Last few days in Moncrabeau

We felt the weight of responsibility on us, having to put the house to bed, knowing that no-one would be visiting till the spring. Keith had left us with a list but then he’d also given us other careful instructions which we’d failed to follow. Like only putting the rubbish bags out on the morning of the dustbin men – I got blasé one time and thought it was pretty late and the bags were well wrapped up. However, in the morning a charming chap was knocking on the door to tell me that the dogs had ripped the bags open so there I was in my gloves with my bucket of eau de javel tidying it up!
I was also on a mission to finish up all the food since I can’t bear to throw anything away so we ended up with hot lunches and dinners every day to be sure that it all got used up. It was very cold indeed but some days the freezing fog lifted and we were able to go out walking in the beautiful countryside – I went running anyway whatever the weather though it’s not as much fun when you can’t see the view for the fog.
We were also struggling to find somewhere to stay on the Sunday night on our journey back. I had two attempts with the chateaux and hotels and the relais du silence web sites, both of which allowed us to make a booking for dinner, bed and breakfast. The first hotel emailed to say they were shut as they had a problem with their heating and the second one couldn’t offer dinner as the restaurant was shut! I got a refund from chateaux and hotels with no problem but relais du silence were trying to charge a cancellation till I pointed out that they needed to rethink! However, we got sorted in the end and completed all of our jobs.
We managed to forget one item on Keith’s list and didn’t turn off the water heater, which we only remembered as we settled down in our pit stop hotel near Bordeaux – 90 miles or so from Moncrabeau. So we had to turn round the next morning and head back – adding over 3 ½ hours to a long day’s driving. Still it meant I could put the towels away which had been left drying. We checked on the mouse poison but it hadn’t been touched – they probably don’t like that flavour but I expect they’ll make themselves scarce once Albi and Charlie are back in residence!