Today I shall be Mainly...

[Wendyf]

Maz, you are right, Mum is a lovely, sweet & generous little lady...she just drives her nearest & dearest crazy!
Alfie had another session of rapid breathing last night, this time following a quiet & relaxed day, so it must just be the heat that causes it. He is flat out and fast asleep when it starts, so he doesn't pant to cool himself down. I followed the vets advice and covered him with a cold wet towel which worked very quickly to calm his breathing down.
Just had Mum on the phone...she thinks she may have made a mistake with the new TV and wants to swap it back to the old one!

Ian, it should be a good day for it.

[Tizer]

Wildest thunder claps this morning here in Carrcassonne. It may be over in the mountains

We thought a thunderstorm had started yesterday at about 5.00pm but then remembered that it was the annual `Air Day' at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton about 10 miles away. They always end the event with a mock attack by Royal Marines - the subsequent rapid-fire bang-bang-bang...confirms that it's not thunder!

Wendy, "Difficult as ever" is written through my dad like `Blackpool' through a stick of rock. Your mum wants to swap back her old TV? Last week we sold my dad's bicycle because he can't ride it now, and bought him a litre of good whiskey with the proceeds...but now he wants the bicycle back!

[Sue]

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We climbed up to Montsegur, the last stronghold of the Cathars. Luckily it was only 25 degrees when we started but nearer 30 when we got back down 90 minutes later

[minimiller]

.......mowing.
So, what's new?



I started at 9.00am so I could get done before it got too hot.
With the temperature on the up and up the grass will soon be coming to a halt (he said hopefully)

Then, after a shower and some lunch, I'll be computerizing.

[Stanley]

Get half a dozen sheep....
Editing the LTP....

[Sue]

Today we are going in some caves at Niaux to look at some of the best examples in the world of 140000 year old cave drawings.its a 2000 metre walk underground. Then it's bit more local Sight seeing before driving back to Brittany tomorrow and home on Thursday. A fortnight soon goes.

[Wendyf]

Getting some gardening done. Leeks to plant out, loads of weeding and grass cutting.
Its a shame your attached photos are on their sides Sue....though the last one is the right way up for some reason.

[Sue]

Thanks for telling me Wendy. There seems no reason behind this, it is just a random turning of photos on my ipad. It looks ok when I go on the site.

[Sue]

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/niaux/


Wow! No photos today as none allowed, but look at the images in the link above

[Stanley]

Guess what.....

[Sue]

7hour drive back to Brittany today, then back to England on Thursday.

[Wendyf]

Hoping the breeze picks up a bit....going for a walk with my neighbour this morning, and she moves at a very brisk pace!

[Stanley]

Make her carry the rucksack.....
LTP.....

[EileenDavid]

Poor you Sue and in this heat. All that travelling for 2 days don't envy you. Today we are going for sand and cement to do some pointing on the house plus the patio ready for the delivery of the new patio furniture on Thursday. Power washed the flags last night. Eileen

[Sue]

We made it in less time than expected but discovered that although we had only been down south for five days we had developed a veggie glut up here in Brittany. All now picked and frozen or given to friends and neighbours. Bob is just giving the lawn a last cut and I have trimmed back some weeds from round new trees in the field. Ferry early in the morning. I am looking forward to a cool ship for 9 hours. It has been amazingly hot weather for the two weeks we have been here.

[Stanley]

Eileen, keep the new pointing wet as it cures otherwise the heat will dry it too quickly and not give it time to go through its chemical changes....
LTP....

[Stanley]

Guess.... But we're getting there, only 18 left to do now!

[Marilyn]

Let's see...two loads of washing, cleaned two bathrooms, washed the entry hall floor ( complete waste of time as it is raining and the dog has been in and out and tramping all over it), made Soup, watched Corrie ( eight years behind your current episodes), completely emptied the pantry and washed all the shelves ( made a shopping list at the same time)....phew....now just have the dog hair to vac up.
Think that is about it. Ordinary kind of day really...

[Wendyf]

Worrying about the possibility of our spring drying up...

[EileenDavid]

Need to get some housework done plus the ironing as we have been spending all our time outside while weathers good Eileen

[Marilyn]

Wendy, I am shocked that you need to worry about water after such a (relatively) short heat wave.
When we had a five/six YEAR drought, I was doing a three minute shower with a bucket at my feet, so that whatever was collected in it could be used to water pot plants. ( thank heavens we didn't have to drink it...but in reality it could have come to having to flush the loo with it instead). Cars didn't get washed often, and when they did it was one bucket of water. We were not allowed to use the hose.
I take it the Spring is your only water source? Do you have tanks to store rain water?
We haven't had a lot of rain thus far this winter. We went on a country drive yesterday and the dam we passed looked quite low. But lots of rain expected this weekend. Good! Bring it on...

[Wendyf]

Maz, it has been the 5th driest spring in this area since records began, following a fairly dry winter. Reservoirs are doing well, as they filled up with last years rain, but a small spring high up on a hill hasn't got a big store to feed on!
Three of us share the supply, and since the farm next door started keeping cattle a lot of it seems to disappear in that direction!

[elise]

Hi Wendy, do you not have equal rights to the water supply?

[Wendyf]

I suppose we do Elise...and we split the costs three ways, but unless we were to meter the flow on each down pipe we don't really know who is using what. The farm have another water supply and no one really knows which building on the farm is fed by which system. Col did some work on the upper storage tank a couple of years ago when the water was disappearing incredibly fast. We thought there was a leak somewhere, but once the tank was drained it became obvious that it had been supplying a shed full of cattle in hot spring weather. The outlet pipe to the farm was the lowest in the tank, so Col rearranged the outlets so that there is always a bit left in the bottom for us and our other neighbour. At the moment Col does all the maintenance, our neighbour pays the electric bills for the pump and the farm uses most of the water and thinks they don't use any...not good!! We are saving up for a bore hole.

[Stanley]

Not good Wendy.... Do you pay anything to Yorkshire Water? Perhaps a good idea to sound them out about a tanker.
I shall be taking it easy, the LTP transcripts are finished, 194 in all averaging about 10,000 words each. Bit of tidying up to be done but that's quite a big job done.