I can only apologise to Tom and Barbara…erm I mean, Neil and Roz,for posting a blog last night saying that they were away and underestimating their incredible committment to their readers - by managing as they did to blog even when on holiday. But I do know that he has quite a following and vegetables won’t stop growing just because they’ve got off at party central. Neither will Reg’s antics be stopping by the sound of things. That isn’t the only cockerel I’ve heard of with a violent streak. What with the random attacks and the racket it makes you wonder that anyone can still be bothered with them - but I suppose they keep you on your toes.

Things are moving on at the new build in Champsac. Yesterday we went and bought a hob and oven but had to go back this morning to pick up the oven as it wouldn’t fit in the car. Why we didn’t just go in the van I don’t know - but why would you do that when you can spend 20 minutes trying to shove a far too big box through a far too small hole…. with a captive audience.
It’s the first time we’ve shopped at Conforama. Ikea it’s not - but that’s a 2 ½ hour journey to Bordeaux and there isn’t a chance of that happening until the kids are back at school. Whilst there I bought a new chest of drawers, as the huge amount of clothes we seem to have amassed is currently piled on every available surface of our bedroom. Half the problem is that the winter clothes still haven’t quite been resigned to their rightful place under the bed as the weather has been so touch and go this year that I didn’t want to tempt fate by putting them away - and I’m well aware that historically the weather changes on August 15th, so it seems a bit pointless now. More drawers it is then.
I started putting up ‘the drawers’ last night on the mezzanine (which has now become our luxuriously carpeted tele. room) until halfway through ‘The House of Saddam’ when Matt asked if I could stop using the cordless for a second as it was ruining the atmosphere. As a result I watched the second half and wished I’d watched the first too.
Quality : ( of drawers/runners/screws etc) very good - and metal (as opposed to Ikea).
Instructions: Clear ( or so I thought). It was all going well until Matt walked past and saw me putting the front onto a drawer.
‘ Are you reading the instructions’, he asked ….as he always does…
‘To the letter’, I replied (in that sisters are doing it for themselves way)….as I always do…but this time feeling well on top of the game.
He nodded as he went off to fill up his glass of wine - ‘ You’re not bothering with the bottoms of the drawers then…’
I don’t think an explanation is needed.
I finished them off this afternoon, following another trip to Limoges again (to buy two bathrooms this time) and everything went well until I realised that two essential but seemingly innocent bits of chipboard had been put in the wrong place.
Tomorrow the kitchen fitter is in at Champsac to – surprisingly! – fit the kitchen. I was thinking that I could have it done in a couple of days…weeks…months..myself

Well tonights offering comes from SW London rather than the calm and tranquility of Jargeaille as we have arrived back in Blighty for 12 days to A) earn some money as we are now scraping the barrel as the barrel has never been scraped before and B) to attend the joyous occasion of Roz’s sister’s wedding. Of course it will be fantastic, set in the beautiful surroundings of the Brecon Beacons, a rare chance of quality time to catch up with friends and family and to share a wonderfully special moment in her sister’s life, but the bottom line is we are both a bit sad to be missing our tomatoes ripening and our first cucumbers coming through to maturity. My wonderful mother in law Kathy, an avid reader of this blog, will be disturbed that we should have such thoughts but you just can’t help it. Sorry Kathy, really looking forward to the wedding and most of all seeing you……( that should cover it, she’s the biggest sucker I know for a bit of old flanel)

The major concern about leaving france was the fact that three days ago we had to take Tess to the vet as we feared she may have the dreaded Lymes disease, an often rapidly fatal disease spread by tics. She had been very lethargic which of course for a puppy is not normal and then she began to have trouble standing and walking. We googled her symptoms and soon arrived at Lymes and whisked her off directly to the vet….Ching……at half past ten on a Sunday night…Ching….for blood and urine tests…Ching…..and six weeks of antibiotics…Ching      All money well spent really. We would never have forgiven ourselves had we delayed and let Tess pay the ultimate price. Next day she was running around as normal, doing battle with Reg and the girls and seemingly back to her old (young) self. definitely as case of better to be safe than sorry.  Mind you, trying to gather a urine sample from a bitch in the dark was no easy feat but all credit to Roz who leaped at precisely the correct moment to shove the steel kidney bowl into the appropriate place. Her quarry was no more than a few drips but fortunately they sufficed.

No.
Neil and Roz are away for the next couple of weeks.

Lovely weather again today, as was the weekend……despite the hiccup on Friday.

