You will be thrilled to read that we finally had a few hours of decent rain this week. Who knew this Englishwoman would be so excited to see the heavens open? As I drove along the road to Carcassonne in my now re-tyred Josy, I passed the vines swaying in delight and the Oleanders lifting their leaves towards the sky. Laetitia, one of the owners of the Closteisseire (our local vineyard) told me that this has been a very difficult summer for all the producers as the grapes are being reduced to raisins in the heat. Like me, she relished the all but too short downfall.

My older brother Simon, arrived at the beginning of the week. He and his wife, Alba, are busy moving their belongings into their new apartment in Narbonne (about an hour from us to the South-East) from their former life in Shetland. Of course, it was wonderful to catch up with them both, not least because they had their first dip in the pool and Simon got to experience one of the house’s ‘headaches’. The drains again. This time a man arrived with a camera and specialist cleaning equipment which frankly, he needed himself after the first push of water backed up and erupted out of the manhole he was standing next to. The camera has given us a result finally; one part of the drain has dipped causing sediment to build up and the other one outside our gate has a crack in it meaning the waste can’t flow properly. Hopefully the latter, as it is off our property, will be the responsibility of the Mayor and his minions.

Speaking of cameras, darling Denis brought me a couple of visitors on Wednesday – Daniel, his son and their drone. I have to admit, I have never seen a drone up close or watched it being manoeuvred above the property and around the pool. Daniel is a professional but his 12 year old son was obviously the specialist, dropping hints and advice to his father. Being so impressed with this young man, I asked him if he could show me how to work the new underwater camera I bought but naturally couldn’t figure out. I think it took him five minutes to show me what all the knobs do and hey presto, I can actually work the thing. I’ve told him I am keeping him on standby for future technological conundrums and if the drone footage, including the night shots of the pool, was anything to go by, we shall have some great videos and photos.

Sadly the Festival de Carcassonne has finished its summer run but I did get to see one more concert along with friends on Friday night, James Blunt. And what a show it was. The singer is obviously hugely popular in this part of the world and he was as entertaining bantering with the crowd as he was singing. In all my years living in London, I probably only went to a handful of concerts yet here, I’ve boogied through two in as many weeks. Must be something in the water.

And the pool is almost complete with the barrier now sitting proudly at the top of its stairs. A little piece of L’Horte, and Pop, now keeping everyone safe from toppling over into the bushes below. Lionel asked me if Pop had made the balcony railings from which I had cut the length of barrier. “Yes he did”, I replied and Lionel stroked the wood. “He built it beautifully” he said. There is so much of L’Horte and my father here; from doors to beams, from apple trees to rose bushes but this final installation has been the most special for me. Over the last year and a bit, I’ve stressed, sweated, pulled muscles and pushed my patience to get the bloody pool finished and now it’s done. I think Pop would be proud of me …….

“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.” (Antoine Francois Prevost)

I’d really like a week where nothing happens. One where I don’t have to do anything but potter around the garden and snooze by the pool. Instead, I seem to spend most of my days fixing, glueing or cleaning out something disgusting and I can’t even blame the woofers. It doesn’t help that, apart from a one minute sprinkle on Friday night, we haven’t had a drop of rain so I’m still dragging the hose around the garden every morning before sun-up. Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live but I do wish those pesky Gods would let up every once in a while.

Having said all that, I did get to actually go out beyond the village walls this week with friends. Like everywhere else in the world (almost), Carcassonne was back in post-Covid festival spirit and hosting a few weeks of summer concerts. For those that don’t know this area of France, Carcassonne is most famous for its medieval citadel, known as ‘La Citié‘ , which is perched above the town. If you ever watched Kevin Costner in ‘Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves’, that castle is the one inside the walls. The citadel is filled with shops and bars lining narrow paths, sort of Harry Potter-ish, filled to the brim with tourists over the summer months and in the heart of it all is the amphitheatre where concerts are held. Our girl, Pip, had managed to get us front row seats to see a number of these shows and the first on Monday was John Legend. Now I will admit to only knowing a couple of his songs but this man really knew how to wow an audience, I thoroughly enjoyed myself even if the queue to get out of the car park afterwards was almost as long as the concert itself. We had chosen to swing our hips on the night before the Tour de France left Carcassonne.

