Tour De France

This year the tour came quite close to our house, about 40 minutes drive south, so we thought that we would take in this legendary sporting event for the first time. A lot of our friends had the same idea as well. My brother and his family came to stay with us, Andy and Anna had a house full of there family and Pete Rat was down with some of his kids in his camper van.

All in all, there were 12 adults and 7 kids rendezvoused at a junction south of Dignac, where Pete had parked his van.

With only 3 and a half hours to go until the race arrived, it was time to get out the picnic's and then wait, and wait and wait some more.

As you can see, we marked out our territory, on the side of the road, just in case there were any Portsmouth types ( les skates as they are known in France). unlikely, but you never know, as there were a lot of caravans around.

Several hours, and several beers later, the tour caravan started to pass us, with all sorts of freebies and samples being thrown out by the tour sponsors. All I managed to pick up where two pens, but the kids did alright, even getting a Marge Simpson mask from the float advertising the Simpsons movie. Not very French, but that's the global village for you.

Things calmed down again for another hour or so, while Pete scoured the skies for the tell-tale signs of the TV helicopters filming the race. Then they were upon us.

There was a break away group of 4 , who came through at the sort of speed I could only manage down a steep hill, and about ten minutes later the pelethon arrived en masse. How the hell they don't crash into each other more often, God only knows.

As national obsessions go, there is more waiting round than at a test match, and a lot more drugs.

And that was that. We packed up and all headed back to our house for a barbecue. It seemed like a good idea, but it was hard work cooking for 17 people at once, but we coped, so much so that we could always come back to work in the Charcoal Grill in Andover, if we need some cash.

The pool was a big hit with everyone, as it was a rare hot weekend for this summer.

Pete stopped over with the kids for the weekend, and I even managed to fix an electrical fault on his camper van. My first job, but I didn't charge him a call out fee, as he was parked up in our garden.

Garden Nef Party

What the hell is the Garden Nef Party, I hear you ask.

It's another rock festival, a bit nearer to home, in Angouleme. It's a new festival, only it's second year, and it is on for two nights. We had been uhming and ahing about whether we were up to 2 nights rocking, but decided against the Friday night, as the only band we really wanted to see were Muse, and it was the day that the pool was due to be finished.

So we decided to go to the Saturday as we wanted to see Arcade Fire and Klaxons again, and there were so other interesting bands as well.

The festival site was in a park on a hillside, a few minutes walk from the town centre. It was a bit spooky when we got there, as you got to the festival by walking up the middle of the bye-pass which was closed down for the duration. It was so quiet that it felt like the start of a zombie movie or something. It took a while to get in, as the security was a bit tight and we had to check in our camera, so no pictures this time.

The first band up were Art Brut, and English band who are a bit like the Fall but with Hugh Grant instead of Mark E Smith. They were brilliant, and very funny, I would recommend anyone to go see them as they are so entertaining.

Next up were Klaxons, who were great as usual. Unfortunately, during their last song, the bass player decided to jump into the pit at the front of the stage, to get a bit closer to the audience. He jumped down, in rock and roll style, but never re-appeared, and the lyrics of the song changed to, "I think I might need some help guys, I've done something to my ankle".

The rest of the band carried on like true professionals, finished the song, waved to the crowd and walked off stage, without so much as a glance into the pit.

We kept seeing Klaxons wandering around the festival, enjoying the beer and the music but with no sign of the bass player. The rest of the band looked like they were about 16 years old, and were much smaller than they looked on stage. We must be getting old!

Hours later, and we were enjoying the LCD Soundsystem, when the lead singer looked down into the pit and said "Jamie from Klaxons went down there, and now he's in hospital".

We had a couple of American bands next, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who were OK and Coco Rosie who seemed to be a bit of a US/Red Indian Bjork wannabe. It was a bit like an opera recital, so we watched from a distance, as we had found some chairs and a table, so we watched from a distance. The catering wasn't as interesting as the other festival, but the wine was good and cheap, (not for me though as I was driving) but it was all very civilized.

Arcade Fire were superb again, and had changed their set a bit from last time. The only problem with Arcade Fire, is that there are so many of them in the band , with so many instruments that it took an hour to clear the stage ready for the last band, LCD Soundsystem, so they didn't get on until 1:30 , well past our bedtime!

They were worth waiting for, and the lead singer is more our age, and looks like he enjoys a beer and a pie, so he made us feel more normal.

