Happy and sad

It feels like winter has finally been despatched for another year. It has hung on grimly here for longer than strictly necessary or welcome, for that matter. There have been moments over the past couple of months when it felt as though Spring was just around the corner; when it was warm enough to sit outside in the square for lunch or an early evening aperitif, but they proved to be just false hopes, a little tease if you like. Indeed, we had lunch outside in the square on the 2nd January and some blossom was out at the end of that month. "You've gone too early", I thought, and so it proved. The March cold and damp went on and on, week after week caused by unseasonably bad weather sat over the Iberian peninsula, apparently. A brief respite for three days over the Easter holidays and then back to more rain. All the while, it was cheerily sunny, warm and dry in London.

This week, however, instant summer has arrived. Well, for a Northern European boy it is instant summer. It is not the uncomfortable blazing heat of July but it's plenty fabulous for me. At seven o'clock on a Saturday morning, I am sat at my kitchen table with the windows wide open. The sun is already casting it's golden rays onto the buildings across the street and there is a haze to the blue sky which hints at the heat to come later in the day. Swallows swoop low over the rooftops in courtship. It is still quiet apart from the bells and the occasional 'clip-clop' of shoes on the street as the sensible shoppers, baskets in arms, make their way down the hill to the market to get their pick of the best produce before the out-of-towners, tourists and late risers all converge on the square later in the morning. The local asparagus season is already a month old and delicious local strawberries are now in abundance. There is a heady sense of anticipation about what new treats are to be had - the first figs or melons perhaps? (having been to the market, I can confirm that it was melons - still quite small, but absolutely bursting with juice and flavour).

The only problem with this fantastic weather is that the last place I want to be is inside working on the renovation, but the timetable is unforgiving so work we must. Progress has been good this week - the last bit of demolition and rubble removal has been done, the plumbing is nearly finished and the frame for the new doorway to the bedroom has been put in place. Having pondered long and hard and changed our mind a few times, we have saved some money on the doors for the bedroom by deciding to use the spare ones that we found in one of my cellar spaces. I'm not sure where they came from originally but they match all the other sets of double doors and so are perfect. It was in fact a good week for saving money. I had, fortunately, delayed ordering the new tiles for the studio kitchen and bathroom and finally went to do it yesterday. My wife, who is over for the weekend I am happy to say, then found almost exactly the same tiles on offer at pretty much a third of the price - what a result that was - and, what's more, they have them in stock as well, rather than having to wait six weeks for delivery from Italy.

Also in my cellar, we found two pieces of glass, cut to size for the standard panes of the large double opening windows that adorn each room. This was lucky on two counts. Firstly, the apartment has always had one pane of glass missing from one of it's windows and I had been meaning to get a piece of glass cut for it. No need for that any more - and more money saved. Secondly, we now need to replace another pane of glass, in the main apartment, after some 'petit merde' threw a bottle at the window in the early hours of Friday morning. We were awoken by a strange sound in the night but couldn't place it. A quick look round in the dark didn't reveal anything and fortunately I didn't stand on any of the broken glass in my bare feet. All became apparent in the morning - a small hole in the cracked pane, a beer bottle top and broken glass in the living room and a broken green beer bottle in the street down below.

Talking to one of my neighbours later that day, I got the distinct impression that she thought France was going to the dogs with the disaffected, mostly Arab, youth the main reason for the decline. I have no idea if there is a link, but the day before France votes for a new President, means that it is an issue on everyone's mind just now. I don't know what makes someone think it is big or clever to throw a bottle at a window, or why someone has so little respect for other people and their property, but it saddens and angers me. 'C'est la vie' as they say around here.