Kevin and Moraig very kindly dog sat Shabs today so that I could paint the back door and leave it open and I managed to varnish the stairs too which was a bit of a bonus – until Alfie walked up them when they were still wet. I wouldn’t mind but he was talking to me as I was doing them.
Anyway we went to pick the dog up again at 6pm which is…. quelle surprise, aperatifing hour in these parts - and were met by not only ham and melon on cocktail sticks (the lives we lead!!!!) but also the offer of a duck and lentil salad with orange dressing which Kevin had turned his hand to this afternoon - whilst Moraig was busy training to be an agent commercial with Leggett Immobilier in Piegut. An offer as it happens very much over and above the call of duty given that the last time they ate here pudding was a Viennetta which had defrosted and subsequently refrozen, when someone left the freezer door open…completely tasteless, a potential listeria disaster waiting to happen and not that pretty to look at either.
Sadly the offer had to be declined as Matt had to go back to the new build in Champsac to finish the plastering he’d started late this afternoon. Not normal behaviour of a summer’s evening but we have finally got round to ordering a kitchen and it’s delivery and fitment is now imminent, and we need something to fit them against. It would have been done earlier in the day but that was spent going to see potential clients.
Sue Poole, whose house Dig-It are well ensconced in renovating at the moment, is a bit of a marketing whiz and very quickly identified the weak-spot in our advertising strategy ….. that being that there isn’t any! As a consequence she decided to print off a few fliers and put them in the shops around Oradour a few days ago, whilst the fair was on, and we have already had enquiries. I know that she has other ideas too about raising the company profile, so who knows where the world of Dig-It will end. Wherever it does I don’t think that there’ll be a place in it for de and re-frosted Viennetta….although already they sound suspiciously like famous last words.

I feel duty bound to begin this blog tonight with a word of warning to Alan with regards to the playing of squash - and that is that Niall ( Nordic Geothermal) has known of 6 people ( or thereabouts), who have had heart attacks whilst in the midst of said leisure activity. All of them in their 30’s!
My conscience is now clear…..play at your peril.

In an attempt to avoid a similar disaster befalling us at this end Matt and I decided to keep things calm and spent the day doing family based stuff – having eventually got up at 12ish. The tardiness of rising is due chiefly to the presence of the wifi radio my mum bought Matt for his birthday in January and which we have only just got working ( or my mum got working when she was down last week)…… quelle luxe, drifting off to sleep with ‘ Book at bedtime’. Sadly this has meant that I now have to wait until Matt is asleep so that I can turn it off to read - which is putting my bedtime back ever further. I’m two thirds of the way through the John Updike Rabbit trilogy (lent to me by Kevin) and the writing is such genius that it has to be done in total silence and not with Derek Nimmo or whoever it was impersonating him last night, in that whittering camp attention seeking semi- whisper of his.

Anyway after lunch we decided to go off to the Parc Bellevue - which is a self-styled ‘Parc d’attractions’ in Limoges, just past the airport. Really it has to be seen to be believed….you could be back in the war years. Once in there everything (except the little racing cars which is the one thing the kids always want to go on more than anything else) is free. On entering, the left side is for kids under 8ish and the right for anyone over 12years old. Good in so far as as an adult you get to have a go on a bouncy castle, trampolines and those wavy slides you come down on sat on a sack. I took the Flip and tried to make an entertaining video of the experience but the kids wouldn’t play ball and for the first time ever became so hysterical with laughter over the distorting mirrors that I had to call a day to the whole thing in case everyone thinks we’re just a family of retards. I haven’t been to Blackpool for many a year but I can’t imagine that that kind of thing pulls in the crowds in quite the same way that it apparently still does in the Haute Vienne.

The highlight of the day - not counting the small steam train which goes around the lake at said Parc at about 2 miles an hour and which Matt and I always head for first leaving the kids to entertain themselves – was watching Shrek 3 when we got back and Matt had done his Saturday classic of steak and chips. Normally duck of an autumn/winter evening, when watching Harry Hill and Doctor Who, this was replaced for some unknown reason this week for a fantastic faux-filet from Intermarché. Always a bit touch and go when buying steak but this week very much ‘go’.

Class film-making and highly recommended.

Another lazy Sunday despite an ever increasing list of jobs that should have been done. That list had metaphorical petrol poured over it and was lit by a metonymical match when I accidentally drank gallons of red wine last night.

We had our friends Robin and Karen round for dinner. Karen has a normal human constitution whereas Robin has hollow legs and wears a “I drink for England” T-shirt, whereas I don’t even qualify for the county “B” team.

Mel had spent all day cooking and baking (apparently theres a difference) and I did sporadic household tasks in between falling asleep. I’ve been away in London most of the week and I seem to have picked up some kind of sleeping sickness which results in me nodding off and slavering at a moments notice.

