My day out to lunch with friends who we hadn't seen since last November was a huge success. Eight of us sat in the garden of the restaurant, thankful that overhead shading protected us from a hot sun. A little stream flows swiftly at the bottom of the garden, and enters the old but well maintained lavoir. The food was lovely, although the house wine was of dubious quality, which is unusual for most French restaurants. The only downside to the day was that the youngest of us is suffering from the early stages of dementia, and has lost most of her very recent memory. Asking if she had enjoyed her holiday two weeks ago, she didn't remember that she had even been away, and had to ask her husband where they had been. Thankfully, she knew who all of us were as we go back before this current loss kicked in. You can see how it is taking a toll on her husband, and makes you realize how to be asked the same question over and over is quite daunting. She spent two days at the hospital in Poitiers for tests so they can tailor the best treatment for her, but although they can slow its progression, at present there is no known cure.
Lucky you. One of my favourite places that I have been to many times now, and really need to go back to explore more of the north. Enjoy it.
One thing you learn living here, is to keep all the paperwork that arrives in your letter box, no matter how long ago it arrived. I had to prove how long I had lived here full-time, so had to find paperwork going back to 2007 to get my residency card. This of course has storage and filing problems. Although more bills arrive electronically now, not all of them do. So you have folders for the main regular arrivals, but then there are the services you only need once in a while. As our sanitary arrangements are due to be inspected tomorrow, I had to find the bill from the last visit of the company that empties our fosse septic. After three hours, as I was about to give up, there it was in the unfiled section of my desk. So I now know that it is eight years since it was last emptied, and has been no problem at all. It will be condemned again, but as there is nowhere to put in a modern version, I will have to stick with it.
This strange looking young lady, with multiple tattoos and piercings, turned up to inspect our sanitary arrangements. Sticking a steel rod into the fosse septic, she declared it was working OK even if it did need emptying very soon. The grease trap, that the council installed, is not good enough as it doesn't separate chemicals from the water, and we don't want them in the rivers. If only she knew how rivers are treated elsewhere.
Four dry days and I finally managed to get to my shed in the fields. Sitting for a few minutes, I started to plan where to start clearing the shoulder-high grass and cow parsley from the vegetable plot, with the hope I could yet grow something. Today it is raining again.
Sadly the old man in our village who kept sheep has passed away, he must have been close to 100, but every year he lent a few sheep to some of the village elders to clear their plots. Worked pretty well!
One of my neighbours tried the same thing by keeping a goat. The trouble was he could jump the hedge, and would be found some distance away, going along a row of vegetables that didn't belong to the owner of the goat. He was then put on a long rope to restrict his travels, but instead of keeping the grass down, he ate the hedge. He was moved out to a local goat farm, where they make excellent cheese. I suspect he stopped his roaming with lots of ladies around.
It seems I picked up a bug somewhere that laid me low for 24 hours yesterday. Feeling a lot better today, although still on loads of water to drink, which will flush the system, hopefully. Received our postal votes today. To put a candidate up from outside the area, who knows little about the towns and villages she hopes to represent, appears to be taking the voters for granted. Still, there is a nice picture of her out with the hunt, that will appeal to some.
Two weeks have passed, and the warning signs about the low overhead cable are still there. With a lot of yelling and arm waving, the two gents who collect the rubbish, didn't look up, so carried on down the road, taking the cable with them on top of the dustcart. The performance then was worth a watch. One was rushing up and down the road taking pictures of the posts that carry both electrical and telephone cables, while the other one was on the phone to base reporting what they had just done. It is not apparent just what this cable did. As there were no sparks to see, it would not be an electric cable, and no one has complained about loss of their phone line. The cable is now rolled up behind the post opposite my front door. I will wait, but not hold my breath, to see which utility service deals with it.
From 'Tomorrow's World' in 1966. I'm wonder what I would have grunted had anyone asked me the question back then... At 3.37 minutes, one schoolkid who became famous later in life - not for his Nostradamus skills though.
We have had a few dry days, so I hoped to get on with restoring my veggie plot. However, things don't always go to plan. My granddaughter is off next week to Madagascar for three weeks to do some work in an orphanage, with basic feminine health for the teenagers there. So yesterday we needed to see her before she, and three other, fly out at the weekend. En route, about 4.00 pm we called in at the surgery to book an appointment for Mme's latest MOT. Did she need to see the doctor that day, or could it wait until today? It reminded me that as a child, if ill, you would go and sit in the waiting room until it was your turn to go in. No appointments, and you were always seen by the same doctor who knew that some foul tasting mixture would probably clear up your latest throat infection.
Fingers crossed for tomorrow's general election, I hope everyone gets their wish - except, of course, those who may be voting for the Tories. After a few weeks of being bombarded with polls and opinions pieces predicting a disaster for the SNP - the final poll in our area has them winning the two constituencies along the Moray Firth - both previously Tory seats. The future is, hopefully, yellow...
Our nearest small town used to have two pharmacies, one at the top of the town and the other at the bottom near the river. This was ideal for those who found walking up the hill a bit of a struggle. A combination of high business rates and a too small population meant that neither was sustainable, so they merged into the shop at the bottom of town. Eventually the pharmacist, who lived in the adjoining house, retired and sold the business to the highest bidder, not the people he had merged with earlier. Quite who they are no one seems to know, but they are not very good at keeping the stock levels right. Yesterday, a lot of arguing and shouting could be heard coming out of the shop, and by the afternoon the shutters were down with a notice to say that they would be closed until a pharmacist could be delivered. Mme was told about the strange goings-on when she visited the doctor, but for the time being anyone needing their daily medicines will now have a 30 kms round trip to the nearest functioning pharmacy.
A little story about the restoration of two coastal tidal swimming pools in Aberdeenshire - one where I live and the other not ten miles away. I take my hat off to the hardy souls who used to swim in them regularly in years gone by, they're far too cold for me - I had to paddle in one once when my dog pulled me in in her attempts to get at a dead dolphin. I prefer the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef. https://news.stv.tv/north/plans-to-restore-much-loved-coastal-pools-across-aberdeenshire
It is not that often that you read in the national press that police are searching for a man who they believe could be a triple killer in the place that you grew up in. Three women all dead, and the man they are looking for might be armed with a crossbow. I had no idea where this tragic event took place until I looked it up on a map. Then I discovered it was the quiet road where my driving instructor took me to practice three point turns many years ago. So very sad.
It was possible that I was going to lose my Friday night football, as Chateauroux were threatened with relegation because of their business plan. Every club has to agree a budget for the coming season, and stick to it. Having overspent in the past, the current plan was not accepted by the committee that look at such things, and it took an appeal to maintained their status. Now they just need a coach, his staff and a team of players.
