Cats, Cake and Lawnmowers
Hello Everyone
A beautiful morning here in the Tarn, the birds are singing, the air is warming up and the lake is glistening in the sunshine. Coffee and chocolatines on the terrace – how lovely. There is a promise of warmer days ahead, so once again we are behind with our pool opening. Each year has been the same. Chilly days and nights do not encourage thoughts of swimming, we forget that we need time to ready the pool for this. Suddenly the weather changes and oops, we are not ready. Ah well – there are definitely worse problems and this is truly not a real problem!
We have reached finals time for my son, or at least the start of finals. Three hard fought years by someone struggling with his mental health, like many missing the real experience due to the ongoing pandemic, but he has got there. Exam number 1 last week. All my fingers and toes are crossed that this goes well for him – he deserves it. I am very proud of him, it has not been easy at all.
The ride-on lawnmower finally arrived, I suspect because we made a bit of a fuss that we had been waiting a month and it had been sitting 40 minutes down the road from us since 19th April. Apparently the delivery company did not have a vehicle large enough!! Their words – one wonders if they are in the right business! To placate us we were told that they were behind with a huge amount of deliveries and rather rudely could I get off the phone so they could sort things out! Anyway long story short, it is here, along with a bonus smaller lawnmower – a gift, along with ear-defenders, gloves, a bandana (why?), protective glasses and a cover! The ride-on lawnmower is enormous. I can’t wait to try it. I have never actually used a ride-on lawnmower but it will make such a difference to the time it takes to mow the lawns. So exciting. It even has a drinks holder!!
Like the pool, the gardening is very behind schedule, partly time and partly weather. However the first new bigger potager bed is done, the first seeds planted. For the first time in years, aside from moving year, I have not planted seeds in February for planting out now. Back in the potager, I have continued with measuring out the next 2 bigger beds, plus weeding the new fruit bed. There are a lot of weeds, surrounding the new raspberry canes. I discovered a vine in one of my pots last year, self-seeded from somewhere. I am planning to move that up to the fruit bed to see how it fares. Our old vine is against a wall by the lovely old concrete staircase over the kitchen. Last year it did really well, producing lots of bunches of grapes.
Apparently Friday was International Day of Sauvignon Blanc – who knew? I only found out as a wine merchant sent me a ‘today only’ discount to celebrate this wine. We are back on the rosé now as the days warm up, the local rosés are so nice. Over the coming week with exams and stress we may need that more than normal, as well as cake! It’s lucky swimming season is almost here.
Last Sunday here was May Day. We popped over to a village called Salles for a village-wide vide grenier, as I mentioned last week. We also happened upon a May Day parade of local producers, all dressed up in costume looking very impressive, representing wine producers, sausage producers, foie gras, and many more. Quite a sight. We managed to come away from the vide grenier without having succumbed to stuff we didn’t need! It was a close run thing a couple of times…
Today is la fête de la Victoire (Victory Day or VE Day), commemorating victory in Europe in WW2 and the French people’s freedom, so we went off to a service in the village. This was followed by a vin d’honneur (a quick drink really – actually several quite strong kirs which made Sunday afternoon rather slow). This type of event is a tradition in many villages, including ours, and also a chance to get together as a village. It was nice to catch up with a few people, as we live across the valley and don’t readily bump into anyone.
With my son’s studies nearly over, it will be back to renovating and time to get the new ride-on lawnmower out and conquer the meadow we currently have for a garden (after a bit of a strim as it is waist high in some places!). We are really looking forward to making some progress, and enjoying a first swim of the season very soon.
On a parting note, we may have been adopted by a sweet ginger and white cat, which has been around for ages. Our cats seem quite relaxed around it, not chasing it away. It is very chatty but also very shy of humans. I ended up feeling so sorry for it that I have started giving it a few cat biscuits. One very hungry puss cat, who may never leave now!
Enjoy the week
A bientôt
Ali xx
