There is more to life than ...

2008-09-28T08:38:00.002+01:00

The rat trap works! Two young and one mature have been caught so far. As far as I can tell there is just one mature individual left clambering up the pole and grabbing leftovers from the birds' peanut feeder. I saw it yesterday on top of the trap, and have a feeling that it has realised what it is and how to avoid going in it.

It is a measure of the rat's intelligence that it manages to work out how to get to the food in the trap - it is quite a complex thing to get into - but, perhaps, the greater intelligence is in knowing not to go for that food. However, Mr (or Mrs) Rat, in the words of the 1979 Blondie song, "One way or another I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha".

Speaking of finding; on a recent plant viewing thing that Clare did with a local plant viewing group, she came across a really attractive viaduct, only about ten minutes' drive from us. I didn't know it existed, but it clearly does - we have now driven over it and under it, and here is proof positive - as if my word weren't enough!

In preparation for our next visitor - Clare's Dad is coming in a couple of days to look after the hellhounds for a couple of weeks whilst we are in the UK witnessing some nuptials being spliced - we have done some more work in the old bread oven room. There is still a long way to go, but I thought you might like to see what we have so far achieved. There is now a TV with satellite feed and DVD player, a stereo stack (which I shall link in to the TV to provide better sound), a rather nice sofa and, out of picture at the back of the room, a double convertible settee to provide sleeping accommodation if needed. Having cleared out most of the junk, and having moved the woodworking equipment into the workshop, this was our starting point:

Under the tartan cover in the corner was a very heavy china sink and drainer, on top of which we had placed some board to make a level surface. The whole thing was supported on what we thought were simple concrete blocks, but which turned out to be so much more. Built into the wall and floor they were, as we suspected, hollow concrete blocks. What we did not suspect is that each had been filled with concrete strengthened by no less than five reinforcement bars on each support, these bars being sunk into the floor and wall! Removing that lot gave us a few hours' work, I can tell you. Nonetheless, it was done, and this is the result so far.

There is no communication between this room and the main house. The external door is quite old and solid, and secured by a key that would be the pride of any medieval gaoler!

Tuesday, the day Clare's Dad arrives to look after the hellhounds, is Clare's birthday. I hope she will be pleasantly surprised with her present. Those of you in the know - only two more days to keep it under your hats!

Speaking of hellhounds (another smooth transition between disparate subjects), they really are comfortable together. Sometimes like yin and yang ...

... sometimes more like bookends ...

... and rarely, if ever, a cross word (no picture to go with that)!

We shall be away from home from 2nd to 12th October inclusive, so I'm not sure to what extent I shall be able to give updates for a week or two.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Trips, trips and trip-ups.

2008-09-21T08:13:00.003+01:00

Plans are now progressing for our trip to UK next month. We shall be in the country for eight full days, which looks like two days in Wales, two in Plymouth, two in Wiltshire/Hampshire (one full day of which I shall spend with The Hawk Conservancy Trust) and two in Hampshire/Berkshire. There are a number of people we want to see and a number of things we want to do. Let's hope we can fit it all in. Clare's Dad will be here looking after the dogs for us whilst we are away, for which we are very grateful.

Speaking of dogs, Flash is having a lot of difficulty coming to terms with the fact that he is no longer a young dog - in fact, at almost fourteen years old he is, for a Greyhound, positively aged. Every time we come home, even after an absence of less than an hour, he likes to greet us with a few very quick laps of the ground at the front of the house. Most times, on a quick turn, his back legs give out on him. Usually, he recovers from that very quickly and carries on. One day last week we noticed, after his laps (or is it after his lapse?), a trail of blood leading from the front door to him. Unseen by us, he had managed, probably as part of his leg-giving-out exercise, to snag the dew claw on one of his front legs. It was bleeding profusely and causing him discomfort, but he wouldn't let us bandage it. He set to licking it constantly for some time and the bleeding stopped, although it was still sore. It didn't affect his getting around, but we still couldn't touch it to bandage it for him. However, later in the day, we saw that it had gone. We don't know how or where, but the result is as shown below and it has now healed up very nicely.

The rat trap I mentioned last week has been doing well - one adult and one young have so far been relocated - and we have caught another mouse in one of the live traps. It will be relocated later today. Living in farmland, with the type of construction we have, it is inevitable that there will be rodents. We are not too worried about the wild areas of our garden, or the pond - we know there is something in there, but are not absolutely sure what - but we do want to keep the little blighters out of the house and, as far as we can, away from the bird feeders (which are very close to the house).

We have been having a good time with bureaucracy lately. Way back in the early part of June I applied for a CEAM (EHIC in French - I still think it should be called an E111, we all know what that is!). It arrived within three weeks. Since then we have been trying to get one for Clare. The first response was 'Sorry, we can't issue the card as you are not covered by [the French healthcare system] '. Once Clare had registered a médecin traitant (if you aren't sure what that is, see the August 31 entry and do try to keep up), we tried again. This time we gave both her and my Social Security numbers. The reply? 'I regret to inform you that neither you nor your husband is insured with the French health insurance system in Puy-de-Dôme/Haute Loire/Cantal/Allier. Please redirect your request to the office where you are covered'. I sent them a copy of the confirmation we received a week ago that our cover is renewed, a copy of the latest attestation, a copy of each of the covering letters we had received with our Cartes Vitales and a copy of the letter with which I received my CEAM. All of these documents came from CPAM du Puy-de-Dôme.

It looks like they found our files, because, the very next day they confirmed they were preparing Clare's CEAM. I imagine the files were in transit following renewal of our cover. The card should arrive in about three weeks (as everything is sent out using a very low priority tariff) but, as we need it before then, they will send out a temporary three-month cover letter by priority post. You may be wondering, as we are, whether it wouldn't be cheaper to simply sent out the original card high priority - especially as it has not yet been produced - but we are learning that it is easier to work with the system than to try to question it. We may not always understand why things work as they do, but they do work, and we need to keep in mind that the Gallic temperament differs from the Britannic one and that, as immigrants, we should not attempt to impose our way of thinking on our hosts (immigrants to the UK please note!).

I have recently had some emails sent out through Orange France rejected by the recipient. So far, this seems only to be Tiscali, and it seems to be because the Orange mailserver is blacklisted. A lot of research reveals that this is due to spam passing through unauthenticated accounts with Orange. There is a solution (which I ought to have found a lot more quickly than I did). It involves using an authenticated connection on a different server, which goes out through port 587 rather than through port 25. For Orange France the solution is here.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Quite a moving week.

2008-09-14T06:00:00.001+01:00

First and foremost - today, 14th September 2008 marks fifteen years that Clare and I have been married, so I want to start off by thanking Clare for fifteen great years and loads more to come. Fifteen years as man and wife and almost twenty years together in total - and we are still very much in love and best friends!

