The Honeymoon Diaries, by Father Earthly

After a pretty horrible month all-round, Father Earthly and I were amused today to come across the diary he kept whilst we were on honeymoon, 4 years ago. We have been clearing through our stuff - a hopeless and altogether exhausting task, and reading through his snippets of captured times past, my head peering over his shoulder, we were both brought to a place we thought long forgotten.

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Mardi 9/10/07
It's a peculiarity but when we are as relaxed as this it's not only the case that little joys are magnified, but little disappointments too. Not to say that things are stressful, but minor disappointments can have a larger than normal effect on our mood. However, those little joys can bounce us back up again.


Today didn't start all that well. We'd made our minds up to do a spot of swimming at the Grand Etang, especially as the weather seemed warm enough to do so. We set off on the bikes to St Estephe, stopping after a slog up the hills to take a look at 'Le Roc Branlant', a huge piece of granite rock balanced on yet more granite. It all looks extremely sturdy (only later did we find out that its name means 'the shaky rock' - it's possible to move the whole rock backwards and forwards. We've been told it's common to crack nuts or flatten money with it. Obviously we'll have to take another trip to use up our spare centimes!).


Then we made our way to the swimming lake only to find that the wind had got up a bit, the clouds had increased, and it was a bit too nippy to dip in. So we sunbathed for 10 minutes until the clouds became too numerous, forcing us back onto the bikes just to stay warm. So by this point we were starting to get hungry and finding Le Moulin still closed and unable to face one particularly onerous hill, we headed towards Piégut. En route, we passed the restaurant we'd seen on Friday, only to find it had closed for their 2 week holiday on Sunday, putting paid our idea of dining out this week. 

For a true get-away-from-it-all experience,
visit Covert Cabin!

Heading into Piégut we were unsure of the time but heard the clock strike 2 o'clock as we arrived. Having seen that the Bistrot, at least, was open until 3, we perused the menus of a couple of places until finally deciding upon [Father Earthly's handwriting becomes completely illegible here] which proudly claimed on the board that it was ouvert. Heading in and in the process of perching our bottoms however, we were informed by the chef that, in fact, the place was fermé. At least he had eth good grace to mumble desolée. So the Bistrot it was then. Or was it? Obviously being open until 3 is different to taking on new customers at 2.15. Oh well!


A wee bit disheartened, hungry, and generally not in the mood for cycling, we decided to take a shortcut home and proceeded down the rough track with too much haste and not enough caution. My sudden braking to avoid a muddy puddle resulted in [Mamma Earthly] tumbling over her handlebars, tearing her hands in the process. Unfortunately my attempt to clean out the wound with a sports capped bottle of water only furthered the pain she was already in and we limped back to the cabin a very sorry pair. 


Wounds cleaned, antiseptic spray squirted, and plasters applied, we sat down to a large slice each of a cake we'd baked yesterday. And it was this carrot cake, with a healthy dollop of frosting, that put the smile back on our faces - the small joy that magnified into a big pleasure, bouncing us back up again.