Quite a moving week.

First and foremost - today, 14th September 2008 marks fifteen years that Clare and I have been married, so I want to start off by thanking Clare for fifteen great years and loads more to come. Fifteen years as man and wife and almost twenty years together in total - and we are still very much in love and best friends!

So, what of this past week?

It started quite nicely. On Monday we did a bit of harvesting in the garden and cut the grass whilst Phil and Wendy were out looking at old ruins (can't see the point when we have one at the bottom of the garden, but it's their choice). It started raining overnight.

Tuesday we hired a hi-top Transit (12m³) van from the Ford Rent agent in Montluçon - Barrat Location - a vehicle much longer, wider and taller than I am accustomed to driving, and the steering wheel on the left, which somehow made it seem wider still! Quite a good, economical and very capable vehicle for what we needed to do. We set off from Montluçon at about 10:30am and, after a brief stop part way for light refreshments, arrived at Tania's old apartment a little after 1:30pm for shifter duties. Three trips between Neuilly-sur-Seine and Courbevoie and seven hours later we were on our way back with a van full of things that Tania couldn't fit into her new apartment. We arrived home at about half past midnight and immediately started offloading (with help from Phil, for which we are most grateful). We didn't dare leave offloading until the morning as we had to be away by 8am to get the van back to Montluçon in time for it to be a one day rental.

Wednesday morning Phil and Wendy followed us to Montluçon and peeled off to continue their northward journey with our best wishes for a bon voyage. We filled the van with diesel (78 litres for 730Kms) and got it back in time. We had originally estimated around 800Km and so pre-declared 900Km to be on the safe side. In the event our bill was less than we had thought as the man at Barrats recalculated it based on 800Kms. All in all, a good hire, and we can highly recommend this firm for anyone wanting to hire a van in the Montluçon area.

We now have, as a result of that trip, a nice big sofa in the study, and enough to furnish the bread oven room to a reasonable standard. Oh yes, and a canteen of cutlery that Tania hates, but we love!


Then it rained - and did it rain!


No more outsidey stuff for a few days. Some breaks in the rain over the course of the last few days, but that has really been the story. It looks as though Wendy and Phil got away just in time!

Meanwhile, the struggle for food in our back garden goes on! Here is one of the intended recipients of our largesse enjoying the bounty we provide.


This is good. We are happy to feed the tits, sparrows, redstarts, robins, chaffinches, chiffchaffs, dunnocks and the rest.

Who tries to gatecrash our generosity? Well, this guy for a start. It, along with another of its ilk, has been relocated to a nice place in the country, a dozen kilometres from us.


For its larger cousins, we have invested in a larger detention centre which, according to the blurb, can accommodate ten inmates. We had one young one in there, but he managed to make good his escape before we were able to relocate him.


As a result of that episode we have now enhanced the perimeter security by the addition of a secondary closing device or steel rod, as we like to call it!

We were thoroughly bemused to find, after extended heavy rain, that the bread we had placed as bait, had all gone. This is currently subject of an internal enquiry, but the preliminary indications are that it may have been washed away by the rain. I hope that is the case. If not, we have some very clever and enterprising rats around here!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine