Morning all. A clear blue sky, little wind, and a comfortable temperature. That is how I hope it will be throughout the day as a surprise party has been arranged to celebrate one of our friends 80th birthday today. She moved with her husband to France just before us to one of the houses that we looked at as a possible place to live. She grew up in Sussex, and her holidays were spent in the hopfields of Kent. She met her husband when she served him cups of tea from one of those vans you see parked up in laybys on the side of the road. People are coming from a distance, including a daughter from England, and her husband feels sure that although he knows about all the plans, his wife doesn't. Cars have been given a route to the neighbours house where it is taking place that doesn't include going past the birthday girl's house, as a sudden influx of cars is not normal. Lots of kitchens have been busy preparing for it, and looking at the list of food on offer it will be a bit of a blow out. Have a good day whatever is planned.
Sometimes you have one of those days that no amount of money can buy. Our birthday lady was clearly quite emotional to see 40 friends turn up to wish her well. The weather was just right, not too hot, it stayed dry, and to sit in a large garden with the chatter going around in both French and English, makes you realise that we are not different, just from different backgrounds. As expected there was far too much food and drink, and although all of Mme's pork and egg pie has gone, there will be enough fruit salad to keep us going for a couple of days. Our hosts had the BBQ on the go and I remarked that the smell reminded me of the smell of walking to a football match with the hot dogs and onions. A couple of the men knew exactly what I meant
Morning all. Blue sky and warm here today, and Mme is insisting that I put some aftersun cream on my forehead that has gone rather pink after an afternoon at the garden party. A trip around the chilled cabinets at Le Clerc should cool it down a bit.
We have a street party here today.... as part of the Jo Cox nationwide community movement..... and we are all starting to look out for each other and reporting via whats app... intruders in the area.... and ofr once it is sunny!
Good morning.. Great street party this morning.. Our first and great community participation... Looking forward to F1, tennis and football today... Thankfully my sport hating wife is out all afternoon! Enjoy!
Morning all. Just had a look at the forecast for the coming week and it tells me that there will be no rain, but the temperatures will be in the middle 30 s. Mme has gone out this morning to see daughter and granddaughters with a large punnet of strawberries. Seems that we picked rather more than we needed for the fruit salad, so she is giving some to them, and still there will be enough for some jam. Out with the mower now to keep the grass along the green lane I use under control. An English couple who have a house here moved out of Birmingham to a country cottage in Ludlow at the beginning of the year, and haven't had time to get here since. Their lawn here is now suitable for hay making with grass three feet high.
They need a farmer with cutting and baling equipment. One house that I go past quite often has one of those grass cutters that go backwards and forwards on their own. You can see it go the length of the lawn, come into contact with an edging, and turn itself round, coming back along a line next to the one it has just cut. Very clever!
Morning all. It is warm already and will be getting hot this afternoon. Get jobs done this morning, then retire indoors after midday. Lots of vegetables are now ready, so collect them now, and prepare them later. When I came down to make a cuppa this morning a large dragonfly was sat on the kitchen ceiling. Not sure how it got in, or where it has gone now, but just another bit of wildlife to share our house and garden with. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48742241
Warm here as well Frenchie with 30 C + expected every day until Sunday. Watering daily, and balatedly bringing out mulch for the veggie plot. Not many vegetables ready here because of late frosts in mid May.
53 départements en vigilance canicule say the headlines. The government treat it as a full scale emergency to keep everything ticking over. Extra electricity supplies will come on stream to cater for the fans and aircon units being switched on, with maximum demand expected at 1.00 pm Thursday. Schools that have pupils taking exams this week will be able to postpone them until next week. Large cities such as Paris and Lyon will be reducing the traffic to cut down on pollution by means of restricting the days you can take your car to work. As normal we are being asked to look out for our elderly neighbours, making sure that they can keep cool, and have plenty of drinking water. Take them to a supermarket with aircon if they need to cool down. The whole plan just seems to get into action without any great drama, in the same way that plans click in during exteme cold periods during the winter. Planning such as this is surely what any government should be doing.