So, what of this past week?

It started quite nicely. On Monday we did a bit of harvesting in the garden and cut the grass whilst Phil and Wendy were out looking at old ruins (can't see the point when we have one at the bottom of the garden, but it's their choice). It started raining overnight.

Tuesday we hired a hi-top Transit (12m³) van from the Ford Rent agent in Montluçon - Barrat Location - a vehicle much longer, wider and taller than I am accustomed to driving, and the steering wheel on the left, which somehow made it seem wider still! Quite a good, economical and very capable vehicle for what we needed to do. We set off from Montluçon at about 10:30am and, after a brief stop part way for light refreshments, arrived at Tania's old apartment a little after 1:30pm for shifter duties. Three trips between Neuilly-sur-Seine and Courbevoie and seven hours later we were on our way back with a van full of things that Tania couldn't fit into her new apartment. We arrived home at about half past midnight and immediately started offloading (with help from Phil, for which we are most grateful). We didn't dare leave offloading until the morning as we had to be away by 8am to get the van back to Montluçon in time for it to be a one day rental.

Wednesday morning Phil and Wendy followed us to Montluçon and peeled off to continue their northward journey with our best wishes for a bon voyage. We filled the van with diesel (78 litres for 730Kms) and got it back in time. We had originally estimated around 800Km and so pre-declared 900Km to be on the safe side. In the event our bill was less than we had thought as the man at Barrats recalculated it based on 800Kms. All in all, a good hire, and we can highly recommend this firm for anyone wanting to hire a van in the Montluçon area.

We now have, as a result of that trip, a nice big sofa in the study, and enough to furnish the bread oven room to a reasonable standard. Oh yes, and a canteen of cutlery that Tania hates, but we love!

Then it rained - and did it rain!

No more outsidey stuff for a few days. Some breaks in the rain over the course of the last few days, but that has really been the story. It looks as though Wendy and Phil got away just in time!

Meanwhile, the struggle for food in our back garden goes on! Here is one of the intended recipients of our largesse enjoying the bounty we provide.

This is good. We are happy to feed the tits, sparrows, redstarts, robins, chaffinches, chiffchaffs, dunnocks and the rest.

Who tries to gatecrash our generosity? Well, this guy for a start. It, along with another of its ilk, has been relocated to a nice place in the country, a dozen kilometres from us.

For its larger cousins, we have invested in a larger detention centre which, according to the blurb, can accommodate ten inmates. We had one young one in there, but he managed to make good his escape before we were able to relocate him.

As a result of that episode we have now enhanced the perimeter security by the addition of a secondary closing device or steel rod, as we like to call it!

We were thoroughly bemused to find, after extended heavy rain, that the bread we had placed as bait, had all gone. This is currently subject of an internal enquiry, but the preliminary indications are that it may have been washed away by the rain. I hope that is the case. If not, we have some very clever and enterprising rats around here!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

People, plants and pictures

2008-09-07T09:00:00.010+01:00

We have had a really nice week! In terms of the weather it has been a bit erratic - wild and windy at times - but, with Wendy and Phil here, we have been having a good time. The craic, as they say in the Emerald Isle, is good.

Productivity in the lower potager this year has not been as good as we had hoped, partly because of its condition, drainage and so on, and partly because, its bottom end being 8m lower than the top of the garden, it is darned hard work carrying tools up and down.

It is likely that we shall allow the grass to develop there next year and enlarge the potager at the top, nearer the house. We can probably grow that by about forty percent with a bit of effort.

The wild areas are developing nicely. We need to do some more work to prevent them being taken over by nettles and brambles, but there is a good variety of plant life in there, and the birds and insects seem to love it. The buddleia is attracting a number of species of butterfly, adding to the life of the areas and providing a nice spectacle (as well a superb photo opportunities) from the terrace. Pictured below are Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell butterflies on white buddleia.

Flattening of some of the growth suggests that either a mammal larger than, say, a rabbit has been around or we have been visited by aliens. Either way, a couple of smallish areas of about half a square metre each are completely flattened, and there is a bit of disturbance leading to them.

One of the willow whips that we planted in the spring is doing extremely well, as you can see.

The original twig extends for about sixteen inches (40cm) out of the soil, and you can see how well the new growth is doing. Behind it is a new oak, which I think will need to be moved to avoid excess competition. Clare is actually a few metres behind, so don't think it is that big. In fact it is about one and a half metres high.

For some time we have been feeding the wild birds with a seed mix that is quite heavy on black sunflower seeds, as well as peanuts (which we have to buy in bulk from England, as we have never seen them sold as wild bird food in France).

We have had to stop feeding the birds for a while, as there are a couple of rats that we think live in the barn next door, that come regularly to our feeders and help themselves to their bounty. To deal with them, we have purchased a live trap (very humane, although I don't think the rats would worry about doing the decent thing by us) and some poison. The problem with the poison is twofold:

1. It can leach into a minor water course and
2. If carried back to the barn, it could put at risk the semi-feral cats (who are very useful in controlling smaller rodents) and the chickens, both of which live in the barn where we think the rats nest.

We may need to use the trap, but what to do with the little blighters when we have caught them? It was easier with mice - they are unlikely to bite and are less at risk of carrying nasty diseases.

Anyway, as you can see from the image, one of the nice things about feeding the birds is that some of the seeds grow. That bucket has had nothing planted in it by us!

We have received confirmation from CPAM of continuity of our cover. I assume that to be what they intended - what they actually said was "You are affiliated to the CMU under the criterion of residence, and this is how much we shall be asking you for". There then followed a figure almost 50% more than our tax bill for the year! On an even more positive note, we have both (being over fifty years of age) received our invitations to collect from our doctors the kit to enable us to submit our biennial samples for testing for intestinal cancer - which looks like it may be an unpleasant collection exercise - and Clare has received her invitation for breast screening. My routine annual blood tests include a test for the marker for prostate cancer. We are very happy with the routine screening offered.

Tania is now moving into her new apartment, and we shall travel to Paris on Tuesday in a hired van to help her with the last few things and to collect and bring back here a few large items that she can't accommodate in her new place. I think Wendy and Phil will still be here, which means the hellhounds won't be left alone all day (and most of the evening).

Meanwhile, Hobie is not doing quite as well as we should like. He seems to be reacting to the cooler, wetter weather by having increasing difficulty getting around.

As intimated a few weeks ago, we have been loosely following the annual Big Brother thing. I think it absolutely right that Rex, the walking ego, should have been built up to the point where he was convinced that he would win, only to be knocked down at the last minute and, more to the point, to be beaten by the people to whom he has been most unpleasant for the whole period. Rachel and Mikey in the final was most appropriate, and Rachel being declared winner is a victory for the good guys.

