Update

I have been fighting off a cold for the last two weeks, it keeps surfacing in the form of a sore throat and dry cough, but I take my vitamins and echinacea and it retreats for a day or two. The colleague I have been covering for the last two weeks, returned yesterday and things are a little calmer but I feel I mustn't slow down and take it easy in an effort to recuperate, for fear that when I am recovered from the cold, all the momentum I have gained in the real estate business will have disappeared.

Hubby returns again this week for a few days, so I do plan to pull back a bit while he is here, but I am sure we will still be running with other stuff. We have to find somewhere to rent so that we an hand over the house cleanly to daughter and son-in-law on November 30th. Also we will be sorting through our belongings to decide what can be packed for France, what we will need to survive for the next year and what can go. Sounds restful doesn't it?

Most of the leaves have fallen around here and been raked to the curb for collection this week. The pool has been closed at last and the clocks have fallen backwards, all the signs that winter is almost upon us. Where did 2009 go? It seems one minute we were sweltering in the heat and suddenly we need the heat on in the house. Never mind, we are looking forward to 2010 as, having sold this house, we can make some real progress on the French house. At the moment we have the builders in clearing out the ruin so they can stabilize the walls and render what used to be an internal wall but will now be the end wall of the house. They will render and then do "pierre aparent" (?) whereby they push the render in between the old stones, revealing some of the larger stones. Not dreadfully exciting stuff but very necessary. There is some talk of hubby and I going over to France over the New Year and getting our beams sandblasted and talking staircases with people. Does the excitement never end?