Finally we are ready to throw open our doors and invite the throngs of people in that have been queueing outside our gate...  well almost... presque... so na as dammit!

We have committed ourselves that this date will be 1 July 2008, with an opening function on 30 June! And just in case we would forget, we put it in print and told the world. No turning back in other words.

Please let there not be a strike in Marseilles when our last container with cupboards and other essentials from SA arrives towards the 3rd week of June! Please let the garden that still has to be planted, grow overnight! And, oh yes, please let all the contractors realise how serious we are about this opening date!

But the view from the Attic where I live, on the general Status Quo, is pretty amazing I can tell you ! Somewhere in the last few weeks I realised that I was not living on a building site anymore but that it had actually transformed in to something resembling the dream I had started out with. The curtains are up, the beds installed, the cupboards .. that are here... painted, the mirrors hung, our beautiful furniture at home in this setting, the showers do hot and cold, luxurious carpets lie wall to wall and parquet floors are gleaming. Sowaar!

It takes a deadline to make things happen! The VISI-team's visit in April was such a deadline... cast in stone! I do not have the vocabulary to explain what my team of helpers and I did as this deadline was drawing closer... suffice it to say - Louis, Wilmie, Marietjie, Francois, Lisa, Liesbeth, Arabella, Markus, Christine, Sandra, Wynand, Yvette, Pam, Steve -  thank you, thank you!

Annemarie Meintjies and DOOK arrived early evening and looked bekommerd as they made their way up the stairs in the semi-dark, climbing over rolled up carpets and side stepping scaffolding, tins of paint and bags of endui. But the next few days proved that there were more than enough to "shoot"... The result, DOOK'S lovely pictures in VISI magazine, on sale 1st week in June. A personal bonus of this article in VISI was befriending Marita van der Vyfer, who wrote the story, and who spent a few days with me in Aubusson. Dis die begin van baie kuier!