During the week I received a request for a photograph of a particular bird. On my PC I have over 42,000 photographs, many ordered by date taken, with useful file names like DSCF1234.jpg. It took a while to visually scan all those thumbnails, only to find I didn't have one! I have now undertaken a project, using the superb ACDSee software that I have installed to manage my photographs, to categorise and catalog all of my images so they can be easily searched in the future. It's a job I have been putting off for a lot of years and it doesn't get easier with time!

At the same time, I have started using an online photo album service. Over time, I have looked at various possibilities, including DeviantArt, FlickR, Google (Picasa online albums), FaceBook and MySpace. None of them has given me everything I want. A colleague has strongly recommended SmugMug, which seems to come quite close to all the things I want to do at the moment. My albums are at http://photos.keithchanning.com and are available for anyone to view. I have started with a small selection of the wildlife images I took in South Africa back in 2005. Comments would be appreciated, not only on the images, but on the album layout, ease of use, etc.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Another new camera

2008-08-31T08:00:00.011+01:00

That lovely new Nikon Coolpix camera I bought myself to replace the dying Fuji FinePix turned out to be less than perfect. I noticed after a couple of days some vignetting in the top right corner of the display, which seemed to have no cause.

Eventually, we went back to FNAC in Clermont-Ferrand with a view to exchanging it. We showed it to the salesperson, who agreed the fault and referred us to their after-sales people. The shop itself is as all high-tech shops - glitzy, bright and full of all manner of tempting stuff. After-sales is down two floors, out of the building and into a much less prepossessing building. Gone was the glitz; gone was the bright, airy, attractiveness. We were in the complaints department and we knew it.

For all that, the lady who dealt with us was courteous and efficient. When shown the fault, she immediately went off to locate a replacement. Interestingly, the plan was to replace the camera only. Although I had brought back everything, including the original batteries, as I received it nine days previously, she was only going to replace the unit. She even removed the wrist strap from the sick camera. I was baffled by that. I would have expected, as has happened before, a replacement boxed product. Still, that's the way they do it and it is strictly only that one unit that needs replacing.

They didn't have one.

She ended up giving us a credit note to use back in the main shop, within three months.

We went back to the shop and spent more time looking at cameras, specifications and so on, and finally settled for a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 in a fetching shade of chocolate. It is the one that is advertised with the Golden Gate Bridge and the sphinx - but that's not why I bought it. In fact I didn't know that until I got it home and went off in search for the manual en anglais!I am not going to make any claims for this one - I don't want to be let down again. Tempting providence is one thing, but joking with fate is another thing altogether. I may be a lot of things but, unlike Boy George (with whom I share a birthday but nothing else), I am not a Karma comedian!

We have had a fabulous few days for weather again - our journey to Clermont-Ferrand was in the Mazda with the top down - and my youngest sister and her husband are coming this weekend, so I'm hoping the fine weather will continue. It makes such a difference for people on a break (no, not like Ross and Rachel were on a break, but on a bit of a holiday) if the weather is warm and dry. Sadly, a number of attractions tend to reduce their opening after the end of August, so their options may be slightly reduced, but I'm sure they will have a good rest, if nothing else. We do try to live our lives in the slow lane and try to make sure that our visitors have as relaxing a time as they can.

You may recall that, back in February, Clare hurt her thigh after using a fencepost to stop against when skiing rather briskly. That has never fully recovered, and it has, since then, looked like a chunk of muscle has escaped from its confines. She has been reluctant to see a doctor about it because of the language - my doctor surprised me this week by saying the first two English words I have heard him utter; my BP reading 14/8, which didn't help me because I was not familiar with the scale. Anyway, because it is advisable to nominate a GP as your médecin traitant, she was finally persuaded to see my doctor's wife who, as well as being a GP, speaks a little English. She had a quick consult whilst she was there and they spoke about her thigh. The doctor feels that it is probably just a deeply and heavily bruised muscle and that it should, in time, clear up. However, to be on the safe side, the doctor has ordered an MRI scan, and we are now waiting for the appointment.

For those who care, the reason it is advisable to nominate a médecin traitant is this; any medical costs incurred, including any specialist consultancies, treatment etc. will be reimbursed by CPAM (the state health insurance) at a reduced rate, unless such costs arise from your médecin traitant or through a referral by your médecin traitant.

Meanwhile, 310Km north of here, Tania has completed the purchase of her apartment! I am looking forward to seeing it once she has moved in and completed the decoration. She is also looking, longer term, at replacing the kitchen. The people from whom she bought it are extremely nice and are helping her to set up the electricity, telephone etc. accounts. We hope she will be happy there.

Wendy and Phil arrived on Saturday afternoon and it was such a nice evening that we broke out the barbecue. Both of them are very keen (and very good) photographers, and I took it as an opportunity to put my new camera through its paces.

This first photograph was taken on its sunset setting, and I have to say that I thought it did a good job.

The next photograph, taken at 9:30pm was a 60 second exposure, kind of supported on the balustrade, although not totally steady. Click on the image to enlarge it and you will see the extent to which the stars appear to move in 60 seconds.

The large, bright object at centre, close to the bottom of the picture is the planet Jupiter.

I know this, not because I know anything about things celestial, but because I run on my laptop the latest version of Starry Night Digital Download software from Imaginova (www.starrynight.com). Its default display is the current sky from our location and altitude and it identifies everything as well as giving notice of significant events. Tomorrow night we should be able to see Io transitting Jupiter. That is unlikely as, although we could see quite clearly through my little astronomical telescope the ball of Jupiter and her four moons, and even (just) make out Jupiter's bands, we are unlikely to be able to discern the disc of Io.

Having rehearsed the event through Starry Night's viewer, however, it looks as though we should just be able to pick up Io's shadow as it passes over Jupiter's upper atmosphere. There are, though, two reasons we may not see it, one natural and one, well, normal I suppose.

Natural? It may be cloudy. Normal? The event starts at a half past midnight and goes on for three hours. The possibility of my going on for three hours after a half past midnight is about as strong as that of Hobie sharing the visual experience with me!

That's about it for this week.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

My old man said, "Follow the van!"

2008-08-24T11:20:00.007+01:00

The title this week has no relevance whatever except that, early in the week, we saw a cock linnet for the first time in two years, so I thought it an event worth recording.

Another quiet week with mixed weather. I managed to get the grass cut on Monday, so it didn't look too disgusting for our visitors, who arrived on Saturday for a couple of days. Just as well I did, as it hasn't been dry enough since!

Nice people, this weekend's visitors. They have today (Sunday) gone off to climb the Puy de Dôme - the highest peak in the Massif Central, after which the department is named. We are staying at home to watch the F1 European Grand Prix from Valencia.