When our friends arrived I was already feeling tired, by the time we’d had drinks and nibbles I’d moved on to feeling fatigued and by the time we’d had dinner I had advanced to being utterly shagged out. After rambling incoherently and talking rubbish about how it would be great to go and see the new batman film with someone called Robin,  I promptly passed out on the sofa and had to be woken by our guests as they had noticed that their host had started snoring. Thankfully, I hadn’t started sleepwalking but I literally was the living dead.

After getting up early we decided that today was a day for action and what better way to make yourself feel better than joining a gym. I had previously been a member of a gym some ten miles away and hardly ever been, but this morning I joined a gym approximately half a mile away. I think its far better to not go to a gym that is close by than not go to one that’s quite far away, it saves on petrol and is good for the environment.

Actually, its not a gym we’ve joined it’s a tennis club. The Northern Tennis club which has Tennis courts (naturally), Squash courts and a full gym plus a super looking bar which I enjoyed a coffee in this morning. Obviously, given my hangover I didn’t partake in any exercise, that would have been madness. I did the next best thing and sat drinking coffee whilst watching other people exercising and wondering whether I would pass the induction fitness test that I must take tomorrow.

I’ve been playing squash twice a week since getting back from France and my fitness is beginning to return but I do seem to have piled the weight on. I thought it was water retention but Mel deployed her medical consultation skills and has informed me I am suffering from cake retention. I like to keep in shape and this weeks shape is that of a sack of potatoes so I’m definitely going to something about it. I’ll update you as to my progress.

Jack Russell George continues to do well on his prozac regime and its now four months since he last savaged me. He’s not completely given up causing me pain, in fact he’s been practising a new bark which is sonically pitched in just such a way that it makes your ear drums vibrate for ten minutes afterwards. In addition, Mel has bought him an indestructible squeaky toy which he insists on squeaking every 0.2 seconds. The behaviourist said that we must not shout at him as it triggers his anxiety but I cant help myself. Whats the point of having a dog if you cant shout at it?

Whilst in London last week I was amazed to find in the back of the Hackney Cabs, plasma screens and video on demand which can be controlled with a remote control built into the armrest. As we inched across London from the Airport to Blackfriars I enjoyed a few episodes of BBC’s grumpy old men. I had a bit of a road to Damascus moment when I realised that whilst I used to find it really funny, I now agree with every scintilla of bile that comes out of their mouths. It appears I have become middle aged and grumpy without ever agreeing to it and I don’t think theres any way back.

As Helen so rightly pointed out the carnival has indeed come to town and our little oasis of calm (although admittedly a teeming hubbub, some say metropolis compared to other people’s hameaus) undergoes it’s annual transformation into a 1950s fun fair. This is all well and good if you have a hankering for kebabs and raw frites but I don’t - I was going to take a picture fo the nearest kebab man’s elephant foot of processed meaty goodness but his expression said no.

Living in the town does however give you insight into how the rides are assembled and the traditional french method of supporting multi tonned objects on breeze blocks and bits of wood. I shall be eschewing most of the rides.

A busy week this week doing stuff for the mighty DrawBox (’the world’s finest visualisation software’ - Visualisation Software Weekly) I have to go to London for a few days in a couple of weeks to meet with ‘an unnamed furniture company’ and convince them that we can fully comprehend their design aesthetic, whatsoever that means.

I have also been moving what I thought was a five foot pile of earth at the end of the garden, which actually turned out to be a a five foot pile of large rocks dusted with a light coating of soil - look out for fascinating pictures of stones next week.

As my Cecil B de Mille efforts were harnagued earlier in the week I shall post them today - on the correct day. I know it’s rubbish….but what do you expect….really (nb the royalty cheque has already been posted to Jack Black)

Apologies to Kevin for publishing this on Saturday which is his day - especially after moaning about him putting the dog video on the other day, but I’ve just realised - on scanning the website (in the hope of a comment - which has only happened once!) that I’d saved it but forgotten to publish, so….
The homeward flight of my mum and grandad yesterday seems to have brought with it a change in the weather and today it’s raining for the first time in about 2 weeks, which is good for the garden I suppose - not that I’m any Pippa Greenwood and given the choice would rather it didn’t.
Not so great for the fair which starts in Oradour sur Vayres tonight and goes on for the weekend – culminating in the most fantastic firework display often designed by some award winning pyrotechnical whiz. We’ve never actually been to it as the normally quiet village plays host to literally thousands of people during this time and is horrifically packed but prefer to stand on a hill miles away when we can be bothered – which was once – about 15 years ago.

