Morning all. Sunshine and showers here this morning, but mild. I have been reading in the local paper how the fire brigade had an unusual call out this week. Futuroscope is a large theme park just north of Poitiers that every year has something new added to the attractions. The call out came when one of the workman building a new building had a heart attack. The problem was that he was the crane operator sat in his cabin 54 metres above the ground. An elaborate system of ropes and pulleys had to be put in place to lower the stretcher down. The report stops when they had him down and off to hospital, so I hope he is alright. Have a good day whatever you are doing.
Had to go in search of the card reader that my bank in England sent me 12 years ago. Over that time I have used it just the once, and when I switched it on today found that it was telling me that it had a low battery. All of this is because I changed my mobile phone three years ago to a far better service from the French provider than my English one. I hope to stick the reader back in the drawer again for another twelve years.
Morning all. Grey, damp and windy here today, but once again not cold. Because of the damp conditions many of the new lambs are being kept indoors at present, which is a shame as they can be entertaining to watch as they try vertical take off leaps. One of my farming friends doesn't have their lambs until March as they don't fancy being up in the middle of the cold nights helping out a ewe that is in difficulties. Many new born calves are out though, and they tend to leave them in family groups, with the resulu that the bulls tend to be very docile. I don't think I have ever seen a beware of the bull sign here. Have a good day whatever the weather.
Morning all. Something approaching a tropical storm here for about 15-20 minutes. Very strong wind, and heavy rain, and I found that some, but not all of my electricity supply had gone off. Eventually tracked it down to the supply to one of the outbuildings, where a drain blocked with fallen leaves was creating a flood, and an extension lead that was still plugged in had caused a short circuit. More showers and strong winds forecast, so better get and clean the drain out. Have a good one whatever you are doing.
There is a hashtag doing the rounds over here, and I see has now spread to the UK. #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus. This relates to the weird experiences that some people of Asiatic appearance are receiving. Seeing as the French government is not able to repatriate nationals before tomorrow for various reasons regarding aircraft and landing rights, it makes little sense to imagine that the lady on the checkout has just returned from China, so should be avoided. Comments from the UK suggest that all Chinese takeaways are to be avoided, and someone wondered if it was safe to use his laptop incase it caught the virus.
Morning all. More rain overnight, but dry now and the sun is attempting to put in an appearance. I have my electricians hat on this morning as I am going to put in a new power socket, something that has been on the list of must do jobs when I have the time. A strange tale that Mme brought home from her monthly knit and natter club yesterday. A Dutch lady from the next village was about to have her Dutch driving licence expire, so thought it would make sense to change it to a French one. She filled in the forms, took them along to the local sous prefecture, who accepted them, took her old licence off her, and gave her a piece of paper to say that she could still drive legally. The weeks went by, stretching into months, but no new licence arrived. It seemed that Holland had not confirmed that she had passed her test, so until they did nothing was happening. After nearly 18 months a letter arrived with her lovely new pink French licence, which she popped into her purse and forgot about until asked to produce her papers at a roadside check. The gendarme inspected her new licence, and informed her that she couldn't drive with it. He showed her that it said she could pull a caravan or trailer, but not drive a car. As it was an obvious error, he sent her on her way, but told her to get it sorted. Back to the sous prefecture, who said they could not help, she would have to go to Poitiers and the main office and try to get someone there to sort it. She is not expecting anything to happen quickly! Have a stress free day.
How easy is it to assume everything is in order and not check these things?! That’s a shot across the bows for all of us, I suppose.