Saturday 4 August 2012

July . . .

. . . came and went as quickly as the sunflowers in Serge's field alongside our chemin rural.


Warm, but not too warm, gardening became an all day activity, not just something squeezed into early mornings and late evenings.  So I weeded and dug and planted and half wrote blogs in my head that I never wrote down:

. . . like the one about the new electricity line that now brings power straight down from the road and not meandering across our neighbour's field, so the lights no longer dim when we turn on a kettle;

. . . and the rampant woodworm in our "only three years old" oak beams that Martyn found when lime washing the cottage, which meant I spent a week dressed like something from a CSI TV series - white hooded gown, pink marigold gloves, mask - while I sprayed every inch of every beam with some noxious substance in a squeezy bottle;

. . . and the hoopoe and the hares and the fluttery baby magpies who took ownership of our drive, so setting off in the car anywhere became like participation in a wildlife programme;

. . . and learning what it means to try and arrange a visa if we invite someone who is not European to stay with us and the "joys" of French bureaucracy and the helpfulness of our local mayor's office;

. . . and the fun of watching a recording of the opening ceremony of the Olympics the day after (which meant we could skip the slow bits and - on everyone's advice - turn off before Paul McCartney. Shame, he was once my favourite Beatle).




4 comments:

  1. Your blogging July sounds much like mine, Sue - mainly in h head rather than on the screen. Glad you've enjoyed yourself. :-)

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  2. Oh yes, the attestation d'acceuil....we've had to fix this for Costa Rican friends and as we are not in France friends had to undertake the horror of it...proving their own existence and income...
    The ladies at their mairie were stunned - this was the first time they had had to deal with one - and their non PC reaction was
    'Why don't they do this for Roms?'

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  3. Hello Perpetua, thanks for stopping by and hope your summer is going well. Strange isn't it how sometimes the non-blog days just slip by! I admire those with the discipline to blog every day - couldn't do that. :)

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  4. Hello Fly, couldn't believe what we had to do, after a suggestion that the daughter of a friend came out for just a week. The secretary at our mairie was amazed as well!

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