We left the festival at about 2:30, and got home just before 4 in the morning. I thought we would have had the roads to ourselves on the way back, but far from it. It was a as busy as the middle of the afternoon. Makes you wonder what the French get up to in the middle of the night when we are all tucked up in beddy byes.

All in all though, it was a great night, and we will try to go again next year, as it is well worth supporting.

Pool pictures

As a picture is supposed to paint a thousand words, have a look at how our pool was built.

Day 1

Take that moley !

Anything he can do, a JCB can do better. As you can see, it is a bit wet, but not ready to swim in.

Day 5

The steel sides give the pool it's shape.

Day 6

And now the steps are added.


Day 7

The bottom of the pool is formed with a concrete base.

Day 8

The concrete base is now finished, despite the fact that it kept raining.

Day 9

With the liner in, it looks a lot more like a swimming pool. That lump the other end is a giant hoover, sucking the air out from under the liner.

Day 10

The pool is very nearly full now, and the liner has been cut round the steps. It took over a day to fill up. As we are on a meter, I think it took about 100 Euros worth of water to fill it, I just hope I got the decimal point in the right place.

Day12

The digger man came back to landscape the garden, and back-fill the pool. The bloke in the hat is Michel, who built the pool single handed, apart from a little bit of help unloading trucks, and fitting the filter.

Those of you who think that this blog entry is a bit late as we have been lazing round the pool, wrong. We are both busy laying the patio around it!

Festival Time

We've just come back from our holiday's in the France-Comte ( what do you mean, our life is one big holiday? ). There is a rock festival in Belfort every year and as they had a lot of bands on that we both like, we decided to give it a go.

The Comte region is over by the Swiss border, a good 6 or 7 hours drive from us, so we decided to take some extra time, and take in some of the scenery, as well. There were lakes, hills, mountain gorges and waterfalls everywhere, including this one at Herrison, which has about 30 falls, including the largest two in these pictures, both of which are 60m plus.



That's me in the picture, trying to walk behind one of the waterfalls, but it was too wet and slippy for me. Luckily for me, Tina kept losing her grip on the camera in all the spray, so I had to stand there for ages to get this picture, and looked like I had had an embarrassing accident in the trouser department for the next hour or so.

From here it was on to Belfort for the festival. We gave the Friday session of the festival a miss, as the leads were Maralyn Manson, and Ami Winehouse, as I was worried that we'd be pestered by Ami Winehouses relatives trying to sell us clothes pegs and lucky heather. Friday night and Saturday morning we explored the town, including a long walk on Saturday morning round the forts that give the town it's name.

After lunch, and a short nap at our hotel, it was time to rock! The festival is on a peninsula on a lake, a few miles out of town, so the local authorities lay on a free shuttle train to take you out there, and it was straight forward enough getting in, without the traditional British queues.

On the site itself, there were four stages, and on dance stage, and the acts were staggered so that only two stages were on at once, which meant that we didn't have to many conflicts on what band to see, and we got plenty of exercise walking from band to band.

There were plenty of bars, and the queues were nothing like what we had seen at UK festivals, partly because of the beer token system, which avoids giving change all the time. Also, a lot of French kids brought in thinly disguised bottles of vodka and orange, Pernod etc etc. The choice of drinks was much better than in the UK, where it is Carling or Carling. Here it was ordinary Kronenbourg, 1664 and Blanc, as well as another white beer that I didn't get round to, white, red and rose wine and even champagne ( two beer tokens = 4.3 Euros a glass) ! The food was great too. There were lots of local specialties like tartuflie ( cheese ham and potatoes), snails, crepes as well as Mexican, kebabs, burgers ( including horse burgers!) and even one stall griddling foie gras and serving it in a bun. We settled for tartuflie, Mexican, kebabs and grilled duck with chips ( not all at once) .

Now onto the music. On Saturday we had Cold War Kids, Editors, Maximo Park, Queens of the Stone Age and the Hives who were all great. We also checked out Scanners and the slightly strange Deerhoof, as well as some French bands. Joey Star was French hip-hop, but in the Beastie Boys mould, so the rocking backing track made up for us not knowing what he was rapping about, and Art Malik was more jazzy. We didn't get any pics on Saturday, as cameras were supposed to be forbidden, but we seemed to be the only people who took any notice.

Being old and sensible, we missed the end of the Hives to avoid the queues for the train back into town, but you could hear it all as we walked to the station. Also it was gone 2 am so it was well past our bedtime, and it was 3 am when we got back to the hotel.

