Thursday, April 22, 2004
Saint Alexandre
Bit of disaster last night. Between the barn and one of the gites is a very large (20 foot by 30 foot) metal agricultual gate. It's handy cos there is some hard standing behind the gate which I use to store my concrete mixer, piles of gravel and sand etc. General building stuff, out of sight. However last night I closed the gate and the wind caught it, and pulled the top hinge that was concreted into the wall out slightly. This morning I opened the gate and 'ping' top hinge come right out of the wall. So this morning a quick phone call to Ian round the corner to help me lift the thing safely down onto the ground. There's no way to repair it and it was going to be removed after the summer anyway once the renovation had started on the barn to turn it into two more gites. SO looks like I'm going to be busy with the angle grinder chopping the thing up tomorrow to take to the recycling depot. Not to mention the extra tidying up of the 'junk' that was hidden behind the gate. It's most probably a blessing in disguise, as we will plant a load of tubs with flowers to brighten up the hard standing area and make the surrounding for the adjacent gite more pleasant. A premature job, but one that was lower down on the list (5 months lower).
Caroline managed to mow some of the lawns because we have had a few dry days on the trot. The weather this week has been much cooler with frequent showers. It made last week seem like summer. Between us we have also planted a row of hedging, lonicera, from some cuttings that Caroline took in the Autumn from a friends hedge. Just about every cutting survived and we now have 50 very small bushes to plant.
A tough French lesson today. I haven't spoken much French in the last three weeks so I was very rusty. The lycee in Dinan run a French conversion group during school term time. Caroline goes to a different French lesson (for advanced students!) and she said her's was 'easy' :-), but she speaks French most days. Like most things in life, a little and often seems to be the key.
No golf tomorrow. One of the players best friends, Martin, got rushed into hospital this morning with a lung infection. The postponement might give me a chance to get some practise in. Speedy recovery to Martin.
| 7:54:13 PM
