Hepatitus B, poor thing, and they want to try to treat him with interferon which has similar effects to Chemo. The risk is that if he doesn't, he could end up getting Cirrhosis, and then it's game over, really. So it doesn't look as if he has much choice. I hope he will keep in touch - he says he will, but we shall see. His work ended up costing 11,000 euros once we claim back the VAT, which I think is a bargain for all the work he has done. This means we can add painting and fitting out the reserve to our list of stuff to do.

A lady came around yesterday and introduced herself as a neighbour who lives across the road in a lovely 19C villa, called Villa Delphine. She started doing chambres D'hotes this year - nutter - as she has 9 bedrooms and was full all summer. She wanted to know when we would be open a) so she could come and b) for her clients as she could not recommend a restaurant here in Vernet. She is a lovely lady and we showed her round and she was most appreciative of the colour scheme, so of-course got straight into my good books. We are invited around tomorrow at 6pm to see her rooms and a return visit. This will pander to my nosy nature as I have been trying to see in since we got here! We also had the owners of a local hotel, called Le Mas Fleurie come round to see when we are opening, and Dave heard a conversation of some French people who were passing who evidently were looking to see how we are doing. I get a feeling of a bit of impatience, people waiting for us to open - I know the feeling! Which is good, wouldn't you say?

We have been showing the Steakstones to our collaborators - the electricians etc. I also showed them to a potential supplier who visited on Tuesday. They have all expressed an interest in buying a set. I spoke to the supplier yesterday as it happens, who called to see if they had arrived OK, and put it his way that if he ever wanted to expand into France, perhaps we could do a deal. But I won't be selling them within a 50km radius!

Some customers of ours from The Dordogne visited yesterday - the 3rd, I think to look us up! Amazing, considering that's more than any family who have bothered to come out - hint hint! They're all too afraid of being given a paintbrush. So we had lunch here and then they treated us to dinner at a charming small hotel in the next village called Casteil. It was a fixed menu of Mussels and rabbit, neither of which I eat!! Talk about fussy for a chef, but I am a bit squeamish where it comes to meat. However, the chef was very sweet and did me melon and ham, and then duck, so all was not lost. However, I think they are daring choices for a menu with no choice. So that episode was a naughty distraction from our works. It was lovely to see them and catch up on their news.

Well, today is Friday, so once the leccies have taken themselves off this evening, I shall do a photographic round-up of the advances made this week and post them tomorrow, all going well.