Thursday, July 15, 2004
Combine gite maintenance
Saint Donald
We seem to be surrounded by combine harvesters today. After lunch two started harvesting wheat in the field at the front of the house and huge tractors and trailers racing around to collect the grain. Last week we had pretty bad weather, with rain and strong winds. Some parts of the field have been knocked flat, and are lost. Now the weather has improved I think they must be taking advantage of the dry spell. I hope this isn't a signal of more wet weather to come. The farmers do seem to be very good at finding the correct weather window to do their work, and once they start, they go at it 100%. Last year they harvested for 3 days solid from 10'o'clock in the morning (I assume after the dew has dried) to about 3'o'clock the following morning. Two hours after finishing the heavens opened and we had a thunderstorm.
Last week someone decided to use our road sign as some sort of target practice with the front of their car. It used to have two vertical posts holding the sign, but the one nearest the road got smashed off as ground level. So a little bit of sawing and screwing with the remains of the other pole produced an arm to hang the sign off with some spare hooks. An unexpected maintenance job, but an improvement I think.
The pond filter was thick with green slime. Now the sunshine has arrived it is struggling to keep the water clear.
Caroline finished painting the downstairs windows on our house. She has done a stirling job. She's already done the windows on 2 gites so far this year. It's as if she has painted three houses.
The children and Caroline went to the Maison de la Rance down in the Port de Dinan. It's a small exhibition and museum of the history of the river Rance and the surrounding area.
I'm still not fully fit, but I slowly getting back into the swing of things. The alcohol consumption is also creeping up during the evening sat on the patio with guests, so I must be making progress.
| 8:50:59 PM
Combine gite maintenance
