Past lives and unpleasantries

I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since Denis and I got back from London. Mind you, the amount of slings and arrows the Gods have chucked in this direction over the last seven days has made it one I’d rather pass on. I can only hope that they’ve exhausted their supplies up there and will give us a bit of peace down here. Between the death of my beloved Yogi Bear, Mumo in and out of hospital, me turning another year older and my very expensive dental implant falling out, I’ve had quite enough thank you.

But we did have a luverly time in fair London Town. Denis thoroughly enjoyed his first plane ride even with white-knuckled me sitting next to him – amusingly, considering he’d never been in an airport before, turned out he and the passport control officer knew each other. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I don’t think there’s anyone around here D hasn’t met. And my former home turf welcomed him with open arms too, with only one wet day – I think the English must have liked having a Frenchman come to visit bringing the sun with him. With the temperature so mild, we walked everywhere – doing all the touristy things like the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, Marble Arch, Kew Gardens, a few parks, Kensington, Notting Hill, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Carnaby Street, Brixton Market and my old house. The familiarity of dodging cars because you couldn’t wait for the pedestrian light and the escalator’s descent into the abyss of the Underground came back to me as we took in the sights – I don’t remember there being quite so many ‘Oodle’ dogs it has to be said. Yet although it was a nice change to actually have the time to take in so much of what London has to show off – most of my life there was stuck in a traffic jam, I felt oddly disconnected to the place. Whilst able to catch up with old friends and hug my awesome mother-in-law after more than four years was lump in the throat kind of stuff, the city held not even one iota of emotion. Even standing by the front gate of Knollys Road was like looking at someone else’s home – as Callum once said, its only bricks and mortar. I did have fun though, seeing Denis goggle-eyed at all the historical monuments and the price of a bottle of wine. The latter, I think, has left him somewhat scarred, that and the price of a chocolate in Harrods. I bought him a tin of Heinz Baked Beans as he’s developed a taste for English cooked breakfast instead.

So a week of pleasant memories to one best forgotten. Except for my Bear, he will always have a corner of my heart. He rests now at the bottom of the garden next to the potager because he loved gardening. D made the most touching little grave. And thank you all for the rush of love for Yogi and the happy birthdays for me. It wasn’t a day I was in the mood to celebrate especially with Mumo not being well but I did get some lovely pressies – tools for a girl who now knows how to use them. Let’s hope I get some time to relax in the week to come and play with my new soldering iron, I might find a way to put my tooth back in…

“A person who is tired of London is not necessarily tired of life; it might be that he just can’t find a parking place” (Paul Theroux)

Sweet Dreams my little Bear

I know I’m a little late in writing what was supposed to be written on Sunday but a little after midday yesterday, Yogi Bear slipped away peacefully in my arms. He waited until I came home from holiday to say his farewell. To say I’m heartbroken is too simple a phrase – I’m just numb.

He wasn’t just any dog. In fact, according to Yogi Bear, he wasn’t a dog at all – he was a Norfolk Bear. Yes, he might have looked like a terrier but only a petit ours could have the depth of thought and empathy (I once wrote that in his bio) that he had. His capacity to just love without expectation or reward was his gift – he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Actually he had very few teeth either and spent most of his last years with his tongue permanently hanging out of the left side of his mouth. If you saw him strutting around the garden from the back, you’d be forgiven for the assumption that a wild animal was passing through but when he turned around, that lop-sided grin would melt the iciest of souls.

From the day I went off to ‘look’ at a litter of Norfolk Terriers and consequently emptied my wallet, I was sunk. Tony too and Callum. I named him Yogi Bear on sight, he had a spectacularly rounded tum and inhaled treats like a Labrador who’d been on a diet. But it was ability to just love that captured our hearts – he wore his on his paw. In the last days of Tony’s illness, Yogi rarely left his Master’s bedside, choosing to lie on the floor at the end of the bed with a look that no Disney film could re-create. After Tony died in my arms, my initial reaction was to find my little Bear – he’d been placed in the other bedroom when the emergency crew arrived. I remember just hauling him into my arms when I found him, I needed him as much as he needed me. The experience gave Yogi a canine version of PTSD – he was terrified that another one of his humans would leave and when Callum left, he moped for days. Still managed to eat though – a Bear needs sustenance. He never cried or howled, just sat by the door with a woeful look on his face.

Yet, out of trauma and a move to a new country came a new love in Denis. You see, the Bear loved gardening or at least, watching his favourite people tending to plants so Denis became his new and bestest friend. He’d sit between D’s legs and silently manage the digging and pulling – a Bear would never criticise out loud. And despite his pot-bellied form, he was transformed in the water – swimming with the grace of an otter in the river at L’Horte, his tail thwacking back and forth like a rudder. Some of his best times were spent helping the kids grow up at L’Horte.