If only the rest of the week could have kept me humming along but no, that would have been a miracle. Knowing that the rest of the family would be arriving for their holidays and the pool in a few weeks, I rang Laetitia up at the vineyard and ordered a few cases of wine. Her place is only a couple of kilometres up from us so I dutifully hopped in Josy Jeep and drove up the hill to collect my purchases. Laetitia has become a great friend so we chatted for a while before she asked me to bring the car up to the door so we could load it up. It was at this point that Josy decided to tell me that she had a puncture in the back wheel, she has one of those posh dashboard screens that tells you everything even if you really didn’t want to know. Laetitia was mortified as apparently I wasn’t the first visitor to pop a tyre and her protests had fallen on deaf ears at the Mayor’s office. I assured her that I would call Denis as soon as I hobbled back home which I did and after having removed my wheel under the scorching heat of the afternoon sun, he took me down to the local garage to order a new one. Now, I don’t miss much about London but where is a Kwik-Fit when you need one? I hadn’t even realised that my Jeep didn’t have a spare wheel (I had assumed that it would be under the car) as it is a new model and they just don’t make them like the used to and guess what, my particular tyre wasn’t available anywhere until the end of next week. After several phone calls and my temper on the edge of doing something similar to my tyre, Jeep promised me one by Wednesday. And since, Louise my neighbour, knows their boss, I don’t think they’ll let me down. In the meantime, poor Josy is sitting on a jack in the driveway looking very sorry for herself. I would have gone for a swim to cool down in the pool but the current water temperature is 32 degrees so not exactly refreshing for the stress levels.

Louise’s 16 year old dog died yesterday. She came over to tell me, tears rolling down her face. He died in her arms at home which must be a little bit of comfort and Denis will bury him in the field opposite where all of Louise’s other dogs now rest in peace. The only problem for Louise was what to do with his body until tomorrow but we found a solution and he is now safely bundled up in a bag and boxed in our chest freezer – it was the neighbourly thing to do.

Having had a wild night yet again at Le Petit Bistro Friday night knees-up listening to Felix’s fabulous harmonica duets with the local guitarists, the drains blocked up again yesterday. The driveway stank so I had to don the Marigolds, lift up the manhole covers and remove the disgusting debris. Again. Unfortunately this time my efforts were in vain and we ended up having to call out the professional de-cloggers who having been successful, told us that there was a problem but they didn’t know where in the system so need to send a camera down. I for one, will not be viewing the footage……

“Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it” (Lily Tomlin)

Getting up at the crack of dawn to water the garden before the sun fries everything in its path is not a pleasurable summer activity especially when you haven’t had much sleep the night before. Despite me leaving the balcony doors open so that the woofers might prefer what little night breeze there is, most of them are still opting to pant in and around my bed which makes any chance of a decent kip zero. The outdoor sofa is looking increasingly tempting if it wasn’t for the mosquitoes.

I found another hole in the pool liner this week, luckily I caught it before the bloody thing drained half its contents again. This one was on the opposite end of the seam to the previous tear so it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that there was a fault in the liner, no matter what the guarantee says yes or no to. Armed with my ‘no nonsense’ neighbour, Louise, I went back to the shop and came out ten minutes later feeling much more positive. I don’t think anyone would argue with Louise but it does help that she’s French and knows how the system works. I, on the other hand, may be getting to grips with the lingo but still get tongue-tied discussing anything financial or legal. In the meantime, I’ve ordered another large piece of liner to put over the rest of the seam just to be safe. Bloody pool.

It’s just as well that the draining heat makes working in the garden, other than dawn hosings, impossible as Gizmo had to have the rest of his teeth out on Tuesday. Being 14 years old, virtually blind and a miniature Yorkie both size and weight-wise, it took the rest of the week for him to recover. I did do a little jump for joy when he ate his breakfast by himself this morning and stayed upright in the process. Tony always did call him ‘small but mighty’.

I had a bit of news last week that I forgot to share. The Mothership has been sold. Poor thing had been stuck at the dealership for a year what with all the Covid stuff and holiday restrictions but at least she can motor off to new horizons with hopefully less accident-prone owners. I mean there was the wheel arch incident, the Channel Tunnel incident, the toll gate incident, the stuck petrol cap incident……

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” (Walt Whitman)

Frankly, I’m exhausted. Too many late nights either writing or partying into the wee hours have done me in, those days of being able to function on less than 8 hours sleep are long gone. And it’s not just the lack of shut-eye, the scorching temperatures have a tendency to make one feel drained of any remaining energy – except to drag your body onto the nearest shaded sun lounger. Thankfully there isn’t a lot left to do as far as the grounds are concerned, Lionel and Denis will finish the last bits this week I am assured which is just as well as the bloody pool decided that my life had been stress-free for a little too long.