Clare was complaining that, when in Paris, she couldn't view in the camera photographs that she had taken at Tania's (fingers crossed - this coming week will tell for sure if it really is hers) apartment. When I looked at the camera, it was apparent that the only buttons working were on/off and shoot. No zoom, no flash, no macro, no menu - nut'n! I did some research online and it seems to be alarmingly common with the FujiFilm FinePix F470. It seems that between 18 months and two years of age a ribbon connector between the back panel buttons and the processor snaps! No-one is able to identify a source to replace the cable or even to identify the cable by part number. I haven't tried yet, but other people's experience seems to be that Fuji are not overly helpful, pointing out that the unit is out of guarantee. I shall do some digging and see what I can find. I have had a long-term love affair with Fuji kit and feel particularly let down by this otherwise excellent camera. It is now no better than a ten quid throw-away.

I have replaced it, within my limited budget, by a Nikon Coolpix P60. I was, the F470 notwithstanding, planning to replace it with another Fuji, but the model I wanted was about fifty percent more than I wanted to spend.

This little Nikon ticks most of the boxes, and has a proper viewfinder, too (albeit in the worst possible position - unless you like noseprints on the viewing panel). I hate trying to take photographs in bright light by peering into the rear display. The camera is reviewed here [link].

The Income Tax demand has arrived. It has to be paid in full by 15th September, then I can sign up to pay monthly from January next year. The arrangement is that it is assumed the 2009 bill will be the same as 2008 and it is paid in ten monthly instalments, the tenth being adjusted to take account of the actual bill next year. Better than paying it all at once, as I have to this year - looks like the sinking fund will be slipping a little lower in the water!

Golly. I think that is all I have for this week. I have checked through the photographs I have taken and incoming and outgoing emails and it seems that, apart from quite a lot of work on the Hawk Conservancy web sites, I haven't done much!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

When Clare is away, Keith will ...

2008-08-17T09:14:00.005+01:00

I've been on my own all week. Clare has been in Paris with Tania during that difficult phase of house purchase when you have been assured everything is going to plan, but you just know that there are a few things that can still go wrong - the cup is close to the lip, but they ain't touching yet. We are keeping everything crossed for her.

In the meantime, I have had a few projects that needed my attention which, coupled with the largely unfriendly weather, have kept me in the study for most of the week.

The first issue, which exercised my mind for a while, was that my newly refurbished PC does not have a parallel port. The laser printer was plugged into that PC after its network card gave up the ghost, so I was unable to make a connection. I couldn't use the parallel port on Clare's PC as that has the colour printer connected to it, that printer's USB connection having failed a few months ago. I finally decided to plug the laser printer into the Linux box and set up a secure network such that all printers can be used by all PCs including, hopefully, any guests making a wireless connection.

The next big issue was the estate agency site whose underlying software was in conflict with new security rules put in place by the hosting company. Not a major problem; the latest upgrade to that software deals with that. Upgrading that software is easy - upload the new files and run the install routine. I tried it on my Linux box at home and it took just over a half hour. I then started doing it on the live site and eleven hours, twelve support emails and a forty-five minute live chat session later the upgrade was complete (except for reworking the customisation we had done to the software, which was a couple of hours the following morning). I stand by my statement of a number of years ago - the only people who ever have stable software are horse breeders!

Our weather this week has been decidedly autumnal. Mind you, at almost 2000 feet altitude and close to the volcano chain we expect to be a tad cooler and subject to more windy and stormy weather than some other places. During dry spells I did manage to get out to cut some of the grass (the front of the house and the side of the road for a couple of hundred metres - the main lot at the back is too wet to cut yet) and pick a few veg. There is still a lot more to do but I did collect, in one brief session, over a Kg of French beans and ten overgrown courgettes totalling 4.3Kg.

I left the bulk of the courgettes, taking mostly only those that I considered had grown more than large enough, thank you very much indeed. I shall leave most of the stuff to ensure Clare has something to write about in her garden blog.

For my treat, I went down and picked a sweet corn, which I opened and ate raw on the way back up the garden. It really is the only way to eat the stuff – never mind getting it into boiling water as quickly as possible; it is so sweet and tender straight off the plant!

It's not perfect - there are a few holes where the fertilisation didn't work, but it is a lot better than we had last year, and it was gorgeous!

After all the kerfuffle we had to go through to become accepted into the health system here, I have now received from the relevant people, a request to justify our remaining in the system for another year. We need to prove that we are legally resident in France (copies of passports), that we are bona fide residents (copies of utility bills and Taxe d'Habitation demands) and that we are currently in the system (copies of Cartes Vitales and attestations). So that they know how much to charge us we also have to provide a copy of this year's Income Tax demand (not yet received but, fortunately, available on-line).

Now I remember why I needed the scanner and printer working!

That is now all ready to go off, although I shall wait until Clare gets back so I can put in a copy of her Carte Vitale, too.

Meanwhile, another visitor. Not human this time (although we have a friend from the gardening site arriving with her husband at the end of this week for a couple of days, which we are really looking forward to), but welcome nonetheless. Here (s)he is:

It's a slug eater! Much to be encouraged. It looks quite fat and healthy, so we are now considering whether to provide an accommodation opportunity in the shape of a covered pile of logs or similar. The only trouble is that would also provide more opportunities for the rat we occasionally see. We have recently stopped feeding the wild birds in a bid to discourage the rat, but in so doing we have deprived ourselves of the constant chattering and activity that we love to see through the back door.

Life is so hard!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Vegetables, dogs, decorating and travel plans.

2008-08-10T03:00:00.000+01:00

Three varieties of potatoes (Rosabelle, Mona Lisa and Bleu d'Auvergne) edged with french beans run up a flagpole of yellow courgettes. All destined for the pot, and all from our garden and, as Jimmy Cricket said, "There's more". See Clare's occasional garden blog for the more that there most clearly is.

Hobie is just about hanging on in there. The weather has been warm and humid for most of the week, which seems to help him. We have noticed that he appears to suffer a little when the temperature drops, so I am not looking forward to the day summer ends.

Tania called us last weekend to let us know that she had seen a small dog sitting outside her club for well over three hours one night and, on at least one occasion, it had wandered into the road and almost been run over. Being the kind soul she is, she took it home with her and set about finding its owner. Shortly after she had contacted the Société Central Canine they called her back to let her know that the owner had reported the dog as missing.

Unfortunately for Tania, she had become quite attached to the dog, whom she had provisionally named Pompidou, for reasons that are far too complex to discuss here, and she was a little upset at having to give him back. Here he is with Tinkerbell (Tania's Chihuahua which, incidentally, she had purchased and named Tinkerbell some months before Paris Hilton acquired her Tinkerbell - so who copied whom?).