Sunday morning saw us wake up just before the end of breakfast, which we followed up with a stroll round the town's Sunday flea market, lunch, and another nap.

We made our way back to the festival at about 4 o' clock, getting there just too late for a meet the band session with the Klaxons, a bit of a disappointment for Tina, who likes the look of the keyboard player, and a bit of disappointment for the Klaxons, as I was going to give them 2 Euros for royalties on their CD, as someone skimmed it of the Internet for me.

The music started with Hatebreed, very loud and angry Americans. They were so load that the bar staff had to take ear plugs out to take your order. I did say afterwards that it might have been good if there had been a mix-up at the Diana concert, and they got Hatebreed instead of Duran Duran.

Next up was TV on the Radio, US indie/R&B and all sorts, with a guitarist who could win a beard growing contest with Mr E from Eels.





Back to the main stage for 'The Good the Bad and the Queen'. A bit sedate for the main stage, but we enjoyed it. Damien is getting as bit older, and starting to look a bit like Duncan Ferguson.





It was good to see Paul Simeon strutting his stuff, roaming the stage with his strapless bass, and looking just as menacing as he did with the Clash.







Next up were Klaxons, who were brilliant. The stage was in a huge open sided tent, and Klaxons got the crowd going wilder than at any other band on the weekend. There was no mosh pit, but so much crowd surfing that there were collisions, followed by a collapse to the ground, as the people below tried to take the weight of two surfers at once.


We had a bit of a lull next, with no-one we particularly wanted to see, so we drifted and caught a bit of Tryo, a french middle of the road reggae band, who seemed to have been going as long as the Bee-Gees. Very popular with the French, but not our bag man.

At about 11, it started to rain, so we headed of to watch Air, the only French band that we had heard of. The tent wasn't as busy as we had thought, perhaps Air aren't as big as Tryo in their own country. They were good, but a bit too mellow for this time of night, so we left early, to get a good spot for Arcade Fire.



It chucked it down when they were on, but it didn't spoil it, as us sensible older rockers had packed our kagools, and also Arcade Fire have so much energy and enthusiasm that you just get swept with it.

We dipped out on their encore, as we were shattered by then, and wanted to make sure we beat the rush for the train. This time we were back at a more sensible 2 am.

When we got home on Monday night, we were shattered, and in true rock and roll style, we went to bed at half past nine.

There are some great videos from the weekend on the link below. Kalxons, Editors,Cold War Kids, Hives, QOTSA and Arcade Fire videos are all worth a look. We are in the left hand corner at the start of Arcade Fire, honest!

http://www.eurockeennes.fr/dn_videos_direct/#

We're not up to this festival lark, but hang on .... Muse and Arcade Fire are in Angloueme in a couple of weeks .....

Working Hard - Honest

The past couple of weeks have seen us working hard on the barn, and making a fair bit of progress. Tina has now gone the length of the room with her pointing, up to ladder height while I have more or less finished the jointing on the walls up to ladder height as well, so we are both queueing up to use the scaffold.






The inside of the fireplace shows of the pointing quite well, even allowing for my slanting photo.

I'm not sure how well my jointing of the plasterboard on the walls is going. It looks OK at the moment, and I have been checking them all with a flat edge, but the moment of truth will be when we paint the walls, when I have a nasty feeling that you will be able to see every single joint that I have slaved over. Still, if the worst comes to the worst, we can skim all the walls and repaint it!

Mr Chatillon has now finished all of his work, including fitting the internal doors. I ended up working as a carpenters mate to help him finish, working until 7pm on Friday night. Outrageous!I hardly ever worked that late at the Banque de Cheval Nior, only if we were doing and installation, or if I was being threatened by fat Welshmen and coke head contractors (allegedly) .

We are not quite sure what Mr Chatillon made of our music. We like to listen to BBC 6 Music while we are working, and we're not sure that he was ready for indie guitar bands, and we could have turned him into a 60 year old goth after hearing the new Queens of the Stone Age single.( Je suis le seul goth dans le village ... as he goes to the news agents for his copy of Kerrang).

The doors look even better than we had hoped, and start to make it look like a proper room. Tina quickly varnished them, to try and stop me from dripping plaster all over them, as if that will stop me.












