Lovely day. Hot with just the hint of a breeze.
Paul was quite willing to help me with DIY jobs around the house, but I don’t really have any DIY jobs, only projects. Projects that require planning and thought and purchasing and a considerable amount of effort and enthusiasm and perspicacity to undertake. And that’s just the washing-up. And I’m not sure I’m ready to undertake any other projects at the moment, and anyway I didn’t want to upset Paul with my hard task-mastering and quest for perfection seeing as though we were getting along so well.
Instead we decided to make the most of the sun and went for a walk. It was meant to be a shortish walk around the block, but when we got into our stride we decided to push-on and try and make Beaulieu for lunch. In the heat it’s difficult to walk far, but Beaulieu is all downhill and I managed to find a few wooded shortcuts which made the journey about an hour and a half.
But our late start meant lunch was – literally – off the menu when we got there, but the beers were not. So we sampled the liquid menu to replenish those liquids lost on the trudge. We managed to get a snack at the patisserie before making the journey back home. Took the shady road back up the hill, which is steeper but the only way to stay alive in 30 degree heat and one small bottle of water between us (what was that I was saying about project planning again). Managed to stay alive long enough to get back to the house and throw 2 litres of water down our necks.
After a rest we started another bout of petanque, as Paul thought he might be getting the hang of it. Needless to say he hadn’t, so his forfeit tonight was to make some chapattis to go with the veggie curry I’d made the other night. The flour we’d acquired at the mill yesterday was ideal for chapattis, as it turned out.
