So, as previously mentioned would be the case, here I am back in France for another short spell of work on Martin and Sile's Chambre d'Hote in Thezan les Beziers.

Martin's and my trip down was the same but different, if you get my meaning.

The Oscar Wilde, that we grew to know so well last year, had failed to make a recovery from the fire in her engine-room in time, so we had to take the 'land-bridge' option through Wales and England.

We set-off from Ballyduff well before dawn on Thursday and almost exactly 1000 miles (yes I do mean miles) and two ferry crossings later we arrived in Thezan, on Friday, into a now 'lived-in' building that was warm and welcoming, as opposed to the draughty building-site that it was when Martin and I came out to lay an oak floor during the winter 2007 / 2008.

And we arrived in perfect time for a dinner, of an equally perfect daube, prepared by Sile.

But, yes, we were tired, very tired!

And it is just as cold in Thezan now as it was on that visit and damn nearly as cold as it was in Ireland over the Christmas / New Year period!.

On the other hand, when I awoke on Saturday to a brilliant, sun-lit, although bightingly cold morning, my first sight, as I looked out of a bathroom window, was this lemon tree in full-fruit in the next-door neighbour's garden!

Possibly influenced by memories of how at Ballyduff, in our single-glazed, north-east facing conservatory, (before we turned it into 'the new room' (see This is Home.... 17.11.09), the heat produced by a small Godin stove was sufficient to allow us have Christmas dinner and winter parties therein, the heat source here is a bigger version of the same model of Godin and, burning only wood, it throbs in the kitchen living area of the house and, when it is being re-fuelled, sends-out delightful aromas of wood-smoke (oak and beech to be precise).

This is my first experience of the building 'in use' as opposed to a 'work in progress'.
I'll not show you pictures here and now as Martin and I brought with us a van-load of furniture and boxes from their Waterford home which have yet to be positioned and assimilated.

But, as I write, Martin & Sile are working at this very task, so, by the time I leave at the end of the month, it should be back to its show-piece self!