Away from the building work, we temporarily acquired some livestock last weekend. On Saturday night, at about 10 o'clock Tina looked up and saw a sheep at the top of our drive. We rushed out and tried to herd it up the road to the gate so we could put it back in one of Thiery's fields, but it was having none of it. We tried using French commands, venez, allez, allons y, but to no avail. And cats are no substitute for a collie at times like this.

Next, I ran over to Thiery's house to get some help, but there was no-one home. So I ran back home, got my bike out and cycled down the hill to get Thiery's dad. Five minutes later we were back, after me pushing my bike half way up the hill, but the sheep was nowhere to be found. Tina had gone back in the house for a minute, as she was worried that the sheep was getting a bit panicky, and when she came back out, it had gone.

I searched along the road, but there was no sign of it.

So the next day I went to tell Thiery what had happened, but I needn't have worried, the sheep was waiting for them when they got home on Saturday night. It turns out that the sheep had just been separated from it's lambs for the first time, so it had escaped and gone looking for them.

I also found out that it was an English sheep, so if we had tried herding it in English, it might have understood us!

Time Off

It's not all work,work, work over here. As the 3 day week has been wearing us out a bit, we have had a few days out lately.

Last month, we had a day out at the races, in Limoges, with our friends Jane and Pete. The course is quite small, with one sand, and it only costs 6 Euros to get in. We followed the French, and stood in the middle of the course, where there was a temporary bar, a food tent and the PMU bookmakers hut. A lot of people had their dogs with them, something you are not allowed to do in the UK, so Jane and Pete could have brought Archie their Border terrier, which would have provided entertainment between races, as he picked a fight with the biggest French dog he could find.

The racing was a mixture of flat racing and trotting ( with the jockey sitting on a buggy). The races all started late, in the French style, and you could tell when each race was getting ready to start when the stewards got on their cherry picker, and were sent skywards.

It took a while to work out the betting, as we thought that you could only do forecasts, but we found that you could also do wins and places as well. I actually had 3 winners in the end, so I was up on the day, even allowing for beer money and sausage and chips.

We left with 3 races still to go, as by this stage the races were 30 minutes late, so at that rate the meeting wouldn't finish until about 9 o'clock at night. They only have two meetings a year at Limoges, but we will definitely go back again.

We've also been to the Cinema for the first time in ages. We went up to Poitiers, where one of the Cinemas was showing the new Spiderman in English (Version Originale) . Strangely, we were the only English people there, but maybe some people prefer to hear the proper voices, rather than the same voice being dubbed over. It's an hour and a half each way to Poitiers, so it's another good excuse for a day off.

A few weeks later friends John and Sue were over with their kids for half term, and we ended up having a couple of late nights, with the girls keeping us up, playing cards all night, so we ended up having days of the next day to recover.

This week was Tina's birthday, so on Thursday we drove down to Bordeaux to watch the latest Pirates of the Caribbean. Its 2 and a bit hours each way to Bordeaux from our house, so it was yet another day off.

We parked up in the centre of town, as it happens quite close to La Tupina. This is a restaurant that was featured on Rick Steins French Oddessy, and has been voted one of the top 50 restaurants in the world . We went along for a look, and it although it was a bit smart and intimidating on the outside, we gave it a go.

It was excellent. We had the menu du jour, which was a cheese salad starter. followed by beef carpacio as a main course, and coffee and petit four to finish, all for 16 euros a head ( Just over a tenner) . The food is all cooked on an open fire, which you pass as you walk in, and Rick Stein waxed lyrical about the chips, which are cooked above the fire, in a bowl of duck fat. Yum. My brother went to Padstow last year, and it turns out that take away fish and chips from Rick Steins chippy cost about the same as our sit down meal in La Tupina. Go figure.

Check out the web link, as it has a good tour, and some menus. They have a 3 course menus for 33 euros, which includes 3 glasses of wine. We will be up for that next time we are in town.

http://www.latupina.com/

We were a bit late getting to the cinema after our unplanned lunch and missed the start of the film, but luckily we knew a bit about the plot (Johnny Depp is a pirate etc etc ) so it didn't matter to much.

The next day, Tina's birthday, we went to Limoges to her some presents. Limoges was packed out, as there was some sort of parade on. It took ages to find a parking space, then our favorite restaurant was all reserved. We ended up in the restaurant next door, which was nice, but not in the same class as the one next door. It did though, serve up comedy deserts in a gallon brandy glass, with a ladle. Luckily they don't make you eat it all, as a gallon of chocolate mouse could probably kill you.