Following this experience, I think it will not be too long before Tania acquires a second dog, albeit possibly one smaller than Pompidou (real name Ugo). What sort of name is Ugo for a dog? It's almost as silly as the name Flash had when he came to us. When we first rescued them, eleven years ago, we kept Hobie's name, as it seemed right for a Labrador - even though just about everyone wants to call him Toby (he doesn't mind - he's deaf), but a Greyhound called Spud? I ask you!

Tania is very close to completing the purchase of her apartment on the outskirts of Paris - not in the hallowed district of Neuilly, where she lives now and where Nicolas Sarkozy bought a property not long before being elevated to the Presidency, but just across the river in what seems to be an OK area, and the apartment itself looks very nice indeed. Clare will be travelling to Paris tomorrow to spend a few days helping Tania with her preparations for the move and the two of them will be redecorating the apartment. It is, apparently, in good decorative order, but the colours are not to Tania's taste. Left to me, I would paint everything magnolia. I like magnolia. It reminds me of Waitrose Clotted Cream ice cream which, if not the original ambrosia of the gods, is a bloody close contender!

We are finalising our outline travel plans for our trip to the UK in October. We shall arrive in Folkestone during the evening of 2nd October and overnight there, before going on to Welsh Wales for a family wedding where we shall be until the morning of Sunday 5th October. From there we shall travel to Plymouth to see daughter Miranda and husband Dave, staying until Monday morning. We shall then be in England until our return home on Saturday 11th October. We haven't yet worked out our full itinerary for the week, as there are a number of people we shall wish to see and we shall aim to make steady eastward progress during the week. We know that we shall need to spend one full day in the Andover area (currently looking like Thursday 9th) and some time in the Reading area (probably Friday 10th) from where we shall leave for Folkestone on Saturday.

That apart - not too much happening here.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Another very quiet week.

2008-08-03T08:39:00.005+01:00

Hobie is now off the tablets and seems to be coping. I still have grave doubts about his quality of life, though. Being blind and deaf his only interaction with the world around is by smell and touch, the latter often taking him by surprise. As he cannot see or hear, the only way he can be aware of an approach (smell doesn't seem to help him here) is to pick up vibrations from approaching footsteps. That would be fine if we had wooden floorboards, but the floor downstairs is tiled on concrete. Hence he often jumps when you touch him even gently. He has no way of knowing when his food is ready, unless he is already close enough to his bowl to smell its arrival. Happily his internal clock works and, if you touch him around six in the evening, he gets up and makes his way to his feeding area. Air movement tells him when a door is open so he can go outside to do his business. Apart from that, he sleeps. Somehow the word quality seems hugely inappropriate.

My PC came back on Thursday afternoon. There was a problem on Wednesday in that the system couldn't address the hard disks. It turned out that the 633MHz memory chips were not compatible with the processor, so Christophe needed to replace them with the 800MHz variety. I also had a new CPU and a new case, as well as the new motherboard and PSU planned.

Then I found out why the PC was such a bargain.

When I bought it, as a customer return/manager's special, I noticed that, although the box said Windows Vista Home Premium, it booted into XP Media Centre Edition. I was quite happy with that, as I still believe Vista to be related to the mound of cattle detritus alongside the barn next door.

When we started the PC, it wanted to activate Windows - probably because everything had changed. I couldn't activate online as the motherboard has a gigabit network card that needs special drivers installed in Windows. I couldn't get into Windows until it had been activated, so was getting nowhere. I called the activation telephone line, tapped in the numbers that had been generated by Windows and had a refusal. The only alternative then was to retry the telephone activation using the product key printed on the certificate stuck to the old case.

The certificate stuck to the old case was for Windows Vista Home Premium!

So I installed another copy of Windows and thus needed to reinstall all of my software! Deep joy!

I have spent some very interesting time trying to update my Visa details on PayPal. My Visa card expired on 31st July, so I wanted to register the new one. Just the expiry date and CVV to change, everything else is the same. Quite straightforward - you'd think!

They said, "upon checking your account we were unable to verify this credit card because an incorrect billing address was provided. Please enter another billing address or contact your issuer for clarification on the correct primary billing address for this card."

I replied, "The billing address you have is correct. I have just tried again using the same capitalisation, spelling and sequencing that I have just copied from this month's statement.

Let me put this in the simplest terms I can.

I know my address, I live here. Barclaycard knows my address, they successfully send statements here. eBay knows my address, I have had numerous purchases delivered here. Guess what? The address I know, the one Barclaycard knows and the one eBay knows are all the same.

Is there any intelligence in these systems? Does anyone with the authority to think look at this?"

Their response used exactly the same words as their initial email. I have yet to reply. I did, however, complete the satisfaction survey they asked me to do!!

I thought you might be interested to see how the emancipated bonsai is doing. This is it, a little over two feet tall now.

Still no idea what it is, though!

Nice news during the week. It looks like my sister and her husband may be coming here for a break at the beginning of September. We enjoy their visits and are looking forward to this one.

Finally, a piece of video from our Tour de France viewing last week.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

... and not a fat-bottomed girl in sight

2008-07-27T08:00:00.006+01:00

The Opel dealer in Montluçon is open from 8am to 6pm during the week - except Monday, when it is 2pm to 6pm. We duly went up on Monday afternoon to see if the parts for Clare's car had arrived. They had not.

Not wanting to make repeated trips to Montluçon (practically an hour each way with the current road works, and it's all contributing to the 9000 Kms which is my annual limit if I want to keep the low mileage discount on my insurance), we asked if they could courier the parts when they arrive - about 16 € including tax - to which he agreed. Before, however, setting it up, he had the presence of mind to check that morning's receipts physically and, sure enough, they were there. We went away happy, with the needed parts.

I tried to fit them on Monday evening, only to find that I needed a 12mm allen key. The largest I have is 10mm. I got up early on Tuesday morning, drove up to Montluçon and went into Brico-Depot (owned by Kingfisher, as is B&Q) who always have a good range of tools.

The only way I could buy a 12mm allen key in Brico-Depot was as part of a 95 piece Magnusson chrome vanadium tool kit (don't be fooled by the name - it is made in Taiwan, not Sweden) costing 65 €.

I was on my own in a toyshop without adult supervision. I could either try a number of smaller shops and get what I needed for about 5 € or buy the fancy kit. Let me repeat, I was on my own in a toyshop without adult supervision. It was clearly time to rationalise.

Successfully convincing myself

that the labour costs, had I asked the garage to do the job, would undoubtedly be greater than the cost of the tools to do it myself (I don't know how many more times I can get away with that one),
that a good tool kit is an investment for the future, and
that you can never have too many good tools,

I went ahead and bought it. Here it is.

When I got home, Clare needed to go out for a few hours, during which time I felt I should be able to complete the repair. I gave her the keys to the Mazda and waved a cheery farewell. What I didn't know then, but did find out very shortly afterwards, is that she had driven off with both sets of keys to the Astra as well as the only set of keys to the Mazda. I was, in a word, stuffed!

