1\/6\/2007 – Friday<\/p>\n
Lots of showers, some sunny intervals, otherwise normal if it were April.<\/p>\n
White Rabbits!\u00a0\u00a0 Well it\u2019s the first of June and I usually forget to say \u201cWhite rabbits\u201d on the first of the month for good luck, but today I didn\u2019t so it\u2019s worth noting.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first of June but you wouldn\u2019t notice by the weather.\u00a0 On the global front there may be warming, but on the local front the weather is more like April than June.\u00a0 Ilka & I discussed this the other day and we decided that each year the months get together to decide when they want to appear.\u00a0 This year, April has clearly made a pact with another month, and I suspect it\u2019s June.\u00a0 I mean, April was a glorious, hot, uninterrupted sun-drenched month \u2013 which is unusual for Aprils in the northern hemisphere, and more like a good June.\u00a0\u00a0 So clearly April decided to go on holiday in April and left her showers for \u2026 well I suspect it\u2019s going to be June.\u00a0 May was a normal May, and she usually gives us one glorious week of good sunshine and temperatures which have certainly been apparent around these parts.\u00a0 So clearly May lost out in the month negotiating and had to stay where it was expected to be, but April was hot hot hot, in the way that June or July should usually be with no showers whatsoever.\u00a0 So for the moment it looks like April has swapped places with June. So that means that April\u2019s showers and temperatures are coming now, which is a bit disappointing because I\u2019m 1000km south of lousy England weather and I really would expect something better.<\/p>\n
I demand an Indian summer!<\/p>\n
Anyway \u2026 woke up to heavy showers and so I wasn\u2019t really motivated to do much.\u00a0 After breakfast and an April shower of my own it was already 11am and far too late to contemplate any shopping or starting any grand projects.\u00a0 \u00a0So I started with the essentials and did my washing \u2013 hanging my smalls out of April\u2019s grasp under the canopy to dry \u2013 and then looked around indoors for things to do.\u00a0\u00a0 Fortunately the job list I\u2019d made yesterday was still legible so I decided to tackle the tiling around the basin.\u00a0 This may sound easy to the uninitiated, but as usual it involved every tool I\u2019ve ever owned ever \u2013 plus a few more that I had to invent for the job.\u00a0 To start with I had to cut some wood and drill some holes and mix some cement, and that alone gave me enough distractions to find another dozen jobs that needed doing and add to the list.<\/p>\n
In short, the job was started satisfactorily.\u00a0 I also did some woodworm treatment downstairs, and filled-in a load of holes upstairs with a mortar mix where I suspect the r*ts are coming in.\u00a0 They are almost history now, the r*ts I\u2019m sure of it.\u00a0 I can hear no more scratching or scurrying, and they\u2019ve stopped taking the poison bait.\u00a0 So now with the holes plugged-up with superior grade mortar I\u2019m hoping that will be the end of them.<\/p>\n
Tried to start the van today but the battery was still flat despite a full day of charging.\u00a0 I was really disappointed, because it probably means the battery is really buggered\u00a0 rather than just being discharged, and that means I need to use more inventive methods to start the van.\u00a0 Ludwig (a.k.a. Beethoven \u2013the new van) won\u2019t fit down the driveway far enough to be able to jump start the old van, and I don\u2019t want to risk removing the battery from perfectly-good-working-order-no-problem-at-all Mercedes van in order to start knackered-old Vauxhall van.\u00a0 So for the moment the Vauxhall clogs-up the driveway untidily until I come-up with a starting solution.\u00a0 At least it\u2019s a clean white\/rusty van though!<\/p>\n
Made a start at fixing the barn door this evening.\u00a0 This will entail dovetailing-in a new bit of wood to strengthen the hinge and for the moment I only had time to remove the door completely so I could get at it.\u00a0 Then a strange hunger set in.\u00a0 This is the problem with living on my own \u2013 every time I start a job I realise that it\u2019s dinner\/lunchtime and I really need to prepare something to eat.\u00a0 So I didn\u2019t get very far.<\/p>\n
I was also interrupted by the nephew of Monsieur Tronche who dropped by to try and sell me his mother\u2019s house that has been on the market for a year or so.\u00a0 He showed me some pictures and described it all to me and asked me if I knew any stupid Engleesh that might like it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a huge rambling old mansion and I asked how much it was and he asked me to guess.\u00a0 \u201cerrrrrrrrr 200,000?\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat euros?\u201d he replied in a way that suggested I didn\u2019t realise the value of his family\u2019s pied-a-terre.\u00a0\u00a0 Nom he\u2019s asking 400,000 for it, so I guess that\u2019s all of my friends out the running.\u00a0\u00a0 Who\u2019d want a rambling old French house in need of renovation in the middle of nowhere for that price?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No .. not me this time!\u00a0 For that money I could buy a 3-bed semi on a busy road in Mid-Sussex.<\/p>\n
Had a quick word with young Mr Tronche next door this evening.\u00a0 He\u2019s retired, but getting-up at 4.30am tomorrow morning to go to a market to sell his strawberries.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t need to but he seems to enjoy that sort of thing.\u00a0 He tells me that tomorrow\u2019s weather forecast is for much of the same.\u00a0 I suggested he spend the day in bed instead, and he laughed.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps I\u2019m missing something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1\/6\/2007 – Friday Lots of showers, some sunny intervals, otherwise normal if it were April. White Rabbits!\u00a0\u00a0 Well it\u2019s the first of June and I usually forget to say \u201cWhite rabbits\u201d on the first of the month for good luck, but today I didn\u2019t so it\u2019s worth noting. It\u2019s the first of June but you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-in-france-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1273,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}