Early mornings and sandcastles

St Gaétan
Yesterday's weather: wet, wet, wet (They were good, weren't they? Loved that Marti Pellow)
I was up early again trying to stop the kitten from scratching at the door at first light. He doesn't seem to want to learn though and obviously enjoys his shower (it's the method recommended by cat psychologists). I spent nearly an hour reading in the downstairs loo, sporadically showering him every time he scratched, refusing to give in to his demands until I could no longer deny my craving for a cuppa. It seems that this battle will go on for some time, probably until I get fed up with existing on 5 hours sleep a night.

UK television works on UK time, not Central European time, therefore our bedtimes are usually pretty late, often after midnight. By the time we've seen the news it's already 11.30 and there's often something else on that we want to watch after that. Back in the UK we were usually in bed shortly after 10.30 if we'd even managed to last that long, but this new life is rather different. We don't HAVE to get up at 6am - apart from sorting out kitten but we can at least take the rest of the day a little slower if we want to.

Construction

The base for the chalet is on it's way. We're now trying to source sand and gravel to fill the base space, so to speak. None of the garden is level so we've found that although it's just one plank of wood deep in one corner, the diagonally opposite corner is three planks deep. And that is on the flattest piece of garden we can find. There is no soil to speak of so Jon has been digging away recovering as much small stone as he can find but there's only so much time you can spend on this sort of job without either going mad or breaking your back. We're now waiting for a quote from the local quarry for a delivery of heaven knows how many tons of sand.

And still no sign of the chalet being delivered!

A very sad sight

St Just
Yesterday's weather: hot, hot, hot

The circus came to a village near here yesterday. It isn't the first circus of the season there are several who tour France throughout the summer months.

They usually arrive with a fanfare of hooters, park up in the village square and generally create havoc in the village for 48 hours before moving on to the next village.

Often they will take a van out to smaller communities and to campsites around the village with a tannoy to let everyone know to come to see them at 9pm that evening. Usually there are clowns and acrobats and sometimes a horse or a llama. The one we saw yesterday was just setting off to do it's tannoy advertising. There was a large truck with railings along it's sides and inside were two gorgeous tigers. They were pacing up and down in the truck, which was just big enough for them to manage about ten strides from one end to the other. I'll admit that they looked well fed, their coats were glossy and they looked well cared for, but I wanted to cry for these two beauties who must spend at least two months of the year going from village to village confined to their truck.

Farewell solanum lycopersicum

St Abel
Yesterday's weather: gorgeous.

I had to give in yesterday in my fight against tomato blight. I had to admit defeat and remove my remaining plants. They will be burned later this morning to prevent reinfection. I managed to salvage a few green plum tomatoes which look quite healthy so there may be some chutney on the boil later, and my cherry tomato plants on the patio are still doing well but looking quite tired now.

There are three baby chilli plants on their way and two bigger plants on the patio which are bursting forth evil looking skinny chillies called 'Java'. I'm waiting for them to turn red before I pick them. The peppers are still doing really well but I've almost given up on the courgettes which have been a failure this year. I think it's me, the green fingers haven't been quite green enough this summer, but it's the first time for years that I've grown veggies and never in this area. Hopefully I've learned some lessons for next year.

Such sad news about foot and mouth in Surrey and it's scandalous to learn the source of the infection. The UK farming community was only just winning back confidence after the last epidemic. Now we hear that England is the main producer of vaccines for F&M - but it isn't used in the UK. I hope that lessons will be learned from this, and quickly.

We went shopping and we bought ......

A car!

Do you know what it is (yes, I know you can see the badge)? A prize of a bottle of Cahors for the first correct answer with the model and nearest year of manufacture (but you'll have to come and collect it). And you are excluded from this competition if you live or have ever lived in France!

I'll give you the answer on Thursday 9th - the day we collect her

St Jean-Marie
Yesterday's weather: Wonderful

Cleaning

Ste Lydie
Yesterday's weather: mixed but no rain. Warm.

Warning: You may not wish to continue reading this if you are an arachnophobe.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to 'deep clean' the cellar, or cave in French. Unusually in our house, it is the room next to our kitchen which was created many, many years ago from half of the cave space. We use it as a utility room, larder and general store/dumping ground but returning some cheese to the fridge after lunch I noticed a strange smell, so I thought I should give it a good clean. We have occasionally had a mouse in there, not recently since the cats are such good mousers, but you never know if one of the little critters has managed to get in during the night and popped it's clogs, so to speak.

As our house is built into the side of a hill the back of the cave is bedrock and it's full of little holes. I started at the back to work forwards. I must admit that I don't do a full clean in there very often, but we did do one just a couple of months ago. However, I think the entire spider population of France had heard how infrequently I clean the back wall and they had all taken up residence. Ugh.

I really don't like spiders, although I do appreciate the fact that they help keep the fly population down. I was very gentle with them, I hoovered them up into a bagless hoover and emptied them into the garden from where, no doubt they are making their way back 'home'.

Oh, as for the smell, yes I did locate it. It was the hard boiled eggs I had put in the fridge earlier. I forgot to cover them with cling wrap but I have done now and the fridge and cave smell much sweeter.

Storm

St Julien
Yesterday's weather: 35 degrees mid afternoon. Sunny and lovely

We had an amazing thunderstorm in the middle of the night. It was right overhead. Normally we would leave the windows open and enjoy the spectacle but last night we got up and shut them, it was just too close and noisy. Then it was too hot in the bedroom, so you just can't win.

An electrical storm then upsets all the electrics in the house. The power tripped out for a while which means that the satellite dishes both need resetting, clocks and timers need checking, and the internet router which also runs our phone system needed rebooting, so it's lucky that we don't have to rush off to work first thing this morning, isn't it? If we had had to get up for work then the alarm clock wouldn't have gone off anyway so we'd be late.

It's so good not having these little worries any more.

Six months on.....

St Alphonse
Yesterday's weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky

Today is our six month anniversary. It hardly seems possible that we arrived here on 1 February when the ground was covered in snow. We unloaded two cars, three cats, a thousand tea bags and two huge pots of Marmite amongst other items. Oh yes, and my Mum who came to help us settle in.

The cats were very good on the journey. I don't know if the herbal remedy I'd been feeding them helped but they were a lot calmer than we expected them to be and when we got here they settled in a lot quicker than we expected them to. Jazz immediately took up residence under the buffet and the other two explored. When Jazz finally came out she took a fancy to a crocheted blanket Mum had brought with her and which she kindly donated to the cats (only we know the REAL reason why Mum didn't want it back and I won't go into that here). It is still Jazz's favourite bed companion.

So, six months on and where are we? Still waiting for the windows to be delivered. Still waiting for the chalet, shed and shower to be delivered. Still waiting for the kitchen units to be delivered........ Even Amazon has let me down this week. I was expecting 6 books yesterday and only one turned up. However, our usual postman was obviously training a temporary replacement to cover the round while he is on holiday and they visited us twice yesterday, having forgotten the book the first time round. Perhaps they still had the rest of them at the end of their round.

We are going to celebrate our six months. We just haven't decided how yet.