On Clare's return we started to do the repair which was, as I had hoped, disarmingly straightforward. Refitting the exhaust manifold heat shield was more of a challenge but eventually, everything went together. I checked the oil level and fed in another litre of Shell's finest. On starting the engine there was a lot of smoke which we, hopefully not too optimistically, put down to earlier leakage and current spillage. Keep in mind that a lot less oil would be sold if it were easy to pour from the container into the engine without spilling any. Subsequent use and checking suggests all is now well.

On Wednesday afternoon I had an email from Christophe confirming that he had received the mother board and that he would start to rebuild my PC on Thursday. I don't know how ling that will take him, but my PC's return can't come soon enough for me. This laptop is OK, but it is still slower than my PC, even after running Uniblue RegistryBooster 2, Uniblue System Tweaker and CCleaner, and it has a nasty habit of randomly relocating the pointer - that makes typing fun, as you never know when or to where the cursor is going to randomly relocate!

Being in the countryside, close to farm buildings, we occasionally see a rat. There was one that was spending a lot of time trying to deprive the birds of their peanuts, so we have modified the feeder placement in an attempt to rat-proof it (no need to squirrel-proof, as I have seen none of those in the immediate area, but squirrels are only bushy-tailed rats anyway!).

The tray underneath the nut holder stops pieces falling to the ground, thereby giving the rat no food supply there and thus, hopefully, no interest in trying to climb the pole to get to its bounty. The downside is that depriving the rat of food also means there is none for the ground-feeding birds, such as the dunnocks and sparrows. On the other hand, if the rat can eat more food than a large number of small birds then he will restrict their food supply anyway.

I have also, on one occasion, seen a single rat (single in number - I know nothing of its social or marital arrangements) scuttling across the bottom of the ramp.

However, as I was walking in the garden one evening during the week, something scampered across between the pond and the orchard, and disappeared into a hole. It didn't look like a rat. Apart from anything else, rats don't scamper, they scuttle, as previously revealed. I don't know for sure, as my eyesight isn't quite as clear as I would like it to be, but its actions, shape and colour suggested to me that it might well have been a stoat - possibly even the same one we saw in ermine about 18 months ago. I shall keep an eye out for it.

We have also seen some strange droppings - blue/black and full of cherry stones (that's where they all went!) - that we have yet to identify. The droppings are about 1cm wide. They were found in two locations, the first in open ground, the other under one of the currently non-productive pear trees. I'd be grateful for any input.

For reasons I cannot begin to understand, the cheap rate UK telephone number seems to be working again. For how long is anyone's guess and I have no idea how reliable it is but, when it works, it allows you to call us here from a land line in the UK for a flat 2p per minute. To remind you, the number is 0844 617 7844.

On Friday we went to see a part of the 19th stage of the Tour de France. Our destination was La Maison-rouge, 1500 meters after Lapeyrouse and 32.5Km from the day's finish at Montluçon. The caravane was due to pass through at about 3pm and the riders just under an hour and a half later.

Where we had stationed ourselves is a mining area, and a number of miners were grouped, at the side of the road, in their work clothes complete with helmets and lamps. It was most interesting to note how many in the caravane (about which more later) commented on them, and also to note the high regard in which they appear to be held.

In the same area, perched atop a small pile of bales of hay, were four young women bearing sashes proclaiming them to be Miss Montaigut 2007, Miss Youx 2007, Miss St Eloy-les-Mines 2007 and Miss Routiers 2007.

The caravane is a spectacle not to be missed. It is an almost continuous carnival procession of much decorated vehicles, from the back of many of which publicity trinkets are thrown to the crowd. Our haul for the afternoon consisted of two keyrings, two reflective armbands, a bottle of water and a small bag.

One of the later vehicles in the caravane was misting the bystanders with water - not a bad thing as, although there was not much sun, the temperature was edging towards the high twenties.

I have a lot of photographs of the caravane (which took well over half an hour to pass), but these two should be enough to give a flavour.

Once the caravane had passed, things went pretty quiet for a while, so we broke out the picnic basket and waited. The first indication that the riders were on their way was the arrival of a gendarme with a yellow flag, who stood about fifty meters from us. Shortly after his arrival a veritable fleet of police and gendarmerie motorcycles and cars passed and we noticed a helicopter in the sky to our east - the direction from which the cyclists would approach. Looking closer, we made out four helicopters at different altitudes, one of which was quite low. The number of helicopters would reach double figures before the whole thing had passed us.

The helicopters were fitted with TV cameras and provided the television coverage for the major European broadcasters. As the lead helicopter came closer, a loud cheer went up from the crowd and the first riders appeared.

Pictured here Jérémy Roy leading with Sylvain Chavanel just visible in the red kit behind him. Chavanel won the final sprint and the stage on arrival at Montluçon.

A little over four minutes after this first pair had passed, more helicopters appeared, signalling the arrival of the peloton, the pack that represents the bulk of the cyclists. This wikipedia link discusses the dynamic of the peloton and, in my view, makes fascinating reading.

The leaders of the peloton appeared in a tidy line-astern formation, the front wheel of each cycle appearing almost to be glued to the back wheel of its predecessor in the fashion of an ad-hoc convoy of HGVs on a motorway (to say nothing of the same convoy on a fuel price protest).

Following these leaders, the rest of the peloton, about 140 riders, passed over a relatively short period. The peloton was quite tightly formed with no noticeable gaps (I didn't notice any, anyway) and the teams were obviously clustered, as is suggested in the wikipedia article.

A few minutes later still came a final group of two or three riders who were, for whatever reason, off the pace of the peloton, these being followed by a fleet of support cars carrying spare bikes and various supplies.

Once all that lot had passed we made our way back to the car and eventually broke through the traffic and drove home.

Hobie is now down to a half tablet per day and will shortly be off them altogether. So far he seems to be holding up quite well, although there are signs that he is beginning to experience some difficulty and discomfort. We are half expecting to see some deterioration but are hoping not to. At least, if he does have another crisis, we shall be able to get him to the vet without having to chase around to scrounge transport, now that the Astra is back on the road.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Two barbecues in one week - it must be summer!

2008-07-20T08:12:00.003+01:00

Firstly, the weather has been absolutely delightful all week - even the low-flying jets couldn't keep the sun away and, according to the weather forecast, it is in for at least a fortnight! We have had to resort to watering the veggie patches to keep things happy.

Some time ago I said that we had scattered some wild flower seeds in the rough area, where we also planted a couple of willow whips (one of which is doing fantastically well, the other I can't find at present - I think it is hiding amongst the nettles). Against all the odds, a number did germinate and, during the week, I spotted the first bloom.

I have no idea what it is called - perhaps I should look it up somewhere. All I know for sure is that it is supposed to be native to France.

Another thing that has been in evidence this week is a Grey Heron. It isn't the first time we have seen one in the approximate area, but never this close before. I think it is hanging around Jean-Marc's pond.

On Monday we drove to Montluçon to see if we could get the part we need to put Clare's Astra back on the road. The dealership was open and, after a relatively brief foray into the world of the motor trader, we successfully ordered the housing and cap assemblies for the oil filter, and a filter. At a little over 70 € it was a bit more than I was expecting to pay, but the only alternative was a visit to a car breaker (if there is one in the area) - not something I would relish at the moment. The very nice man in the dealer's parts department said that he would telephone when the parts arrived, which should be Thursday afternoon or Friday.

No telephone call as at Sunday. We shall go and see him tomorrow.

Monday was the eighteenth birthday of Alexandra, Rik and Lieve's eldest. There was to have been a barbecue party in Rik's garden but, as a high probability of rain and even a thunderstorm was forecast, they decided to hold it in Jan's barn. That was good for us as Jan's house is only about five minutes' walk from here.

It was an excellent party with a mix of people from France, UK, Germany, Belgium and Holland. All of Rik's family are musical, and live music was provided by Rik on cello, Rik's sons Mikhael and Rafael on drums and tin whistle respectively, and three of Rik's friends on guitar - Joris (Belgian) on bass, John (a Scot) on lead and a Frenchman whose name I can't recall on rhythm. We left at a little after midnight and walked home in quite bright moonlight.

On Tuesday I had word from Christophe that he could not get hold of the motherboard for at least three weeks and would I like to choose an alternative. I really liked the one I had chosen and found that it was in stock with another supplier. With Christophe's blessing I ordered it from this other place for delivery to him. According to the web site it was despatched on Wednesday. I am hoping he will not have trouble getting hold of the power supply, as I couldn't find one I liked where I looked.

Hobie has been doing well all week, on two steroid tablets each day. We took him to the vet on Friday, and they now want to wean him off the steroids, as they apparently can do quite a bit of damage if taken for too long. He is now on one tablet per day for five days then half a tablet per day for another five days. We are watching him closely and are expecting him to deteriorate as he comes off the tablets. We have been pre-warned that there will be little they can do if he has another crisis. I am thinking when, rather than if.

The glorious weather has continued and, yesterday evening, this was the view from the terrace.

What else could we do?

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?

2008-07-13T07:34:00.003+01:00

It occurred to me the other day that our philosophy at the moment was admirably summed up by William Henry Davies (1871-1940) in his well-known poem Leisure.

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight, streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance, and watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.

Addendum by me
... and even if the weather's storming, the cows will help with Global Warming!

Meanwhile, we have had what can only be described as an interesting week.

First, Clare’s car became quite technical with enough smoke coming out of the bonnet to raise global temperatures by at least a couple of degrees and making some very expensive noises. We thought that the alternator was shot but, after Jan had a look at it, we discovered that the oil filter housing was damaged and leaking, and it was the oil leaking onto the exhaust outlet that was causing the smoke. Jan managed to get the oil filter casing off (how he did when Norauto couldn't is beyond me) and we are now trying to source a replacement, which should be quite straightforward to fit. Jan has said that he will do it if I have any difficulty. I don't think I shall be asking Norauto to do anything else for me! We went up to Montluçon on Saturday to visit the Opel dealer, but their parts department was closed for the weekend. Monday is Bastille Day, so it will be Tuesday before we can try again. That reminds me - big celebrations and firework display in the village tonight (Sunday). Should be fun.

Then my PC went technical – motherboard fried as a result of drawing too much power through the PSU and overheating the entire system – I have agreed with the repairer replacement specs which will actually give me a stronger machine, with more upgrade potential. The parts should arrive in a week or so, and then it’s just a couple of days to assemble and test. I managed to find a hardware guru who has a shop in Montluçon, but lives only five minutes from us. He is a real find - committed and very capable, reasonably priced and, as Harry Enfield's Tim, Nice but Dim would have it, a "bloody nice bloke". I was interested that he described the motherboard as grilled, whereas we would use the word fried. Superior gastronomics, I suppose.

To cap it all, Hobie stopped eating at the beginning of the week and became very lethargic to the point that we had to carry him outside to do his business. We took him to the vet who said it was very advanced arthritis in the area of his hips. It is so bad, given also his blindness and now deafness, that when we took him to the vet on Tuesday, he wouldn’t go beyond saying we could try to ease his pain but with no guarantee. He gave him a cortisone injection and told us to bring him back on Wednesday. Happily the injection worked wonders, and Hobie was very soon mobile and eating again. He is now in the middle of a ten days’ supply of steroid tablets and we have to take him back next Friday for reassessment. Depending on how it goes, we will hopefully be able to cut back to steroid tablets every other day instead of every day. If the tablets don’t give him enough relief then we shall have no option other than to finally release him from his pain. Either way, the vet doesn’t expect Hobie to be helped by the tablets for more than a few months. I am concerned about his quality of life, or lack of. I honestly can't remember when I last saw him wag his tail!

On the bright side, Tania is in the early stages of changing from a renter of property to an owner of property. She is negotiating a mortgage for the purchase of a nice apartment on the outskirts of Paris. My little girl's all growed up!

And the weather has been reasonably good to us for most of the week, too.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

2008-07-06T08:00:00.006+01:00

So the Astra went in for a service and all that stuff. They did a reasonable job except for a few things

After replacing the rear brake shoes, they tightened the wheel nuts so much that nothing I have will budge them. I just hope I never get a puncture on the road. If I do, I shall have to call for assistance to change the wheel. How humiliating is that?
They agreed that the exhaust needed changing, but suggested I go to the Opel dealer for it
They didn't change the oil filter, but suggested I go to the Opel dealer for it
They agreed that there was no gas pressure in the AC system, but suggested I go to the Opel dealer for it

We had to go for the contrôle technique pretty well no better prepared, except that the brake discs would not now be an issue. Astoundingly, on Wednesday afternoon, the Astra got through its test with only a couple of advisories. So that's that for a couple of years - apart from the jobs that we probably ought to get done fairly soon. They may not be bad enough to fail the test, but we want to be fairly safe on the road. Friday evening the darned thing started pouring smoke from under the bonnet! It doesn't look or smell like oil, and it looks to me as though it is emanating from the alternator. Not a happy car. The trouble is, I don't think I want to drive it for 35Kms to get it to Norauto. I think they should look at it - if it isn't something that was caused or aggravated by their service, it is certainly something they should have spotted!

My PC is no better - I'm not sure where the problem is now. Tuesday afternoon I got it to start but it then failed to recognise its disks and wouldn't let me into the BIOS to check it. I have checked the disks and they are both fine. I may need to go for a professional repair - once I have tried a few more things.

