Time to say goodbye

Slowly but surely the guests have departed from another exceptional party at Chateau Larcombe. Last to leave, later this evening, is my brother as he makes his journey back to the distant isle of Alonnisos where he is soon to come out of retirement and spend some time running a hotel. We wish him all the best for his journey.

Peace and tranquility will return to the valley once more but, fortunately for me, only for 9 weeks as the next softball weekend is just around the corner. I can't guarantee the weather for this event but if it's only half as good as the weather we've had here over the last few weeks it will be great.

We have some lost property from the last week, a couple of black jackets one has an emblem syaing "Petro Canada" the other is a childs black coat aged 9-10.

By some miracle we escaped this year with minimum breakages. The wine glasses all survived which is almost unheard of however the bath taps, that were on the way out anyway, finally gave up the ghost. Even with the numerous guests and stupid activities we got away with just the one hospital trip.

I thought I'd whizz through and thank everyone for their assistance and contributions that all helped to make the weekend run smoothly and without stress. Looking back though it seems that everyone helped in some way or another so I'm going to focus my thanks on just a few people. Obviously my wife sits top of the list for letting us host another amazing weekend of social activities. As one of the few responsible adults on the premises, I consider myself very lucky to have her. Next on my abbriviated list of thanks is my mum and dad who not only got stuck into the physical side of the weekend, but also provided some gratefully recieved financial support. Finally I'd like to thank Steve and Laura for their ongoing support ever since we moved to France. They are actually permanent residents in the gite however they spend a lot of time working abroad in the UK. Hopefully one day the balance will swing the other way and they'll be able to come over and live the French dream too. Don't feel that by not getting a personal mention that your contribution did not matter to us, it's only by the help of everyone that we can actually pull this event off.

You may wonder what's next on the list of works here on the estate. We've ear marked a few jobs that will hopefully get done this year and I'm already contemplating one for next year. First up is to split the boys bedroom into 2 seperate bedrooms, losing the library in the process and creating the corridor in preparation to knock through to our master bedroom. Next up is to replace the tiles on the back of the house where they have been falling off faster than I can take them off. The beginning of next year I plan to reinstate the well, topping it off with another conical slate roof just like the one on the pizza oven.

Time to head back to normality now. Much thanks to Glyn for our picture on todays blog.