Mrs Overall & mice

What a really enjoyable time we had last week with Rebecca here. It gave us the opportunity to visit one or two of the many touristy places in the area. Despite it being Rebecca's last day there was no lie in on Monday. We were expecting the satellite man, but not at 7:45. Fortunately he rang for directions and we had 5 minutes to get ourselves up & dressed. At last we were going to have telly again, I couldn't wait to see who'd been evicted from the house. The installation went well with the dish going exactly where we wanted it. They're always a bit unsightly but I think we've managed to reduce the visual impact to a minimum. Anyway that's the end of the blog this week I'm off to watch the TV Warehouse & the Gospel channels. It's been well worth the wait!

Despite Rebecca returning home on Monday the weather has continued to smile on us and the temperature reached a pretty uncomfortable 39ºC on Saturday afternoon. I'd spent the morning hacking out the far side of the barn thinking that by the time the sun came round I'd be able to work on the second level of scaffolding which would keep me in the shade. Not to be unfortunately and by 2:30 in the afternoon the metal was getting too hot to touch. Barbara had been working away all morning placing large stones round the newly gravelled area and had run out. So in the blazing sun we both go hunting for stones. Definitely a case of mad dogs & Englishmen.

As I'm sat writing this Barbara shouts for me to come outside where's she's watering our newly acquired plants. We have visitors, it's one of the ladies who used to live in the house & her two daughters. They were driving past & thought they'd have a look at what had happened to her old home. We asked her if she'd like to have a look inside and when she walked through the door she nearly fell over. There'd been some big changes since she'd moved out, walls knocked down, kitchen moved, stove fitted, WC fitted and a staircase installed. She was also surprised by the stone 'sink' we'd exposed when the plaster had been removed prior to the walls being finished with crepe. She said it wasn't a sink and that it was used to hold fire ashes and cure ham in. I think she was very impressed with what we've done and we asked her to come back & visit once the new roof was on and we'd finished building the bedrooms. From her reaction I'm sure she'll be back.

For the last few days we've had a very small unwelcome visitor. Mickey's little nephew had escaped from Euro Disney & turned up in Lagarrigue. Barbara was hot foot to Mrs Overall's to purchase a mouse trap. 'Mrs Overall's' is the local shop where despite it's petite size you seem to be able to purchase anything. The owner, a lady in her mid 80's, always wears an overall & has more than a passing resemblance to the Julie Walters character in Acorn Antiques, consequently the shop is now always referred to as Mrs Overall's. There were no traps on display so Barbara asked for a 'souris trap'. Confusion followed as Mrs Overall headed off into the back of the shop & returned with an electric mixer. After a few more hand gestures & pointing at cheese a fellow shopper realised what she was after and a souricière was located. French mice are obviously fairly clever as this one has managed to remove the chocolate we left on the trap without activating it. Think we're going to have to revert to plan B and put some poison down or plan C, get a chat. During the week M. Guilbert's son in law had removed his cows from our field and had turned up the next day & cut the grass. It only took 30 minutes and he said he'd bring the vache back in September when the grass has grown to a reasonable length. He was also pleased to tell me that he'd killed 2 serpants while cutting the grass & as the main food of the Couleuvre d’Esculape are small mammals we may see one or two souris about.

Finally got round to doing a couple of things I promised I'd do when we moved to France. Cycle to the boulanger & buy some croissants and try some French country wine. The ride to the boulanger was easy enough, it's only a couple of kilometres away and the morning was nice and cool, so I decided I'd do a few more K's and headed down into Najac. Going was great, climbing back up the hill laden down with 2 very heavy croissants was a real struggle. I'm sure they were heavy & it wasn't my lack of fitness. Although only costing €1.30 per litre & dispensed into a plastic 5 litre drum from what looked like a petrol pump the wine was very drinkable, probably too much so, and I'm sure we'll be visiting the wine merchant again soon.

Scandal in Najac Sunday market this week when one of the traders was reported for over charging. He was spoken to by a gendarme, who no doubt was on overtime for working on a Sunday, and warned that he must display the prices of his cheese. He'd tried to charge one of the local residents €15.00 for a small piece of the local fromage. Sounds all too familiar!