Day 39

It's another beautiful day - 35°C in the sun - but the weather forecast says tomorrow will be cold & rainy, so we're off for a last trundle in the countryside to enjoy it while it lasts!

Not great for the vendangeurs, who will have to continue with the grape harvest come rain or shine.

Messrs Hamid & Jamel are back today: M. Hamid is continuing pointing the wall, whilst M. Jamel is raking out the joints.

It's all starting to come together [at long last!], which is heartening.

We had a visit from M. Mekki, and the plaquistes are likely to be delayed as M. Kadir has had to rush back to Turkey as his mother is ill. Hope she gets better soon.

We'd been asking him all the sorts of questions the project manager should be dealing with, and said that we still had received no response to our email dating back to 25 August/6 September, so we had no clue what was going on, and we didn't know whether tomorrow's meeting would go ahead, and if so what time [last week's meeting didn't materialise, we think - we didn't actually wait in all day just in case!], etc, etc, etc. So basically we are just trying to liaise with the trades directly so that work still keeps progressing...

I'm not sure if is was a coincidence that about five minutes after M. Mekki leaving we received a very brief email from Jean-Marie stating that he will respond to our questions this evening, and that tomorrow's meeting may be on Friday morning or Tuesday...

I firmly believe in coincidences, but I also have strong faith that not everything that looks like a coincidence is one. Perhaps I'm being super paranoid, but I do know that M. Mekki is sensible enough to gather "brownie-points" when he can for later redemption when he needs to "get out of jail free"...

He doesn't throw it in your face that he's done you a favour when he wants to be allowed to change the scheduling, and it may only be a coincidence that stuff gets mentioned, but it may also be a "coincidence", if you see what I mean!

Anyway, he does a lot of work for Jean-Marie, so the mail from T+B may be a "coincidence", but either way if it gets a finger out, we'll be very happy.

The hummingbird hawk moths are out enjoying the warmth of the sun, as are the lizards, so we shall take our cue from them and go and bask in the countryside.

Happy glorious early autumn day!