What a wonderful day, just look at that blue sky and yep I am wearing my shorts. When I was a working girl I started to wear short at the week end on the 1st of March so that I could tan my legs and not have to wear tights until October and today I thought I might just reinstate that little routine and see if I can talk myself into wearing a skirt, or is that a bit too middle aged normal for me. So there is the septic tank, we keep looking at it pondering it’s purpose and how many millions of these little beauties are dug down deep in peoples gardens never to be seen again or in many cases thought about again, sadly, but the drainage legislation in France is hotting up and all homes must have a legal system by 2012. During the many years of holidaying in France we always thought that the smell of raw sewage was the way of life here but no longer, and the waterways are cleaner and it also means that the government do not have to put every last little hamlet on town drainage. The government have sussed the cess pit and how to keep it controlled and working. The organisation who are in charge of this legislation is called SPANK which is short for a long and meaningful occupation for someone who can throw his weight about to get the job done and keep it done.
We had a very interesting time with the bonfire lit on Thursday evening and bearing in mind it rained on Friday afternoon we were still playing with the last knockings of it Saturday afternoon. As Mike finished the last of the weed killing I started to rake through the ashes to recoup the tiles that had been in the hay from the little barn loft. We have no idea when the roof was redone but the straw loft floor was obviously there and a number of tiles fell in along with tile clips. I was wearing my gloves and as the ashes were still hot I carefully plucked out the broken tiles to recycle. The act of raking through the ashes got them alight again and I sat next to my wheel barrow with the warmth of the fire once again on my face. Mike came and joined me and we ended up raking it all up and putting the left overs out to cool on the concrete. I was totally astounded when I went out late to walk HOSS the embers were still alight and there was still heat coming off the pile. This morning though we did the last of our triage and the final barrow of charcoal and fire dechete went onto the cinder path which we have been making all winter with the ashes from the cuisiniere.
When the cuisiniere is extinguished for the summer we will rake this over and throw a handful of gravel on it and hey presto we’ll have a cinder path.
We had the first of many picnics in the garden today. A fist of baguette and a bottle of cider is all you need to make a feast fit for a peasant and we are extremely happy about that. It was at this moment that Mike decided it was grass cutting time so we both mounted our mowers and cracked on.
Grass cutting is my most favourite of all our routines and although I think Mike would rather just get his head down and do it himself he tolerates me whizzing about on my mower having to follow up to collect all my clippings but he knows I love it and he loves me for loving it and we love it even more when the lawn is all cut and smelling of a lovely summers day
That`s not a mower, that`s some huge industrial secret weapon that only you two know what it is!! Never seen amything so big!!! Makes my little "lot less bovver than a hovver" seem a little sad!
ReplyDeletexxx