Good Morning everyone. A few clouds in the sizzling S of France ?? today. A tiny bit of relief from the heat and will enable me to catch up on jobs that need doing, as well as mowing the lawn.
Late start this morning so I am sitting with a second “chamberpot” (kindly loaned by Pants ?) and gazing into space and at last night’s supper cloth still on the table in the courtyard. Managed to put it all away at about 1.30am but loading the dishwasher was then beyond me. DH has done this whilst feeding dogs and cats and bringing me a lovely breakfast! Neighbours brought around a huge bag of the most delicious ‘prunes’ recently which we have been eating with our breakfast - because they are far too delicious to cook with! When I say prunes, I do of course mean plums - but the French call them prunes, as do we now.
I’ve decided that I really love my suppers in the garden. The invitations are usually for aperos with something to nibble but I tend to get carried away and line up lots of small dishes for everyone instead. We can then serve them up throughout the evening. Everything done in advance - which is just as well because even at 10pm last night, the temperature stayed at 30 degrees. A bit much - certainly when one starts to feel weary! I’m going to do lots of entertaining like this for the rest of the year, I think. At least we all feel safe and aren’t worried about masks and distance and $%@! Covid. I’m going to have to call them my ‘Candlelit Suppers’ and start behaving like Hyacinth Bouquet at this rate. ?
Grammaretto I so agree about holidays in the UK. Why - unless you own a little home there - in these so difficult times particularly - would anyone want to go through all the drama, uncertainty, risk, disappointment and sheer b.....hard work of travelling abroad? Well, of course,we know why. The countryside, the coastline, the history, the sheer loveliness of the UK is hard to beat. However, if you get 2 weeks and you’ve had to save for that all year and you put all that hope and emotion into the thought of wonderful things to come - why would anyone be willing to risk the fact that it might be miseable weather for almost the whole two weeks and even more expensive because of having to find indoor things for the family to do? It’s just the weather. The whole of the country gets so sick of The Great Greyness. I still subscribe to the old joke “how can you tell if it’s summer in England?” Answer? “Because the rain’s warmer”. Sadly that is often true and it’s never going to lift the spirits, totally relax people and give them a whole outdoor experience. Well, not enough to see them through months and months of mediocre weather, I should imagine. Otherwise I can’t imagine anyone wasting a lot of time in travelling to far flung parts and possibly being disappointed sometimes by their choices. One of our best holidays, by car, was touring around the Scottish Borders. It was magical. But, the sun shone every day.
How lovely - an afternoon of relaxation and jollity with your chums, Urms and a nice Government-sponsored bottle of Cava to go with it! Must be the only sensible thing that the British Govt has done this week, surely?
Your holiday has gone quickly, Gelisajams. Do hope that the change of location and the most spectacular scenery has repaid your efforts to get there. Safe journey home.
Mary well done for weathering yesterday. Can’t say you don’t give it your best shot. Always. Really keeping everything crossed that you now start (albeit slowly) to see some improvement in your health. Just getting rid of the wretched mouth ulcers would be something, wouldn’t it. Feel better soon. We shall wait for small tales of mischief - that’s always a good recovery sign coming from Glasgow ! ?
In a very small country where every man and his dog owns a car, you’d think some money could be spent properly re-surfacing the roads, wouldn’t you Spangler? Just as well it wasn’t poor Jessica’s fillings that weren’t forcibly removed - but it’s still money that no one should have to spend due to negligent Highways authorities, IMO.
Do you have any cheering news about the Little One, EV ? And how is morale at home? Hopefully her Mum is beginning to turn a corner. Since you are having a housework blitz, can you yet report you’re pleased with your new vacuum cleaner...and that you’ve lost no cats so far to the turbo charged dust extractor? Everyone in our family LOVES vacuum cleaners due to their mother charging amongst them almost from the moment that they were aware of things. As a result we still own 4 cleaners and a Henry for the garage and a wonderful blower for the courtyard and the gravel which shifts leaves, cobwebs etc., in a trice - and anything else that gets in the way! I could vacuum my cats - they wouldn’t mind - but I try to limit my efforts to the floors!
Still, it’s the only chore that the kids would ever do without any complaints.
DH is going to take a couple of small ‘skirting’ tiles off the wall so that he can replace the door of the study. He managed to find a very small tool which will allow him to cut the tile very near the floor without damaging the main floor tiles. But the greatest pleasure for him was taking delivery and reading on the package that it was Made in England by a company in Hampshire. That must honestly be like finding gold these days. It seems impossible to find anything that is Made in England - or France for that matter. So depressing. Presumably because everyone wants ‘cheap’, everything now has to come from China.
Well, not everything is cheap I suppose. Covid has turned out to be really expensive.
Sending warm wishes to all from the land of ☀️? and ?. To all with sadness, illness or struggles, may Tuesday be kind to you and here’s hoping that you find something today to lift your spirits a little and make you smile.
Take care GM’ers. Be happy.
Hugs x
