It's great to be home

Don't get me wrong. We had a brilliant holiday. Ashley and Tracey are excellent company and their cottage and its location are such that we could happily recommend it to anyone. In fact you can take this as a firm recommendation. The link to their web site is at the foot of the last article.

However, we are so in love with where we are, that returning from a fabulous break was not the chore it frequently is - even the six hours drive down from the tunnel, much of it in night fog, was not the downer it could have been.

When we got back (OK, next morning after we had grabbed a few hours' sleep) we found that Clare's dad had dealt with all the niggling things, like the loose toilet seat in the downstairs bathroom, tidied and reorganised the workshop (mostly to my liking, although I have made a couple of minor reassignments), and tidied up the area where the larger of the two ploughs is located.
He also completed the ramp down to the field (picture below) which we shall, in his honour, name chemin de Mac. It is very smooth and I dread to think the amount of manual labour that went into it. It has been tested and is, as Pa Larkin would say, perfick

The ride on mower is back. I shall probably often refer to it as the tractor. In French it is either tondeuse-autoportée (self-propelled mower) or tracteur-tondeuse (tractor-cum-mower). I prefer the latter as I often put a trailer on the back and use it as a tractor. Most French people, depending on whether they are being helpful or difficult, will understand either or neither.

Either way, it is back. We called into Mr Bricolage on Wednesday and learned that it was ready. We then had a fascinating discussion during which we put forward the theorem that as we had already paid 138 € for the machine to be collected and returned (69 € each trip), they should now return it to us with no more money changing hands. They were exploring an alternative scenario, in which we would give them more money. It was an interesting discussion, although I have to confess to having been tediously repetetive in my assertions that "nous avons déja payés pour le chercher et pour le retour". Very satisfyingly for us, they cottoned on in the end, so there were only two forms to fill in, after which they promised to deliver it at 10am on Friday. The word approximativement was added as an afterthought.

At 11:30 on Friday morning, the van arrived and we offloaded the tractor. I started the engine (to make sure it would) and thanked the guy. He told me that according to the paperwork the engine was fine, it was the clutch that had broken down. He didn't look at the state of our field, and I resolved to use it more slowly and carefully. There was no suggestion that the breakdown was anything other than a manufacturing fault, but I have suspicions ...

Friday afternoon, I decided to try it out by mowing the edge of the grass verge on our side of the road. Started the engine, engaged the gear, something went bang and there was a notable lack of forward motion. Words related to solid waste were emitted from my mouth.

We had a good look at it and concluded that the main drive belt (there are two; one for the rear wheels and one for the cutter assembly) had jumped off one of the pulleys. The manual is very helpful. To replace the main drive belt, you must first dismantle and remove the cutter assembly.

WHAT?!?!

That means removing the cutter drive belt, removing a great chunk of machinery and upsetting all the delicate adjustmants that allow power to be transmitted through to two opposing blades.

Stuff that!

About an hour and a half later, we had sussed how the belt is meant to run and, by getting arms and hands in impossible positions and configurations, relocated the belt. Upshot is, it worked; and Saturday afternoon we mowed the field. Slowly and carefully. The grass and weeds - over a foot high in places - were still damp, and I think I had to stop between fifteen and twenty times to clear the ejection mechanism, but it has been cut. Except for the area where it is just too boggy to take the tractor. And it went down the ramp easily and came up easily. Chemin de Mac is officially declared a success!

So that's where we are. This afternoon Clare and I have been taking photographs of some of our wild flowers and these will form a new page on the main site, when we have a collection we feel happy to share with the world - or at least with the two or three members of the world who look at our efforts.

We are now looking forward to collecting Sue and Wendy from the airport on Friday. Sue hasn't been here yet, and I think Wendy will notice some differences ...

Meantime, here is another animal photograph. This time the almost-ready-to-fledge swallows in our piggery. Mum, on the right, let me take this photograph, and didn't try to leave until she went to get more food for the young.
À la prochaine