Friday morning the PC repair man came. Before he came I thought I would bring the PC, monitor, keyboard and mouse down to the dining table to make it easier for him. Having got them all down, I connected them up and pressed the start switch. It started perfectly. SH!T. That meant I would have to explain to him that I had called him in for nothing. We unplugged everything, took it back upstairs and plugged it together again. I pressed the start switch and...

Nothing.

For some reason I was pleased.

We tried various different power supply configurations, but still nothing.

The repair man arrived. I explained the symptoms, and that it had worked perfectly downstairs. We tried various tests, looked at various things and ended up, after two hours, taking it downstairs where I connected them up and pressed the start switch.

Nothing.

He has now bundled it up and taken it to his workshop from where he will email me with a repair estimate early next week with a view to returning it to me in working order by Wednesday. He did say that whatever he has to do it will be cheaper than replacing the computer!

In an email on Friday evening he gave his preliminary opinion that the power supply is too low rated for what I am doing (I seem to be pulling more than 350W through a 250W unit). He also said the mother board is grilled - if nothing else, it sounds healthier than saying it is fried!

The popularity of this blog is rising. Since making mention of the apparent scam by Mepco China a few weeks ago [link] the site has been visited more than eighty times by people searching for mepco china. I guess they had all been approached by that august organisation. Perhaps I should write to them and thank them for boosting my hits so much!

The weather was superb at the beginning of the week, although a jet fighter passed over quite low on Tuesday afternoon. Experience seems to show that after they pass over we get a thunderstorm. Do you suppose they are seeding the clouds?

We had the mother of all electric storms on Tuesday night. It went on for at least four hours with almost continuous high-level lightning with very little thunder - rather like the atmospheric disturbances science fiction film makers like to depict, when enormous flying saucers are about to appear (like when the big mothership appears above the crater in Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Additionally, looking through my not-very-large bedroom window from my bed at around 2am, I was seeing clear streaks of horizontal fork lightning about three times per minute!

Another fighter passed over very low just before lunch on Wednesday.

Mild thunderstorm Wednesday night.

No fighter Thursday.

No thunderstorm Thursday night.

Friday evening I went into the workshop to see how the young swallows are doing, only to see the five of them lined up along the top of the band saw. Immediately they saw me, four of them made for the door and one went to the closed window - I helped it to find the door, then went out to see the two parents shepherding them together whilst they made their maiden flight.

I also get my workshop back. Fabulous.

Here they are after they had fledged and come back to the nest for a breather.

I know that Clare's blog is the one that talks about the garden, but I couldn't resist an image of our first bit of fruit harvesting.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

A bit of a mechanical week

2008-06-29T07:00:00.003+01:00

As you can see, we finally managed to get started cutting the grass. It's still not dry enough though, so we are having to cut on the highest setting, leave it to dry for a couple of days, then go back again and cut it progressively shorter. Meanwhile, twenty percent of it is still around 60cm (two feet) high - except in the wild area, where some of the nettles are more like two metres (six and a half feet) high!

We have been keeping a close eye on our latest brood of swallows in the workshop. On Sunday, the call from the nest was rather like inside the Little Shop of Horrors - "Feed me!"

... and so the parents did feed them - not so much little and often, as just plain often. By Thursday evening the cry is "It's getting a bit crowded in here, Mum!"

Two days after that, and they look about ready to fledge!

I am looking forward to having my workshop back.

We are probably all familiar with Murphy's Law, which can be summarised as "if it can go wrong, it will". There is a little known corollary to that law which extends it to say that it will go wrong at the worst possible time.

After feeling really good about the MX5 passing its contrôle technique last week, we decided that whilst we were taking Hobie for his check-up, we would make an appointment for the Astra to be tested. It has to be done before 4th July, so our appointment is for 5:30pm on 3rd July. That way we shall have plenty of time to correct any faults - overnight at least!

To prepare for the test, I took a good look at the brakes - front OK, rear about as far from OK as it is possible to get. Whilst shopping in Montluçon we popped into Norauto and bought a box of disk pads. When we got home I slackened the nuts on the rear right wheel and casually went around to the rear left - where I bent two wheel braces trying to slacken one nut. I then got out the torque wrench to try again. 175 foot pounds of torque didn't budge it!

I decided to lift the back anyway to have a closer look at the right-hand wheel, so I got under the car to place the trolley jack and

OH MY GOD, THE EXHAUST IS HANGING ON BY A THREAD!

We now have an appointment with Norauto on Monday at 9am for a full service, brake work, exhaust work and AC investigation. Isn't it fabulous that you can do all that online and have confirmation in less than half an hour!

This has been a seriously expensive month! Being the anniversary of our arrival, this month's outgoings have included insurance on two cars, preparation for the test and testing of two cars, house insurance, health insurance, water bill - the list seems endless. We really should transfer some of the savings from the UK bank to boost our flagging emergency fund, but the exchange rate at the moment is a joke and will be until the UK government gets a grip on the economy.

Mr Bricolage have done me proud by having the mulching kit for the tractor in excellent time - I think about three days from when I confirmed the order (after they had told me how much it was going to cost). We collected it and tried it on Thursday afternoon. I think I need to sharpen the blades to get best performance, but it is, so far, doing all I asked of it and I have great hopes for the rest of the season.

Having spent some weeks without being cut, it is going to take a few cuts to get it back in shape, but we are quite pleased with the results so far.

Last year we bought a stupidly cheap bonsai specimen from Intermarché. It looked OK until I dropped it and broke the ceramic container in which it lived. I have never been much good with Bonsai and, in any event, am not overly happy about the way in which they are produced - picking off leaves in mid-development and wiring the trunks and branches to make them look old. We decided to release it into the wild - plant it out in the autumn and see how it gets on.

To our great surprise, it is doing rather well. We shall be interested to see how it develops and, indeed, into what!

Finally, I switched my main PC on this morning and - nothing. It looks like either a fuse has blown somewhere inside the thing or the Power Supply Unit has failed. Happily, the last thing I did yesterday was to refresh the backup of every scrap of my data onto an external disk, which I have now attached to my notebook. One thing of which I can be sure is that it was not the result of a power surge, lightning strike or static burst, because:

There has been no electrical atmospheric activity for a while
Nothing else, not even delicate equipment like ADSL modem and ethernet switches are affected and
That PC and the ADSL modem are protected by a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), whereas everything else is only behind simple surge protection blocks.

One thing I carried from my two decades with Twinings was the need to have alternative systems. I like to think that there is nothing (apart from main electricity and a broadband connection) that is not duplicated in one way or another. To use a buzz word, there are no single points of failure here!

To use another buzz word, if Twinings taught me nothing else, they taught me about the value of redundancy!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine