To say it has been warm may be regarded as an understatment, infact it has been super toasty. Forty degrees : the only thing you feel like doing is (if you're Felix and Ellie) is being submerged or float (if you're Sonia) or have a beer ( if you're me). Fortunately that was exceptional, most of the time it has been in the high 20's or low thirties and thus my membership of AA is only pending. However Felix and Ellie now resemble mermaids more than children : both have long flowing blond hair and are rarely sighted on dry land.
The pool is complete and Sonia and I spent some quality time with my Croatian ciment mixer. It may have been cheap (111 Euros) but she has earned her keep. 50 metres of foundations, mortar for 400 brieze blocks and 36 concrete pillar blocks and enough render to cover approximately 120 metres squared. And she can still turn.We managed in true Newell style manage to find enough old tiles and bricks sitting around to cap the walls and pillars to finish it off. Courtesy of the local supermarket some well established olive trees, a few uplighters, six tonnes of gravel and voila.
Unfortunately I have an aspergillus (fungus) associated hole in my left eardrum, which has resulted in me having the priviledge of sharing a waiting room with a bunch aurally affected frenchies. it is not fun 'aving a man shove a sucky tube in your ear and suctioning out crud which would look better on my compost heap, but as they say hey ho. One of the outcomes of this is I must not get water etc in my ear, so swimming has been difficult. I have purchased this plug thing and a rather fetching head band but I don't seem able to bond with them.
In fact I seem to have spent a lot of time in my old environment, my ear goes to Perigueux, Ollie and Son get viewed in Bergerac and Ellie and her foot visited the Urgence also in Bergerac.
Cue to school fete ( it earns most of its revenue through the beer tent). One bouncy castle. It is so hot that the plastic is almost untouchable. What do you do? Spray it with water so it becomes a bouncy super slippery bouncy accident waiting to happen castle. And it does. Ellie falls . Ellie cries. Parents reassure her. Send her to school on Monday. Teacher phones parents to report that Ellie can't walk and her beau ( Franck this week) had to carry her to the canteen. Dad picks her up but decides to wait and see what happens. Tuesday : Bergerac super efficient , marvelously quiet A&E. Fractured first metatarsal. Back slab in plaster. Pharmacy for les cannes Anglaise ( crutches) and home in time for lunch.Ten days later the back slab was removed and Ellie returned to her favoured environment, the water.
We now have eight 6x2 meter raised beds, six of which are productive. Felix and Ellie are growing lettuce ( red and green for their rabbits and Fred the Giant African Tree snail). Potatoes and red onions for Sonia and Ollie. But we have a glut of courgettes. Don't get me wrong I love courgettes. Courgettes fried in garlic and butter with a touch of seasoning is one of the best veggies going, but I am starting to feel like a courgette : long, green and I go droopy if I get too much sun. The rabbit issue I feel is waning. I am not going to say it has been accomplished but the little darlings are not evident.
Our menagerie has increased. St Front had a boot fair, not any old boot fair but a St Front boot fair, Mummy and Daddy met a man with some Parisienne poulet and now Nugget 'n Chips ( as Alaisdair called them ) or Rocket and Rosie as Felix calls them now reside in one of the out buidings. They are amazing birds; they eat anything. They love daddy pasta ( pasta with bacon and red onions fried and covered with one of their relatives). We have been reliably informed ( by the man who sold us them, 6E for the two if you're interested) they are good layers but so far we have only an empty wine crate and no oeufs to go with our courgettes.
Wild life has been pretty full on as one might say. One night I am awakened by Ellie screaming. Daddy gets up ( our sensorilly deprived mummy with ear plugs and blindfold who could sleep through a nuclear holocaust lies gestating). Ellie complains there is a stag beetle in her bed. daddy looks and fails to locate said item. Reassures enfant and returns to bed. 2 minutes later and Ellie reiterates her disquiet. This time daddy finds shiny armour plated source of terror and ejects it through window which is duly closed. Ellie doesn't sleep with her windows open now. Talking of windows, there we were, watching I am afraid to say BB, when another one decides to grace us with its presence. Sonia resmbles a whirling dervish who is incontinent of speach. I turn of the TV and turn of the lights and it flies of in to the night. Just reribution for watching BB n''est pas. Not only do stag beetles pop in to see us when watching telly but one night a bat flew in via the window in the downstairs bog. Despite opening all the windows the stupid creature would not leave. I found myself leaping about to encourage it to depart but only once the adverts came on did it go.Then if that was not enough there I am emptying the skimmers in the pool and I find what I assume is a dead rhino beetle ( see photo). I give it to Felix who then loses it. But he didn't. It managed to ressucitate itself and fall down stairs almost landing on the pregnant one. Felix wants to keep it but good sense prevails. Then there have been the shrews ( Felix wanted to keep them too). The first one was returned to the garden when it was found out they have a poisonous bite and eat 50 times there body weight per day stink like rotting garlic and squeal like bats ( not an attractive resume). We find a lot in the skimmers. They get in OK but can't get out. The one which made the biggest impression was the dead one in the bottom of the pool found by a vegetarian guest when she went for a dip. She was not 'appy. Skimmers are death traps but not all the time ( see rhino). One morning I am greeted by a chubby toad, but unfortunately he gets sucked down the skimmer to the pump. but luckily for him there is another filter just before the pump and it lives to croak another tale.
My wife has rediscovered E-bay. No longer countess crockery but persian textiles from some one called god almighty. This is not good. I fear we will end up with more saddle bags and killim runners than Ali baba but atleast they are cheap. And we will have a 18th century french persian manor house with plenty of places to store the salt.
