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• Book time
  I’ve finished the Green mile. A really lovely story about good and evil. Now I’m three-quarters of the way through ‘The Little White Horse’. This was a story I read when I was young. I couldn’t remember the story but I remember being very moved by it. Elizabeth Goudge has written many books for adults and children, she wrote mainly in the forties and fifties so I was very surprised to find this book on the shelves at the moment, the story was recently televised by the BBC. I wonder if I would have enjoyed their adaptation of it? What do you think about your favourite books being televised or turned into films?
  
  I think it’s interesting to go back and re-read books as you get older.
  
  While I was in England this year I continued reading a biography of Jackie Kennedy Onasis; ‘Jackie O’ and a novel by Howard Spring, though I’ve forgotten the title! MIL will keep the books for me till next time I visit. She was throwing out books so I rescued some of them.:
  
  
• Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford
  
• Vivien Leigh, A Biography by Anne Edwards
  
• The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
  
• The Loser by Peter Ustinov
  
• The Tight White collar by Grace Metalious (Peyton place)

One of Rob’s colleagues, who reads English, passed me two novels by Jodi Picoult , which look to be gripping reading; I shall be well occupied for a while.

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Risks:: life
   
2. Abdominal:: tummy
   
3. Radiant:: wheel
   
4. The usual:: normal
   
5. Mix and match:: chocolates!
   
6. Wireless:: 'Robert's' radio
   
7. Remedial:: therepy
   
8. Mile:: green
   
9. Long lost:: friend
   
10. Only one:: unique
    

Toad in the hole hall
When I got up this morning I was greeted by a toad coming up the corridor. He must have wondered in yesterday evening through the back doors. I put him gently outside with the help of the dustpan and brush.
I’m so glad he didn’t get as far as Dom’s room. We’ve already had a family of voles move in to there and she gets a bit ‘panicky’ to say the least.

Another week
Has just flown by. It’s been too hot to do anything here, I’ve spent most of the time reading and trying not to doze off: ‘ The Green Mile’ in French and we’ve had a few noisy thunderstorms since I started reading. How’s that for organizing special effects?

Last Friday evening we went over to Beatrice (the lady who made the sign for our house) and Mark’s for a meal. We had kebabs made from duck and ate in their lovely garden . Beatrice decided last year that they would rent out their house to English holidaymakers. The agency she’s using told her she wouldn’t get many bookings the first year, so to put the house up for the whole summer. Would you believe, they can’t go home for over a month and have had to search desperately for places to stay? We’ve been asked to do pool maintenance twice during August. Mark knows that Rob and I are about as practical as a chocolate fireguard so he must think we’re up to it. It looks pretty complicated to me, but he is leaving printed instructions. I’m sure I’ll fall in.

Mark and I had a very interesting conversation about Islam. He’s in the army and one of his colleagues is a member of the French national front. The nf have issued booklets explaining the Koran to it’s members, a la nf, of course. Well this person was really getting on Mark’s nerves going on about how evil it all was, so he went out and bought a copy of the Koran to read for himself. I shall be interested to see how he gets on, I have a copy myself but got about as far reading it as I did with the Bible.

Auntie M is packing up and leaving Paris with her family. They are returning to the U.S. I shall miss her guided tours. I hope she continues to write.

We had a drowning at L’Houmeau this week. A 62 year old man from the village. He was taken ill while swimming. It’s lovely to swim in this heat, but people must remember to get used to the water slowly.

Andre's films
Andre has a lot of talent. Recently he's made some beautiful short films. I only got round to to watching them all today. He's used his talent to try to explain how he feels about life. Over the past year or so, though his blog, he's helped me to understand what depression really means from the inside.

Olivier & I
Just installed a new HP PSC 2350 series all in one printer. It went really well, with no problems. Olivier was disgusted because I insisted in reading the instructions. I even suggested that the missing USB cable was in the package that arrived yesterday with the ink cartridges. I was right, of course.

I bet he’s looking forward to going back to school

Tuesday Wednesday already.
We haven’t been out much, it’s too hot. I finished reading ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls”. I couldn’t put it down towards the end, I think I fell a little in love with Robert Jordan. Which character from a book have you fallen in love with?
I’m waiting for Dom to bring Harry Potter home so that I can start on it.

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Tolerate:: endure
   
2. Release:: let out
   
3. My soul:: pale blue
   
4. Sax;:: Chat saxo
   
5. HP:: sauce
   
6. Worth:: how much
   
7. Rockstar:: boots
   
8. Terrify:: frighten
   
9. Knock me off my feet:: whoosh
   
10. Taunt:: tease
    

Four good things
When I got home I discovered four good pieces of news amongst my blogging friends;

• Stacey is okay
• Patch’s Mother is going to be fine
• Michelle is busy with her very own new business plan
• Spyke is back

I'm sure that there are more, but my site won't load properly so I can't get to my blogroll. Have I posted too many pics?

Just when we thought we were going home…
We managed to get packed and cleared out before the 10 o’clock deadline. Our cases were stuffed full of goodies to take home! After having lunch with a friend, she led us to Birmingham airport and stayed with us for a coffee. Then we went into the terminal to wait …. and wait.

At first the plane was delayed. Eventually we were called and got onto the plane; After a few minutes the pilot announced that the air was not circulating around the plane correctly and so he couldn’t fly us to La Rochelle; We all trooped off and back into the terminal where we waited long enough to get vouchers for food.

It was getting pretty late by now and as a resident of one of the villages around La Rochelle airport, I know that there is no flying permitted after around 10pm. Our flight was cancelled! All was not lost, we were sent to a hotel at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre; the Crowne Plaza and told that we would be collected at 7am for the next flight to La Rochelle.

We were rather pleased with the hotel. Internet in every room, king-size beds and very comfortable. Olivier had his own room. I was really worried about him being on his own, but he loved it. Across the hall from us was the ‘Marc Bolan room’, I presume he had stayed there sometime during his career.

The shower was great. Any one who has sampled English plumbing will know what I mean. We set off on the bus for the airport at 7.30, a little change of plan, but at least everyone was ready. On checking in, our cases were way too heavy (7 kilos), but as we hadn’t been charged the day before we were let off . When we arrived at the terminal out flight was delayed!! (The hotel where the crew was staying was evacuated during the night because of a bomb scare so they were allowed extra rest) The plane arrived an hour late in La Rochelle, some of us 17 hours late.

Home at last…..not quite. We have a special taxi card which works 24/24 except when they don’t answer the phone, which happened to us! Fortunately one of Rob’s colleagues was in and came to take us home in her small car, it was a tight fit and the car was making a strange noise, but we made it!

The Guildhall, Worcester
We went back to Worcester for a final shop and visited the Guildhall. There were lots of portraits of past Mayors. I was also interested to see that Worcester had been twinned with Worcester USA in recent years, complete with letter of congratulations from him at the White House. On the top floor a huge room had been turned into a restaurant where we had coffee. On entering the room, a huge portrait of a young Queen Victoria is the first thing you see. There were also portraits of Queen Anne, George III and, surprisingly, Queen Mary 1st, amongst even more Mayors.

Week one
Was spend looking up local places like Worcester, Ledbury and Malvern as well as visiting Family and friends. When we shop in Worcester we always have lunch inside the Cathedral, Although a limited menu the food is excellent and cheap.We did plan to have a picnic in the grounds of Eastnor castle but the weather was too bad. When it brightened up in the afternoon we went along to Eastnor anyway only to find it was closed on weekdays up to the end of June.