Senior moments

St Clement
Yesterday's weather: sunny, sort of OK but not really warm.

I took Mum shopping yesterday morning. I haven't driven much for a while but wanted to go into town for a few bits and pieces.

I left the car warming up while we wandered over the garden to inspect the chalet which Mum hadn't seen before. Both of us taking care not to slip on the wooden steps and chasing the cat out of this cat-free zone we admired Jon's handiwork and talked about how useful it will be next summer when Jon and I will probably sleep there during the time we are ripping the upper floor of the house to pieces.

Then we headed into town. It's a long time since Mum was last here and with all the leaves off the trees now we could see lots of changes, houses with new roofs or extensions, houses we had never spotted before. Brown fields which were green last time we passed and so on.

It was a beautiful morning and we pottered along chatting about this and that. Eventually we arrived at the supermarket, got out of the car, locked it. Then we unlocked it and got back in and headed home.

On the way back we still admired the countryside, chatting about family and so on. Around a bend, and just in time, I spotted a white van parked with his hazard lights flashing. Wondering what he was doing parked in such a stupid place I pulled out to drive round and came face to face - yes, I promise you, face-to-face with a helicopter.

'So that's what the van was doing there' I thought. We carried on along the road with the helicopter hovering beside us swerving across the fields. I realised then that they were checking the electricity pylons.

When we got home I warned Jon to watch out for the helicopter hopping over the hill later on.

Then I picked up my handbag from the garden table where I had left it and got back in the car to go shopping.

Bumper to bumper

Ste Cécile
Yesterday's weather: mild, mixed sun and cloud

We took the 'pretty route' down to Toulouse yesterday. It took far longer than it should have but we saw a lot of scenery and travelled many roads that we wouldn't normally need to take. Traffic was almost non-existent. We were surprised at the change in landscape from limestone to woodland to chalky vineyards then heath then rolling fertile hillsides and then we hit the outskirts of Toulouse - yuk.

For the first time in many months we found ourselves crawling along in queues of traffic. It was 5.30pm and people were leaving work to head home. The volume of traffic was no doubt increased because of the transport workers strike, but we found it very tiresome. Did we really used to do that every day? It seems like a lifetime ago sitting in the queue waiting to get out of Guildford, or trudging along the busy road to stand on a crowded platform and catch a train.

We are so looking forward to making a visit back to the UK to see the grandchildren.

Well, I'm sure that without the M25, M40 and M42 it would be very pleasant.

Yellows and browns

St Tobie
Yesterday's weather: sunny.

It's as if the world has suddenly changed. The early morning frosts of the last week have turned the world from green to golden brown and yellows. I was surprised to see that walnut leaves actually turn, well, dark walnut brown which makes the trees look very sombre compared to the riot of colours in the other trees.

With the sun low over the hills this week, it has spurred Jon to cut down some of the trees closer to the house to try and allow a little more sun on to the patio. We can't do anything about moving the hill or the stand of fir trees which don't belong to us, but we are trying our best to get as much sun as we can during the morning. This will also give us lots of logs to burn in a year or so's time when we have installed the log burner - that will be after converting our sitting room and bedroom into a large lounge - which will be after converting the attic into two bedrooms - which will be after putting in a staircase to the loft and also after putting in the new shower unit which is still sitting in the garage because we can't fit it until we have stairs because the only loft access is over the bath (?).....

So, I don't know what I am doing sitting here writing a blog when there is all this work to get on with. Time for a cuppa, I think.