I woke up on Tuesday morning and did the usual thing of letting the woofers out and opening the balcony shutters. I’m not a morning person as you know until I’ve had my coffee so the sound of Sherman barking hysterically in the garden wasn’t exactly welcomed. Normally I would have just shouted at him to shut up but a) Sherbs rarely barks unless there is a dog passing the gate and b) I know my woofers ‘language’ and this wasn’t because there was an intruder on the property. Bleary-eyed I stepped outside to see what had got my little man so wound up only to see him standing on the wooden deck looking down at a half-empty pool. I shot down the stairs and having roped Rene in to help, rolled off the cover only to find less than a metre of water remaining. I called Denis first who of course, shot over within a couple of minutes and then Roy who promised to come as soon as he could. Louise, my neighbour, had heard Sherman’s shrieking so rushed over in her dressing gown. A large puddle had formed between the pool and the poolhouse but nothing anywhere else, or at least I thought (it had in fact made its way down to the road below us) but we couldn’t trace the leak. With Denis digging out the puddle with his bare hands, Roy and Nick who happened to be constructing our new bathroom downstairs checked all the fittings and pipes under the pool but to no avail. We couldn’t find anything amiss so one of us had to get in the pool and of course, that would be me (I was the only one dressed for the occasion). It didn’t take long for us to find it – a toe-sized hole in the liner in one of the corners, right at the bottom. How it got there, we will never know but I can now consider myself an expert in patching up such things. Who knew you can buy special glue that works under water? Despite a close call involving my finger and it being stuck down there, said hole is now covered with four pool patches and two layers of liner all held together with the contents of three packets of glue. And we now have a full pool again much to Arry’s joy.

As I mentioned, I have been socialising rather a lot. I seemed to have joined the party village of Aude judging by the last couple of days what with the regular Friday night down at Le Bistro and the re-opening of what will become the Saturday night soiree down at the allotment. Well, it’s not your average-sized allotment, more of a small farm sized area where Abraham, a gorgeous Rastafarian with the biggest smile, grows fruit and vegetables and raises pigs. Tables and chairs made of logs and huge branches make up the ‘restaurant’ where your taste buds can be tingled with freshly picked and barbeque’d vegetables all washed down with lashings of beer and great conversation. Considering the night before I had been downing copious amounts of wine and whizzing around the dancefloor with Patricia, Denis sister, last night’s affair was a welcome relief for my stomach and my feet.

Speaking of growing food, I made a discovery earlier in the week. It appears that two of my citrus trees on the balcony have been mixing with each other a little too closely. One of the lime trees is starting to produce lemons as well and the lemon tree has produce half and halfs in the shape of ripe but green fruit. Any recipe ideas?….

“Live in each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit” (Henry David Thoreau)

First few chapters sent off to Sally my editor and the barrier for the pool stairs lathered with protective oils, I cleared my workload so I could spend this week with my bestie, Rene. Aside from the odd trip into town, we have done nothing but snooze by the pool all day and chat over glasses of wine on the balcony all evening. For someone who finds it impossible to keep still for 5 minutes, the ‘R and R’ has been a welcome relief for my poor muscles – the only exercise they are getting is a bit of swimming. The woofers are relishing her company, decamping from my bedroom into hers and ignoring me for someone who doesn’t mind their yapping and generally bad behaviour. Alice has also discovered the joys of sitting on your lap whilst you loll about on an inflatable chair, looking like a grande dame on a cruise around the Med. Poor Rene has had to put up with Arry’s shark impersonations whilst she tries to get a few lengths in but all in all, we are loving having our girl here.

