As often happens with the foreign community (that means me and others!), they stick together and help each other understand how things work in a different country. People who have experienced certain thing,s laws, taxes, builders, anything, will share their expiences to help others along!

So it came about, many years ago, that I used my website skills to help some, now dear friends, with their website for a wonderful business that they now have.

Periodically, we redesign their site and I am doing this at the moment of writing this blog. We get together and discuss work done or to be done, over a good lunch or dinner. So tonight was the night. I had a lovely supper after a small amount of website work accompanied by lots of chat about lots of things!

Tonight also clashed with a village meeting with the mayor. These things are never held at a sensible hour such as 6 o’clock. No, they are held at 9 pm just when we’re all winding down and thinking of bedtime.

I arrived back in the village carpark after my wonderful evening half an hour after the start of the village meeting. The temptation to just go home was enormous but, I knew that the right thing to do would be to go and show my face.

The full village wasn’t there. There were three officials, a family of four, me and my daughter who went before me, and five others, so eleven of us. It was a short meeting, just to keep us all informed about what’s been going on and the plans for the future. All over, I’m pleased to say, by 10.30! There was one issue that was intrigueing. Our medieval ruined tower (I must take a photo for you) was “renovated” and a dreadful modern rectangular, I don’t know what, installed right in the middle of it. Nobody can understand how it got planning permission. The reasoning was that by law, they are not allowed to make additions to historic monuments that look old or “fake”. Any addition had to be obviously an addition. It looks so bad that in that case it should never have been built. The whole medieval tower, in my opinion, has been ruined. To add insult to injury, one of our local men said that it was already leaking and letting in water so in a few years, it’ll all fall down anyway! Good heavens!

Off to bed now, I’ll try and post a photo in a few days.