The Gite is fully booked through to the end of september and we even have our first rebook so that is encouraging. You do get interesting folk. Especially the three ladies who returned for a friends reunited reunion of the Mussidan Ladies College. And they were ladies.
Enough already.
Bye for now
Tonyxx
The pool is complete and Sonia and I spent some quality time with my Croatian ciment mixer. It may have been cheap (111 Euros) but she has earned her keep. 50 metres of foundations, mortar for 400 brieze blocks and 36 concrete pillar blocks and enough render to cover approximately 120 metres squared. And she can still turn.We managed in true Newell style manage to find enough old tiles and bricks sitting around to cap the walls and pillars to finish it off. Courtesy of the local supermarket some well established olive trees, a few uplighters, six tonnes of gravel and voila.
Unfortunately I have an aspergillus (fungus) associated hole in my left eardrum, which has resulted in me having the priviledge of sharing a waiting room with a bunch aurally affected frenchies. it is not fun 'aving a man shove a sucky tube in your ear and suctioning out crud which would look better on my compost heap, but as they say hey ho. One of the outcomes of this is I must not get water etc in my ear, so swimming has been difficult. I have purchased this plug thing and a rather fetching head band but I don't seem able to bond with them.
In fact I seem to have spent a lot of time in my old environment, my ear goes to Perigueux, Ollie and Son get viewed in Bergerac and Ellie and her foot visited the Urgence also in Bergerac.
Cue to school fete ( it earns most of its revenue through the beer tent). One bouncy castle. It is so hot that the plastic is almost untouchable. What do you do? Spray it with water so it becomes a bouncy super slippery bouncy accident waiting to happen castle. And it does. Ellie falls . Ellie cries. Parents reassure her. Send her to school on Monday. Teacher phones parents to report that Ellie can't walk and her beau ( Franck this week) had to carry her to the canteen. Dad picks her up but decides to wait and see what happens. Tuesday : Bergerac super efficient , marvelously quiet A&E. Fractured first metatarsal. Back slab in plaster. Pharmacy for les cannes Anglaise ( crutches) and home in time for lunch.Ten days later the back slab was removed and Ellie returned to her favoured environment, the water.
We now have eight 6x2 meter raised beds, six of which are productive. Felix and Ellie are growing lettuce ( red and green for their rabbits and Fred the Giant African Tree snail). Potatoes and red onions for Sonia and Ollie. But we have a glut of courgettes. Don't get me wrong I love courgettes. Courgettes fried in garlic and butter with a touch of seasoning is one of the best veggies going, but I am starting to feel like a courgette : long, green and I go droopy if I get too much sun. The rabbit issue I feel is waning. I am not going to say it has been accomplished but the little darlings are not evident.
Our menagerie has increased. St Front had a boot fair, not any old boot fair but a St Front boot fair, Mummy and Daddy met a man with some Parisienne poulet and now Nugget 'n Chips ( as Alaisdair called them ) or Rocket and Rosie as Felix calls them now reside in one of the out buidings. They are amazing birds; they eat anything. They love daddy pasta ( pasta with bacon and red onions fried and covered with one of their relatives). We have been reliably informed ( by the man who sold us them, 6E for the two if you're interested) they are good layers but so far we have only an empty wine crate and no oeufs to go with our courgettes.
Wild life has been pretty full on as one might say. One night I am awakened by Ellie screaming. Daddy gets up ( our sensorilly deprived mummy with ear plugs and blindfold who could sleep through a nuclear holocaust lies gestating). Ellie complains there is a stag beetle in her bed. daddy looks and fails to locate said item. Reassures enfant and returns to bed. 2 minutes later and Ellie reiterates her disquiet. This time daddy finds shiny armour plated source of terror and ejects it through window which is duly closed. Ellie doesn't sleep with her windows open now. Talking of windows, there we were, watching I am afraid to say BB, when another one decides to grace us with its presence. Sonia resmbles a whirling dervish who is incontinent of speach. I turn of the TV and turn of the lights and it flies of in to the night. Just reribution for watching BB n''est pas. Not only do stag beetles pop in to see us when watching telly but one night a bat flew in via the window in the downstairs bog. Despite opening all the windows the stupid creature would not leave. I found myself leaping about to encourage it to depart but only once the adverts came on did it go.Then if that was not enough there I am emptying the skimmers in the pool and I find what I assume is a dead rhino beetle ( see photo). I give it to Felix who then loses it. But he didn't. It managed to ressucitate itself and fall down stairs almost landing on the pregnant one. Felix wants to keep it but good sense prevails. Then there have been the shrews ( Felix wanted to keep them too). The first one was returned to the garden when it was found out they have a poisonous bite and eat 50 times there body weight per day stink like rotting garlic and squeal like bats ( not an attractive resume). We find a lot in the skimmers. They get in OK but can't get out. The one which made the biggest impression was the dead one in the bottom of the pool found by a vegetarian guest when she went for a dip. She was not 'appy. Skimmers are death traps but not all the time ( see rhino). One morning I am greeted by a chubby toad, but unfortunately he gets sucked down the skimmer to the pump. but luckily for him there is another filter just before the pump and it lives to croak another tale.
My wife has rediscovered E-bay. No longer countess crockery but persian textiles from some one called god almighty. This is not good. I fear we will end up with more saddle bags and killim runners than Ali baba but atleast they are cheap. And we will have a 18th century french persian manor house with plenty of places to store the salt.
The Gite is fully booked through to the end of september and we even have our first rebook so that is encouraging. You do get interesting folk. Especially the three ladies who returned for a friends reunited reunion of the Mussidan Ladies College. And they were ladies.
Enough already.
Bye for now
Tonyxx