Naturally it is mandatory down here in Rouffiac to take your guests to the Friday night get-together, as usual held at the Bistro round the corner. It was ‘pizza en camion’ night (pizza cooked in a mobile van to order), the deliciously thin circles of dough topped with goats cheese, local charcuterie and fresh tomatoes washed down the copious glasses of Rosé. Everyone welcomed my friend with open arms and kisses (both cheeks of course), my heart smiling at how wonderful this little village is. Despite not knowing much more than basic schoolgirl French, Rene joined in with all the gossip and giggles, helped along by gesticulating hands and mobile phone translations. Luckily, she does speak Spanish so most of the words weren’t too unfamiliar. With the exception of Denis’ daughter Marina, most of us got completely hammered by the time we had to walk home, although Rene and I did managed to stay upright until Denis had escorted us through the home gate. We didn’t get to bed until 2.30 the following morning because I couldn’t find Sherman so we had to spend two hours whispering his name and flashing torches around the garden until I gave up and decided to leave him wherever he was. As I turned the lights off, I found my little Border boy sitting outside the front door – the one place I didn’t look. I don’t think any of us raised our eyelids until Saturday lunchtime.

Leaving Sherman outside wouldn’t have been such a bad thing considering he managed to trip all the electrics in the apartment on Thursday morning. Although I tried several times to get the master switch to click back on, it just kept cutting out. I called Alain, my builder, out as he knew where all the bells and whistles where, only to find that the furry darling had chewed through the fountain cable. To add to all the animal antics, the dishwasher has broken and I’m pretty sure GusGus and his mouse family have chewed through that plug socket too. I’m afraid they are going to have to be relocated back into the big wide world of the field opposite.

I’m not going to think about the fact that Rene will be returning to the homeland on Tuesday or the fact that Denis and I still have a lot of work to do in the garden before the family arrive – yup gates still not fitted yet. And even though I haven’t lifted a finger to do anything constructive all week, Marina has and she finished decorating my little terracotta pots for an ancient ladder her dad found. Now each housing a little succulent, they are perched proudly right in view of anyone passing by the front gate with their vibrant colours and motifs. And well out of reach of Sherman……

“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected” (Charles Lamb)

The temperature may not have dropped much in the last week but la pluie certainly has. Along with impressive thunderstorms, it has rained almost every night. And we needed it. No matter how often I drag the evil hose across the garden to quench the floral thirst, there’s nothing like a torrential downpour or several of them to make the plants plump up their foliage. Of course, I have had to put the cover back on the pool – lightning and water don’t mix well and the storms tend to offload a lot of bugs in it. With the exception of Neo who hates anything that sounds like gunfire, the woofers love basking on the balcony whilst the storm rolls through before bringing their soggy selves in for bed. Even Lily, the Peace Lily plant, got dragged out for a drenching. Everyone loves a good rinse.

It’s been hard to keep myself busy when there isn’t much that can be done outside. Denis has managed to get one of three gates in and the main one at that. I jokingly told him that the back garden now looks like a wild animal enclosure except that one of the savages is still plotting his next escape route under the wire. You have to hand it to Sherman, he doesn’t give up even when you put logs and concrete slabs across the holes. I’m feeling a little bit guilty as he, Arry and Alice haven’t been able to expend energy running through the vines but they’ll just have to put up with the acres of garden instead. It could be worse, they could be languishing on a minuscule lawn in suburban London. Poor Gizmo had a visit to the vet with a bad case of runny tummy. At 14 years old and weighing less than 2 kilos, Gizmo is apparently, very healthy apart from his teeth. The few remaining ones are rotten, no doubt the cause of his upset and have to come out in a couple of weeks. Poor thing will be toothless but at least his breath will smell better along with his bottom.