As for me, it is hard to explain just how much one little brown Bear meant. He was my cuddle bug wrapping himself around my chest like a teddy, he was my confidante listening to me rant on about all the unfairness whilst regarding me in a sagely fatherly sort of way. He taught me patience when he ambled up the stairs like a Sunday afternoon stroll when I was trying to make a deadline and no matter how hard your day was, a ‘woo woo’ greeting on opening the door left your troubles on the doormat. But above all, he taught me and all those who knew him, how to just love. No conditions attached…

Yogi Bear (Nordalset Gotta Be) May 5th 2010 – October 28th 2024. May you sleep once more at your Master’s feet. Je t’aimerais toujours.

I will leave you with a quote that says it all:

If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.” (Winnie the Pooh)

If you’d like to hold the line

I’ll make this short and sweet. After a two and a half hour delay sitting on a very crowded plane on London Stansted’s tarmac, I am finally back chez moi. If you don’t mind, I’m going to curl up with a very nice (and decently priced -more of that later) glass of wine and my much missed woofers tonight. Therefore, the usual Sunday blog will be for once, on a Monday – tomorrow. I’m just too tired to think.

But we did have a luvverly time in Old London Town…

Perspectives

If the recent article published in The Times last month was anything to go by, I am surrounded by gorgeousness. Apparently, according to research, physical attraction is so much more than skin deep – it’s kindness and humour that knocks the socks off. Like I said, I have stunning friends. Between hospital visits or trips to the vet, I haven’t had any time to say thank you to everyone but Mumo, my family and I really do appreciate you.

As I mentioned, Mumo is still in hospital, nicely tucked up in a private room now with a nicer view – this time a car park but at least she can see the hills beyond and it’s quiet. I can’t say much except that she is due a procedure on Tuesday and then has several weeks of treatment ahead of her, that we hope will be able to be done at home. Lucky for me (and her), little brother Moth is here and has taken charge of dealing with all things doctor and specialist. It’s easier just having one person asking the questions and relaying all back to his siblings and his French is so much better than mine. He’s pretty wonderful my brother. Mind you, I did sort out Mumo’s meals with the dietician. If they want her to fatten up, they need to give her food she’ll actually eat so lashings of custard and ice cream are now added to her repas. And now, between that and what Moth calls her ‘happy drugs’, she is a little more comfortable. I’ve promised her that I will bring over Denis’ sister Patricia to give her a hair and facial day – its funny how things like that can make such a difference to your mental well-being.

And of course, I have my darling Denis to lean on when my mood is less than appealing. And the woofers although a certain German Shepherd did leave me hiding my head in embarrassment earlier in the week after a visit to the vet for a limp. Considering the terrain he manages to cover on our runs, such injuries are common place but at 9 years old, bumps are better looked at. Well for me anyway, judging by the noise I could hear from the waiting room as he had an x-ray, the vet might have wished she had the day off plus the three nurses who had to hold him still. Arry does not like being away from me so howled his head off. Thankfully, apart from a slightly swollen elbow and a touch of arthritis in both shoulders, he’s fine and laser therapy is in the diary – I don’t know if that’s for him or the nurses.

What with the worry about Mumo and having to take little Yogi Bear to have a heart scan tomorrow (they better have a big machine ’cause he’s got the biggest heart), the early morning runs have never been more appreciated. With the vendange practically over, the hills and vines are silent once more save the thump thump of my trainers and the jingling of dog collar bells. And with Autumn almost upon us, Mother Nature has once more doused the landscape in reds and golds – put that with the sunrise and you’re a gonna. As I said to Mumo the other day, such times are just a temporary blip and soon forgotten but the beauty of the land around us and that which lies with the friends we have come to know in our lives will forever be set in our memories. Pretty sure the vet is still having nightmares though…

“To friendship every burden’s light.” ( Aesop)

Calm amongst the chaos

As I drove back from the hospital this morning (I shall explain in due course), I was greeted with the familiar sight of the Pyrénées rising above the sun-kissed vines that spread across this area of France. Denis thinks it’s all a bit samey and rather boring to look at every day but I could never tire of it. There is something so peaceful, grounding perhaps, about being surrounded by such luscious greenery especially on the morning run as the sun rises. And if the past week was anything to go by, I’ve needed a bit of nature’s nurturing.

With Denis in quarantine over at his house, me and the workshop became one. Frankly, Callum would probably faint if he saw the chaos in his once meticulously arranged space but having most of my projects in one place means I can potter from one to the other happily whilst blaring out a few decent grooves. The only downside to being at one with wood is that the building is on the opposite side of the property from the garden so I spent half the hours rushing across the courtyard to tell the woofers to quieten down. Yup, that neighbour’s not happy again and gave me a right rollicking the other day when me and the now-Covid free Denis came back from a fungi-less mushroom hunt to find I’d accidentally left the loudest member of the pack out back. I would like to say I’m happy that they have all been very polite since, including the mouthy Mo but that might have more to do with my emotional state than a lesson in obedience. As much as it isn’t always a calm existence living with 8 canine misfits, when you need a cuddle they are right there hogging the bed with you.

