We're having a heat wave

As I write the temperature outside is 35°C/ 95°F and the breeze is hot. It could be like this for the next 5 days. I feel sorry for anyone who is camping in a tent in this heat.

The house is reasonably cool. With careful use of the shutters as the sun moves around we can keep out the sunlight.

I hope it’s not too hot where you are. Whether or not it is, here’s something to cool you down. I couldn’t find the Carmen Miranda version so Miss Piggy is kindly stepping in.

My son the postman and other stories

Olivier is now a postman. He’s replacing a real postman for 3 weeks. Guess who has to get him to the sorting office for 6.40 in the morning? I think that by the last day he should be pretty fast at sorting the letters for his round into order and finding his way around the streets. Would you believe that people come up to him in the street and expect him to know who they are and where they live? His round finishes in a street along the beach which he considers as his reward for the day.
 

In September he will be continuing his studies in Bordeaux.  He will also be sharing an apartment with a couple of his friends - if all goes to plan.

Today is a holiday in France to celebrate The Assumption. It marks the beginning of the end of the holiday season here. The weather joined in this morning too; wind and rain to drive the holiday makers away…

 I’ve been busy looking into the names of some cats who were fortunate enough to have their own visiting cards.

Dinard

Dom and J-M have rented a house in Brittany for a fortnight. They very kindly invited us to stay with them in Dinard for a few days. So we joined tham on Wednesday for a couple of days.

The house was really lovely and they were the first ever holidaymakers to use it. It was so nice to sit in the garden in the sunshine and be served delicious meals. As well as eat, we played tourists too and went for some lovely walks. The sea was so blue and it wasn’t raining (rare in Brittany). We also explored other towns nearby.

The town hall at Saint Lunaire 

It was hot! 

Thank you for inviting us Dom and J-M!

Sunflower progress

I planted two varieties of sunflowers. When they’ve dried out I’ll probably hang them from a tree so that the birds can get at them without being interrupted by the local cats

Taller than the front door! 

A better Friday

This is what greeted me when I opened the shutters last Friday morning: 

 Later we went for lunch at our favourite restaurant. 

Cram Chaban!

I’ve always been fascinated by the name on a sign post we’ve passed over the years when we were travelling North. Cram Chaban sounds like a magic word. Yesterday we set off to visit the village.

In fact Cram Chaban consists of the community, Cram and another part of the village which is either called Chaban or Cram Chaban? It’s tucked away in the middle of nowhere and is quite a pretty village.

As there was nowhere to have lunch there, we travelled to the next village to find somewhere to eat and happened on Basil Fawlty. When we asked if we could eat outside he said “We don’t usually serve meals out side. Do you really want to eat outside? Well I suppose if you must eat out side I’ll serve you a meal outside…” and so on. There was no menu, just the menu du jour which was simple and quite good. He told Rob off for being on his phone at the table (timetable problems – I was secretly pleased though). We were handed a selection of cheese on a plate, each piece wrapped up, but it was all the same goat’s cheese. If he hadn’t reminded us of Basil Fawlty we wouldn’t have stayed – it was quite amusing.

We then enjoyed a good walk around the beautiful, old village and went into the tourist office where there was an exhibition of work by Michel Moro, who combines paint and mosaics. The website does not do justice to the colours. His workshop is open to the public and is in CRAM! I think that we will be returning soon.

It’s called Friday 13th

The end of last week was a particularly bad one here. The Maritime Museum caught fire in town. The museum is/was in a ship which had just been renovated at an enormous cost ready for the season; an electrical fault.

 The weather on Friday itself was very wet, windy and cold. The music festival that the town was holding over five nights was delayed for that evening, and then cancelled. Olivier had a job for the five days and nights of the festival on a food stand. This involved us collecting him from town around four o’clock every morning. Fortunately Rob was on holiday for four of the days, but we still found it very tiring. We did have an early night on the evening that was cancelled – if you call 2 am early.

This year I have been growing some sunflowers and they were doing very well, especially the one that was taller than me. The wind blew it over. I put the top in water but after a couple of days it was obvious that it was dying.

Here is one in the fields

Nearly a month has gone by…

I’m sorry that there hasn’t been an update for so long. Rob went back to work this morning – 5 weeks after his accident. Our 27th wedding anniversary passed without divorce proceedings due to my driving. It’s not that I drive badly I just don’t drive like him and get nervous when I’m constantly ‘given advice’.

I met up with another blogger for the first time ever in my blogging career. Caroline and her partner were passing through La Rochelle on their way home by car. They usually wave as they fly over, so it was nice to see each other for real. We sat on the port and drank coffee and chatted. I wish I could have stayed longer. Here’s the proof:

 (Weather was a bit windy)

 Dom and J-M came for the weekend as it was Rob’s birthday on Saturday. Dom made one of her wonderful cakes; Chocolate on Chocolate (can’t get more wonderful than that). It’s always good to see them and we all spent Sunday morning browsing around local Brocantes/boot sales/garage sales. I found a lovely leather wallet and the partner to a candle holder we found last year under similar circumstances. Dom’s paper has now been accepted completely for publication. She’s just submitted her second and I think, has started on a third.

That about wraps up the update.

Found at last

I've been looking out for Twizzle for a long time, it was my favourite show.

Update

I haven’t had any time this week to myself. I have an invalid at home, until the beginning of July . Rob’s arm has a tiny fracture so he doesn’t need a cast. After being strapped up for ten days he needs to get it moving again. Almost every day I have to drive him to see the physiotherapist. He’s driving me nuts – he’s not a good passenger at all. The good part about the physiotherapy sessions is that I get to read for at least 45 minutes while waiting for him. Unfortunately due to a spell of hot weather Rob has also developed a heat rash to make things even more uncomfortable. We’re sleeping better than we thought that we would, but not as well as we usually do.

 Olivier is now home for the summer. He had to come home on the train and then drove us to Poitiers to pick up his things and then he drove us home. He’s a good driver. There was no way I was going to drive them on the motorway myself!