Speaking of the old life, I’ve finally managed to get the first three draft chapters off to Sally, my editor. I need a break from The Book, not only because my bestie Rene arrives on Tuesday but also because writing until the wee hours of the morning is not conducive to a good night’s sleep. The trouble is I enjoy tapping away on the keyboard so tend to forget what time it is until the sentences become completely illegible. I have however, had a couple of nights away from my MacBook, life should never be all work and no play after all. I spent Friday evening down at Le Petit Bistro (or as I call it, Ye Olde Bistro Tavern) with a group of friends at our regular village get-together. As we sat there, chatting animatedly over pizza, padrón peppers (a Spanish delicacy of green peppers fried in olive oil and dusted with coarse salt) and wine, it slowly dawned on me that I was the only English person there. And I was speaking French. No doubt being around familiar faces and the ever-present, Denis, helped but I’m still rather proud of how far my grasp of this foreign tongue has got. Yesterday evening, I took Mumo with me to a soiree at our local vineyard – this was an invitation only event and somewhat more high-brow than the previous night’s paper cups and vin blanc conversation. With dark, threatening skies overhead, I decided to take an umbrella with us just in case. The Clos Teisseire vineyard, the same one I took Mumo’s Canadian friends too, lies up a steep stony track in the hills above Rouffiac. I was directed to park the car adjacent to the house on the edge of one such hillside – a going down sort of hillside. I know Josy my Jeep is a 4×4 but it was still a bit of a ‘heart-in-the-mouth’ moment as I circled the car around on the incline into our allotted space. Being one of my favourite running paths, I’m familiar with the loose gravel on the road and the gullies eroded into the tarmac but Mumo is not. I had to hold her upright whilst she negotiated her way along the path in slightly heeled, open-toed sandals. Mind you, we were greeted with a champagne glass and refreshing fizz before we joined the party-goers out on the terrace which was rather swish. Chatting away in both French and English with a group of old and new friends, I had a little boast about my new found confidence in speaking the lingo after the night before when suddenly big fat raindrops descended on us. Before you could say “it’s raining”, I popped up my little foldable umbrella and held it aloft. “Definitely English’ said a voice behind me…….

“Everyone smiles in the same language” (George Carlin)

We are in the middle of a canicule or heat wave in translation. Whilst 40 degree temperatures are normal in August, there aren’t in June. The woofers have taken to getting up ridiculously early in the morning to do their business before finding their favourite shady spot around the garden. Every time I want to go anywhere, I have to spend several minutes searching for them all and doing a double count before I close the front door. That is with the exception of Arry who finds it perfectly acceptable to snooze on the top pool step, his head resting on the deck.

For obvious reasons, running is off the agenda so I am trying to keep my muscles in some sort of shape swimming laps every afternoon. Now I have to admit that, apart from the summers spent at L’Horte in the river, I haven’t been in a pool for at least 10 years and my body wasn’t thanking me for it. My arms and legs are the only parts that have taken a battering, I’ve stashed a load of Perrier bottles by the sun loungers to rinse my hair with – chlorine and blonde highlights don’t mix well but amazingly, fizzy water does stop your barnet going green. Speaking of ‘going green’, there are now various insect watering holes dotted around the grounds in an effort to stop the thirsty little creatures from drowning in the pool and I built a bird bath out of some old paving stones and a large planter. Unfortunately most of my reservoirs are more hot tubs than cooling spas at the moment so I have a freezer full of ice trays. The birds still prefer to swoop down and skim the pool surface like mini Top Guns especially the swallows who delight in their aerobatic manoeuvres.

Mumo’s Canadian guests left earlier in the week but not before I took them up to our local winemaker or vigneron. It was my first visit as well, as usual the date arranged by darling Denis but I hadn’t thought about how far up the hill the vineyard was. Walking there seemed a great idea at the time but I nearly wiped out Greta and Gareth, the latter reminding me that we’d have to carry our purchases back in the scorching sun. Thankfully, not only did we have a wonderful afternoon tasting their amazing wines but Laetitia, the owner drove us back down. I made a new friend in Laetitia and got an invitation for Mumo and I to come and meet some of the other local winemakers at a private event next week.

I’m back writing most evenings again. I really wish my ‘flow’ would happen at a more suitable time of day but it seems my brain likes to kick in to keyboard mode after 7 p.m. What with the woofers wanting to start their day at sunrise and me not going to bed until my fingers run out of steam, I’m feeling the lack of sleep. Afternoon siestas on the pool deck are now the norm even if I have to share my lounger with a woofer or two. But it hasn’t been all work and no play – Friday evening saw the re-opening of Le Petit Bistro in our little village. Started three years ago but like most venues, closed during the pandemic, the bistro opens every Friday for music, food and a lot of alcohol. People come from the neighbouring villages too which makes for a very lively night and sore heads in the morning and with Denis knowing everyone of course, too many introductions for me to remember. Spending the evening with friends listening to all the chatter around me and laughing at how bad my language skills got after a couple of glasses, gave me a sense of belonging here in this sleepy part of France – I’m part of this village now. Mumo and I left the happy crowds before the end of the night, both needing something non-alcoholic and food (we didn’t get a chance to eat there). Having made dinner beforehand, just in case we were starving, I popped the tuna steaks into my cast iron frying pan for a couple of minutes and then headed down my stairs to join Mumo. As I went to put my foot on the last step, I missed my footing and whacked my head on the pan handle (I wasn’t going to drop those steaks) resulting in two black eyes and a cut on my nose. At least it’s sunglasses wearing weather……

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself” (Maya Angelou)

The summer scorch has arrived. The grass has all but disintegrated, leaving nothing but bare earth and spiky stalks over the garden and the woofers reduced to flopping under the trees or in Sherman’s case, under the pool deck. Clever dog. My days can be spent gorging on plums and strawberries whilst I potter sluggishly around the grounds, the evenings are still a battle between me and the damn hose reel. There is little point in trying to plant anything as the ground is like cement at the moment although Denis did manage to stuff a very large cactus near the pool house. I put together a sort of Turkish bed affair in my little apartment jardin, complete with sail shade so that I might have somewhere cool to doze in but naturally it’s already covered in paw prints. I think I put it there more for aesthetics than actual use as I can’t sit still for long enough to reap the benefits. Thank the Gods for the pool, even if the water temperature is only a few degrees lower than the space above it. Arry and I can burn off our excess energy since running up hills is out of the question. The only downside to having such a luxury is having to clean the skimmer nets loaded with dead insects every morning – not a ritual I look forward to.

We have had guests all week, Greta and Gareth who have been friends of Mumo’s since their New York years. Having travelled around Europe, we were the last stop before they headed back to Canada so provided the relaxation bit of their holiday. With all the work Denis and I have done over the last few months to make the garden and courtyard places you want to sit and read a book in or have a snooze, it’s been worth all the sweat seeing hammocks and benches occupied. Spending the evenings spent chatting over a few bottles of wine and Mumo’s cooking, I haven’t had the chance to write anything over the week – I’m surprised at how much I am missing my tap tapping. Still I’ve got a couple of weeks ahead of me to catch up before Rene, my bestie, arrives.

There is, as always, still a lot of work to be done in both the house and the garden. The Capricorne specialists have cleared the beams of insects in both abodes and are busy doing the same in the garage. Luckily, they haven’t found too much damage in the roof itself – just a bit of retiling here and there. Now that the old tank and boiler have gone, I need to get in and start plastering up the holes in the utility room walls – not the most desirable of jobs in the heat but at least I will be inside. The lovely Lionel’s truck broke down so the gates aren’t fitted yet but he assures me they’ll be done in the next few days. It’s just as well as I need him to do some minor alterations to the main fence – Sherman has discovered the art of digging under it. As much as I admire his ingenuity, I don’t think our guests like their mid-afternoon kip disturbed by a Border terrier shouting ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ around the front garden….

“If you’re not bare-footed, then you’re over-dressed” (Unknown)

Between writing The Book, keeping the pool clean, putting the grounds and houses into some sort of order and the daily woofer tasks, life is beginning to have some sort of routine. I like routine; I like to know what jobs are set for the day whether it’s me who’s doing them or one of the boys. I get up and either go for a run or stretch a few aching muscles before feeding the woofers and getting my caffeine intake to max level. Then it’s time to take the cover off the pool, clean the filters and whizz round with a net to remove any leaves from the water. Once that’s all done, the boring task of the morning ‘poo pick up’ is followed by a pootle along the back roads with Gunner or a shopping trip. Most shops in rural France close between 12 and 2 p.m. and in the hot weather, I prefer getting in and out of town before lunch. Afternoons are spent either with Denis in the garden or me shifting something or other either into or out of the garage and finished with a swim (and the familiar battle with the hosepipe) before I give my evenings to The Book. Having done the first draft of Chapter One, I’m starting to enjoy the process more and more. Sally, my editor, tells me the first chapter is always the hardest as you have to ‘engage with your audience’ from the get-go – unsurprisingly, it’s taken me three weeks to write.

