Phew!

We're back in Maidstone again, and the house is pretty tidy all throughout the ground floor.

I didn't manage as much as I would like [I wanted to "spring" clean the shower room/loo/laundry/back hall], but did achieve a great deal more than I expected.  I'm currently battling with the OCD part of me that thinks I should go back before Christmas to do that extra cleaning (and sort out the contents of the boulangère stand; I only dusted the miscellaneous items that are temporarily parked there)...

David thinks we're done enough, and I know that we've done enough, but it is not finished.  I've got to work more on letting it go, clearly.

What we did achieve was everything cleaned and put away in the kitchen, entrance hall and study/guest bedroom.  Everywhere vacuumed and dusted.  The bedroom was done in October, but I'd managed to stack up loads of clothes and bedding waiting until we get around to installing the clothing storage in the dressing room, so that has all been temporarily tucked away out of sight!  David also assembled a wine rack in the small cellar and took the wine down there, and the various liqueurs I'd made; sorting those out for laying down or using is another job for the warmer months.

Speaking of warmer: it was fabulous weather whilst we were there - pretty cold at night, but warm and sunny during the days - just a shame that I didn't manage to get out into the garden.  Obviously the warm weather has encouraged lots of weed seedlings to germinate, so I would have liked to be out there laying waste to the interlopers, rather than spending hours on my hands and knees looking at the floor!  Still, it was a good use of our time, even if I'd rather have been in the garden.  We can now welcome guests without having to park the folding bed in the kitchen!

Sadly, one proposed guest didn't make it: Alasdhair wanted to come and stay over on Friday evening [it would have been lovely to see him, but would have taken away a fair bit of our working time; I didn't stop before 7pm, and mostly worked later (9.30pm is too late, by the way!) and didn't have a day off whilst we were there, so missing out an evening and morning would have prevented us from getting the entrance hall tidied], so I was relieved that he couldn't make it (and will greatly enjoy seeing him when it is re-scheduled) but not for the reason - his aunt, Luisela, sadly died on Thursday, and he had to go back to Italy for the funeral.  An unwelcome reminder that it's now our parents' generation who are the old people, rather than our grandparents (who are all long-since departed)...

And yes, I am feeling my age!

But hopefully tomorrow, not-so-much, and then I'll be back in the swimming pool.

David spoke with Matthias Huguenot, and he was very helpful and agreed that M. Antoni [a different M. Antoni from either of our two previous Messrs Antoni!] would check over the connections for the central heating in the new bedroom (so that we can confidently heat that part of the house, without worrying about an unsuspected leak causing damage in our absence; we love the "frost-stat" setting) when he comes to service the boiler, which should be next time we go.

Having messed us around for over a week, M. Torelli definitively said he couldn't come and do that check on Monday, by which time it was too late to organise Schwartz to come whilst we were still there.

We're going to take a view on what to do about the cracked basin pedestal (& mirrors above the basins) some time in the new year, but frankly I think it would be a lot less bother to order a new pedestal ourselves and ask Schwartz to fit it and the mirrors...  The only reason that we've persevered with M. Torelli for so long is that he has really good ideas, and we believe that things could be better if we let him do work that needs doing [the completely-wrong type of water filter specified by Jean-Marie, for instance will need replacing, and he told us of another type that is designed for second home usage].

We're hoping that Laurent will have fitted our door upstairs when we next go, and then we can move a lot of things to a semi-permanent "hidden" home where they can all be stacked up under a plastic sheet to keep the snow off.

Subject to it not being already covered in snow like last year when we arrived for Christmas!