Shopping and birthday are over now, so it's back to the grindstone.

Henri the Building Inspector

Henri, our French kitten has always had a penchant for hide and seek, mostly hiding, but lately he has been taking this to a new level.

He likes to climb trees, and had found a way to get into the top of the pump house by climbing up on a laburnum, then onto the pump house roof, and finally into the attic through a hole in the roof where some tiles had slipped. This reminded me that I needed to fix the roof, which I duly did, much to Henri's disgust.

That stopped him for a while, but he still kept disappearing. Then one day Tina spotted him, climbing up the tree, then shuffling out on two tiny branches ( two paws on each branch) till he was opposite an open attic window, and finally leaping into the open window. On the way out it is even scarier, as he leaps into space, grabs one of the branches and wraps himself around it like a monkey. It's only 10 foot off the ground, but is still a bit scary.

Luckily, he has now found a safer alternative, and has found a way of climbing up the back wall of the study, and climbing in to the attic space there. He does pop his head out occasionally, only to drop down with a loud thud on the ceiling below.

Niemi is not far behind him in the explorer stakes, but being more lady-like, she waits until our bedroom window is open and then climbs out onto the roof from there.

She has also taken to exploring Thiery's field, again taking the lazy option of squeezing through the mesh on the fence, like it was a cat flap.

Henry has also started to dig around the lawn, but for mole crickets, rather than proper moles. The moles have been quiet for a couple of days now.

My friend John has had a bad reaction in his own garden when he put a couple of smoke bombs down. It seemed to make the moles angry, and dig up everywhere at once. This could explain why they have been quiet in our garden, as Charlie may not yet have the resources to fight on two fronts at once. However it may just be a coincidence, as Johns house is half an hour away, so it may not be the same moles.

On the house front, all of the plasterboard is up in the back room, and I have started jointing up the walls and ceiling, while Tina has started pointing the walls.

The pointing seems to bring out the stonework really well. The colour was a bit strange at first, as it looked a lot darker than we imagined, but it tones down nicely when it eventually dries out.

HERE'S MOLEY

The little man in black is back!






We have had a few months with no incursions from our furry friends, but now he is well and truly back. I think he took advantage of the fact that I was distracted by the play offs to move in.






Since we have been over here permanently, I have kept an eye on any mole activity, clearing the hills away as soon as they appear, so that we can see where the mole is active. I have tried a number of different ways to get rid of him, mole traps, mole replant, smoke bombs and even bakers yeast ( expands in the moles stomach and ..... yuch!) but to no avail.

Finally I bought some Canadian poison. I'm not sure why the Canadians are such expert mole poisoners, I would have thought they have enough problems with bears, but there you go.

Applying the poison is a bit grizzly. You have to dig up worms from your garden. Then you have to cut both ends off of the worms, put all the bits in a jar with the poison, and shake it all around till the worms have a good coating. Now you have to try to find the mole runs, as this is more effective than sticking the poisoned worms under a mole hill. Drop some worms into the mole run, and hope for the best.

As you can see, there is a lot of bad karma in the whole poisoning process. Some much so, that I had to watch a couple of episodes of 'My Name Is Earl' to redress my karmic balance.

Check out the link below, to see what the hell I am on about.

http://www.nbc.com/My_Name_Is_Earl/about.shtml

The poison did the job, and we had a few months with no moles at all, until I foolishly boasted to my mate Pete that the moles had all gone. The very next day Moley was back.

I have tried to poison him again, this time using some shop bought worms, from Psycho Bunnies hunting and fishing emporium, but with no results. It seems that Moley likes his worms free range, none of this factory farming for him!

I HAD A WHEELBARROW, THE WHEEL FELL OFF ..

It is a bank holiday over here today, so we have downed tools, as we can't afford to pay ourselves double time, and day in lieu.

I have been turning my hand to things mechanical lately, starting with the wheelbarrow. When we were building up the vegetable patch, it ran over a nail and got a puncture. I managed to get the wheel off, and then got the tube out, using a crowbar as a tyre lever, and found the hole OK.

I managed to patch it using a boat repair kit that we had left over from repairing our old paddling pool. Then I tested it again, and found another smaller puncture close to the first. I patched this one as well and the next day, after the patches had dried, the wheelbarrow was up and running again.