The foire coming to town and the attendant gypsy presence has also meant that all of Eurl Dig-It’s goods and shackles have had to be moved from their rather prominent resting place outside Sue Poole’s house by the church square -not that they would necessarily be stolen but I don’t think the gendarmes would have much sympathy if anything was.
One of Alfie’s best friends is from a local gypsy family. They have been to school together since they were about three and shared the same room at lycee. Having always been treated as their ‘cousin’ he has spent loads of time at their house and has learnt many things over the years – how to cook a hedgehog, make a catapult out of an old inner tube and a stick of ash, ride bareback, catch fresh water prawns with your hands etc etc. He was also taught some gypsy argot when he was about 6yrs old and proudly told us about it when he came home.
‘Oh that’s nice’, said Matt what does it mean?
‘Hide the bag’ was the reply.
I rest my case your honour.
.

Following on from my other blogs this week I was going to on put a video of Iggy and the Stooges ( who headlined on Saturday) but Kevin seems to have insinuated his dog video onto the site - on this my blogging day! - and really the two performances are uncannily similar anyway - except that the greyhound doesn’t have on it’s unbuttoned drainpipes……if only it had been the other way round.

Here, chiefly for my mum and grandad who went today and didn’t get to see this fine performance, is Etienne and Louis practising their new song which is, I think, called ‘No Way Out’ and if it’s not it should be..because that’s what it feels like after a few seconds filming in that room. I promised that I’d put it on the blog if they practised for an hour (anything to get some time alone) and had to go through with it. Note the discordant rhythms of the drums and guitar…..apologies to Neil for Louis’ quick demise since the drum lessons finished - it wasn’t the way he was taught.

Parental advice: turn the sound down.

This weeks blog comes with the happy news (for me anyway) that the wall , or Great Wall as Roz referred to it, is finally finished. Amazingly, all the blocks are level and plumb and the re-enforcing steelwork and concrete have been set. It has definitely been hard graft for me and made me aware that even at my tender age, I’m not as young as I was. As a result I’ve been absolutely knackered for the last couple of days and promised myself a more restful day today . This promise lasted until shortly after 9am when our neighbour Alain turned up with 100 bales of hay to unload. It didn’t take long really but it certainly wasn’t what my bi-lateral tennis elbow needed!

Even better news I suspect, certainly as far as Roz is concerned, is that the swimming pool is also up, level and full of deliciously refreshing water. We have had some fantastic weather of late (though several of our friends believe this will end now the pool is ready) and the idea of cooling off in the water with a beer is one which shall become reality tonight.

One evening while swearing blindly at a block that refused to lay level , I heard Roz calling me in a rather concerned manner. I emerged from the barn to see her and Tess dashing across the horses field towards the woods. Tess was hackles up and frantically barking and by the time I caught them up Reg the cockerell and his hens, were coming out of the woods at a speed reserved more often for the cartoon character Road Runner than this indolent bunch. Clearly something was wrong. Soon it was evident that one of the hens had been got by something and had it not been for Reg’s doubtless heroic intervention and the commotion caused by Tess she may well have stayed got. As it was she had been fairly severely mauled on her back end with multiple deep lacerations and I didn’t fancy her chances of survival, particularly with the swarms of flies around at present and Reg’s rather indiscriminate and robust shagging technique.

We have patched her up with steri- strips, iodine spray and a dressing all held in place by lashings of gaffer tape. She, who is now known as Gaffer, is not terribly impressed by this rather alien appendage but it seems to be keeping her alive at present.

I referred earlier to Reg’s heroic intervention and although neither of us saw it we are quite assured that he would have fearlessly retaliated at Gaffer’s attacker and this is because of the growing number of injuries Reg has inflicted on our friends. In fact I have now joined the dubious “Reg Attack Survivors Club “ after he drew blood from the back of my knee and stung me with a wicked blow across the thigh. All because I had the temerity to feed him…. that’s the kind of fickle cock he is. Jane is his favourite quarry. He has attacked Jane on several occasions and she now, understandably, is quite wary of him. We came home recently to find a wheelbarrow full of horse feed in the middle of the garden surrounded by sticks, all abandoned by Jane when she fled after her futile efforts at defence were dismissed by a remonstrating Reg. Her hubby Den, a good six footer, has also received remarkable head injuries given his height. Judith has also been savaged.

When Reg attacked me the other day I whacked him with the dustbin lid and then jumped on him, trapping him beneath the plastic lid. Someone told us we needed to assert dominance over him and to hold him down was the way to do it. I kept him held down for sufficient time for him to reflect on his unbecoming behaviour before letting him go only to find him fit and ready for round two. I was in a pretty disagreeable state of mind and the smarting discomfort in my thigh spurred me on to fight back and the scene ended ridiculously with me chasing Reg around the pen wearing nothing but my undies and a pair of flip flops shouting obscenities at him. A couple of times I skidded on hen poo and nearly broke my leg when diving to grab him so I could give him what for but he managed to evade me. I don’t think there’s much hope for either of us and this will just have to be one of those enduring relationships where we have unconditional contempt for one another. I don’t expect it to be the last scrap we have.