Tues 12th Aug - DIY

In the morning we were naughtily the last down again. We had tasty bread and jam and then didn't really do much all morning. I was feeling a bit twitchy about being in the house and not having anything useful to do. I wrote some blog and other than that just pretty much hung about. Claire made a very tasty lunch of lasagne followed by a very thin apple crumble and of course cheese nom nom nom. My favorite is a very very melty one somewhere past and out the other side of a nice camenbert. Over post lunch coffee Manette said she thought us moving out was 'bizarre' and that we were a useful excuse for not having some other people there so think we may have misread the stress issue. Anyway it's done now and the hotel is booked and paid for 2 nights but I don't want Manette to lose face. We also talked about her family and Francois' brother Alain who is an instrument maker. Paul had a go on a guitar he made, pretty amazing. 
Then P found a useful job to do mending a plug socket so we popped up to the town on some incredibly retro and slightly scary bikes that were in the garden and bought the required bits at the hardware shop. While he was working away manfully Mairead and I cleaned out one of the gutters and put garden clippings out for collection.
We moved into our hotel room in the afternoon before dinner. The receptionist told us she had a bit of good news and we turned out to have been upgraded to a suite which is pretty impressive. All white and grey blue seasidey colours, with an extra room complete with two single beds and a sitting room with a big flat screen tv and a little white bureau which has lots of Useful Drawers and a roll down lid. Another highlight is the strange lighting system behind the headboard which can be changed to any colour you fancy using a little remote control gadget.
Once we'd checked in we walked up to Manuelle's parents' house which is at the other end of the town and the boys played football on beach with Manuelle's kids, Adil her husband and their friend Chris. Shahim, Manuelle's son, is a very vigorous player even though he is very small. P couldn't play because of his ankle and nobody could swim because the tide was still too far out, but P and I  measured the speed of the incoming tide. It was 20m in over 4 minutes (so definitely possible to outrun although still easy to get caught out by being on a slightly higher bit and the sea coming in around you). The water had been on the flats all the sunny afternoon and was pleasantly warm but the sun had gone in and it was cold and windy.
We walked back to the house via the hotel where we had a quick shower and took some wine from the Viveco by the hotel like good guests. We all warmed up with a nice martini in the sun room on the side. Then Mairead got pizza for everyone for dinner or rather two pizzas and two tarts which were exactly identical to the pizzas a bit smaller. The best was a goat's cheese tart. Yum! We had some nice banter over dinner including telling each other off for bout speaking French and making jokes about Paul 2 Pizzas McCan and Paul and Mairead telling about boarding school in Ireland.
When we got back the funfair opposite was in full flow but it was fairly quiet with the windows and shutters shut and so we watched The Life Of Pi til about midnight when it all shut anyway.