A few days later, I noticed that the tyre had gone down again. It must have had a slow puncture, so I grabbed my crow bar, and levered the tube out again. Sure enough, one of the patches was not quite suck down at the sides. I re-glued it and the next morning put it back on the wheel and tried to blow it up. Nothing doing, so I levered the tyre off yet again, and retested the the tube once more. There were two more holes this time. I must have torn the tube with the end on the crowbar when I was levering the tyre back on.

Two more patches ( the ratio of tube to patch is about 50-50 now) and 24 hours later, the tube was finally OK and the wheel is back on.

I'm getting quite fast at getting the wheel on and off now. If the Renault F1 team need someone to look after their wheelbarrow, I could be their man!

With the wheelbarrow finally fixed, I turned my attention back to mowing. I opened up the shed, turned 'Hank Hill' the mower on and tried to reverse it out of the shed. No movement. For some reason, the drive belt had slipped off of a pulley. Five minutes off groping around later, the belt was back on I was ready to go.

I did the front patch quickly, but then I had to go and get some more petrol, as the Jerry can was empty. Twenty minutes later, I had refueled, and I started on the main patch. I had gone barely 50 yards when the blades stopped going round. I stopped it straight away and had a look under the hood. A large bolt that acts a spindle for one of the blade-drive pulleys had decided to give up the ghost after eight years, and it had sheered off.

Although I bought the mower in France, it is an American make ( Murray) and so all of it's bolts are imperial ( 5/8 th 's etc) . This makes it hard to get spares, as everything over here is metric, and 5/8th of an inch is between 8 and 9 mm. So, I took the broken bolt off to Chabanais, were I last got the mower repaired, and waited in line, as they were very busy. After a while, they took the bolt, but after much searching, they came back with a slightly bigger bolt, asked me to try it, but didn't charge me for it.

I drove back home and tried the bolt. but it was too big to go in the centre of the pulley. I then drove of, in a different direction to Chasseneiul, to the shop that sold me the mower years ago.

I explained to the mower counter that it was an American mower, and that the bolt was not metric, but was imperial ( as best as I could ) but they could not help me, so the sent me across the road to a different part of the shop. The guy there got out his gauge, measured it up and said that he didn't have anything, as it was not a metric bolt. I then went through the whole story of the mower being American, and the fact that I had bought it there in the first place. He then phoned up the mower counter and explained it to the once again. Back across the road, they did have one the right width, but it was longer. Knowing from past experience how long it takes to order anything. I took a chance.

Back home, I got the pulley back together and threaded it up, The long bolt fitted with a few millimetres to spare. Drama over.

It only took me an hour and a half to mow the hole garden, as dad had done such a good job on it when he was over, but it took an extra 3 hours getting petrol, fixing belts, getting bolts and making repairs.

So remember, a tractor mower is NOT A TOY! ( It is really) .

Nature Watch

The weather has been good lately, up to the last few days ( Bank Holidays mean rain, in any country) , so we have been out in the garden a bit more.

My parents were over for a week, and Dad is on a personal mission to turn an acre of French woodland into a suburban English garden, so work on the interior ground to a halt for a week.

We all built up a raised bed for our vegetable patch, but it was hard work filling it in. It looked much easier in "The Great Escape", when all you had to do was get a load of middle aged, middle class Englishmen called Roger to empty the contents of their trouser legs.

It is ready for planting now, although it may look a bit small to some, it is fine be me as I don't eat much veg anyway. We had thought about getting some chickens as well, but I don't think I would be able to slaughter one, unless it was called Harry, or Thatcher.

Henry, our kitten, has had his bits removed, and not before time, as he got chased by something big the week before ( cat/sheep/bear ? ) and he flew in the cat flap, spraying a lovely 'eau de Tom-Cat' as he went.

He seems OK after his op, as you can see above, he is enjoying the benefits of clean laundry.

Things are starting to blossom in the garden. We have a lot of grapes, some cherries and even some olives on Tina's potted tree ( none on me big tree in the garden) . We think that the walnut crop will be bad this year though, as the tree got a bit scorched when we did our latest bonfire.

The bonfire was a bit huge, what with the dead conifers that Tina had chopped down, and dad's hedge work. It was so tall that I thought I saw Edward Woodward on top when it went up.

Our summer visitors, the Hoo-poes are back. They nest every year in the back of the study, but this year some Starlings had got there first. However, they seem to have found somewhere else close by, close enough so they can wake us up every morning with their extra loud 'hoo-poe' bird call.