Naturally, there are always days when the routine goes out the window because that’s the way of the house. It all started with what we thought was either a leaky washing machine or a broken pipe causing water to stream across the utility room floor. Roy and Nick, two friends of ours who also happen to know quite a bit about building, came over to cast their expert eyes over the problem. They disconnected and pulled out the old shower and units (all needed to come out anyway so at some point we can put a nicer bathroom in there) and found the source – the whole drainage system was blocked and backing up. Darling Denis of course, came to the rescue once again, calling out a man with a van and lots of hose things. It took the poor chap an hour to shift years of lime, sludge and God knows what else out of the connected pipes – I did wonder whilst holding my nose why anyone would choose such a profession, it’d have to be the pay. And the drains weren’t the only things to be cleaned out, Max the chauffagiste arrived yesterday with a huge mechanical digger to lift the old oil tank and boiler out of the same utility room. Luckily he had given me a day’s notice as I needed to move about two hundred floorboards piled up against the room’s main wall and the remnants of the old bathroom suite to make space for such manoeuvres. By the time Max had finished, not only did every muscle in my body scream at me, I also had a nice purple graze running down one leg after dropping plaster on it. Have I ever said how much I love that bloody pool?

Tuesday marked a year since the puppies were born. I’m lucky enough to be in regular contact with 5 out of the 6 pup families so the first birthday photos made me beam with pride. Sherman celebrated by shooting up the road (we had been out running) to greet a Cavalier and its somewhat terrified owner. Before I could blink, Alice joined her demonic son causing the poor woman to pick up her dog and stand frozen right in the middle of the street. For once, Arry didn’t throw himself into the chaos as just as I clipped the lead on Sherman, Alice decided to say hello to a couple of dogs in a passing (very slowly) car. After mother and son were collared, I gushed apologies to the shell-shocked dog owner and sheepishly made my way home. I don’t think Arry dared to look for cats judging by the storm clouds gathering over my head. Definitely not my plans for that day…..

“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal” (Paulo Coelho)

There are very few things I miss about the U.K, friends aside, but seeing all the pictures of the Jubilee bunting and party plans did give me a slight pang for a few seconds. That and the Chelsea Flower Show. So British. I have no plans to hop back over the Channel in the near future, mind you, aside from my bestie Rene’s son’s wedding and that’s not for a couple of years. I only have to go out onto my balcony with all the citrus trees and a rather fabulous pool view to know where home is. Where else could you write The Book under a deck umbrella whilst stretched out on a sun lounger?

And I have been writing. Having finally found an app on my MacBook thanks to Callum that even the most technologically backward person could use, I’m tap tapping away one paragraph at a time. One of the hardest parts about putting everything down ‘on paper’ is trying not to write like your favourite authors, keep your voice and your style I’m repeatedly told, easier said than done. Since I’m no longer hitting the delete button every 5 minutes these days, I must be gaining confidence in my ability. For some reason I find it easier to scrawl my thoughts down in my notebook which is just as well as laptops, Arry and water don’t mix well.

We actually had a bit of rain last week, only about a day’s worth but it did give me a welcome respite from battling with the hose reel. And whilst I’m still waiting for the fence gates, the wet weather did give me a chance to plant some vines to climb over the rails. Clay is almost impossible to dig up when it’s dry I have learnt. Unless you’re a dog, which in that case means you can add several ankle-breaking holes all over the garden. The quick downpour was enough to bring out the summer colour, not quite Chelsea but spectacular nevertheless.

Speaking of the dogs; our morning runs have become ‘rise before dawn’ ones. As much as I hate waking up to any sort of alarm, seeing the sunrise as you wind through the trails behind Rouffiac is worth getting out of bed for. Arry of course, is oblivious to the beauty of the landscape around as ’tis the season for little bunny rabbits to poke their cottontails at him. Alice and Sherman stay on their leads for this very reason, shrieking at one woofer crashing through the undergrowth is quite enough. At least when you’re 1000 metres up on top of a hill, no-one hears you – trying not to swear when the same over-stimulated German Shepherd disappears after a cat into your neighbours garden just before you get home doesn’t exactly give one’s happy little endorphins a boost. To finish what had started as an exercise in breathing in the clean country air and taking in the view ended with my other neighbour appearing with Sherman’s brother, Slim and a whole lot of tangled terrier leads. Slim’s harness promptly came off and the two us spent the next 10 minutes trying to catch him. Alice spent the rest of the day passed out in the driveway, I almost joined her…….

“I want to work like a dog, doing what I was born to do with joy and purpose. I want to play like a dog, with total, jolly abandon.” (Oprah Winfrey)