So back to the start of this here blog, hospitals. Mumo is in one. Denis and I had taken her down for a pre-ordered scan on Friday so that someone might have a better idea of what’s going on with her insides when, after the short procedure, we were ushered in to a side office and told that she had to be admitted – en urgence. So we ended up back in the emergency section once again. After a couple of hours of rehydration liquid being dripped into her arm (I call it gin), a doctor arrived to say there was no room at the inn that night but she would have one the following day. So that’s where she is and that’s why I was at the hospital this morning. She has a load of investigative stuff coming up tomorrow so best not to speculate too much at this stage but hopefully, she’ll be released mid-week. I know such buildings are vital but I do hate those corridors. Too many less than ideal memories associated with them. But our Mum’s a tough cookie and she’s much better off in there than here and has plenty of visitors to exhaust her. And she has a room with a view. Of the hospital roof…

“There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but I promise you will find a better connection.” (Ralph Smart)

Lists and little treasures

If I’ve learnt anything from the past week its not to do all your to-do list at the same time because if you do, you’ll reach a point where you don’t have anything to do. What is even more frustrating than boredom is the fact that most of the projects aren’t actually finished as I am either waiting for a piece of something or other or somebody else to add whatever. And to top off the mind-numbing state, the wind is back – the one that gives you a headache and turns your brain to mush.

Well, at least that’s over – last week I mean. The grey clouds and frankly, November like temperatures of the past few days, have given way to blue skies and sunshine once more and the forecast is looking upbeat. Now that the kids have gone back to school and the vendange or grape harvest is just about over, there is a sense of peacefulness within our little village nestled down here in the French countryside. Alas for the poor residents, it’s not going to last very long as me and the younger woofers are about to take to the hills again – my running shoes are ready even if my body probably isn’t. Still, I can’t think of a better way of getting rid of all my excess energy (and Arry’s) and for clearing away the cobwebs from my cranium. Okay, there’s the new plantings to go into the newly-extended potager too but Denis does all the dirty work, I just tell him where to stick the seedlings we purchased during a recent spree at our favourite gardening emporium.

Considering once upon a time there was a city girl who swooned at the sight of a pair of sky-high heels in a swanky shop window, it’s hard to believe that that same dame would now be doing the same ogling over a line of Brussel Sprout plants or whilst sifting through rails of clothing in a second-hand store. Knowing that I was going a little loopy indoors, Denis decided we should take a drive to nearby Alet-les-Bains (famous for their supposedly cure-all waters) to visit a brocante recommended by a friend. Disappointingly, we were in and out of those doors in minutes – the place was over-priced and far too neat, I prefer those that have bits and bobs strewn everywhere which was where we ended up. A piled to the brim chaos of a veritable treasure chest flea market. The additions to my wardrobe came to a total of 6 Euros.

I might have said in the beginning that I was a bit lost for things to do but next week’s list should keep me buzzing around quite nicely. Apart from the veggie plot, the old liner needs to be taken out of the bloody pool so that the concrete bottom can be re-screed before a new one is fitted. I’ve got a number of dining chairs in the attic to ‘chic up’ but they’ll have to stay up there for the moment as I don’t have any room what with all the almost-finished stuff and then there’s the small matter of the hole in the stairway wall – a result of my attempt at drilling through concrete only to find that I couldn’t go more than 2 centimetres, wrong drill I’m told. Then there’s the Second Book needing my attention, Sherman to hand strip as he looks more like a Yeti than a Border Terrier right now, the village map is without the business additions and the walnut trees have to cut back before the solar panels end up in darkness. And all shall be done one at a time and in well-worn discount denim…

““A bee is never as busy as it seems; it’s just that it can’t buzz any slower.” (Kin Hubbard)

Bartering and blowouts

Excuse me for the delay with this week’s blog but I’ve been out peddling my wares on main street all day. Yup today was Rouffiac d’Aude’s annual vide grenier which translates as emptying the attic or in another way, a car boot sale. Okay, so we didn’t rake in the dough but Denis made a decent dent in his tool collection including two pool pumps (he doesn’t have a pool) and I sold one of three microwaves, a few trinkets, a very nice child’s cot, a couple of bits of clothing and a hamster cage. For some reason the promenading ladies weren’t sold on my 4plus inch high shoe collection (they are English shoes hence the Imperial measurement) but frankly, I couldn’t blame them. Trying to walk down the local rues without breaking an ankle is hard enough in flats before you’ve had a drink – cobbles and all. Still, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day spent chatting with the other stall holders, most of which Denis and I know well even if they were clearly better experts at pulling in the punters. There was a brief scare when a group of kids thought a house was being broken into so the manly men, including D, shot off round the corner only to find the proprietor stuck in his window – he’d lost his keys and was a little larger than said aperture.

Considering the weather over the past week, it has actually been a pretty decent weekend which was just as well as Denis and I have spent most of it wining and dining with friends. Put it this way, I haven’t needed to drag the hose out once and what remains of water in the pool is now a nice shade of army green. And we’ve managed to finish the potager extension thanks to the heavens above – digging out three gazillion rocks is much easier when the temperature sits well below 30 and the soil doesn’t resemble concrete. But it is weird. Normally we’d still be sweltering for at least another month but right now I’m delving through my sock drawer, pulling out woolies and porting a parapluie. However, according to the daily gossip down at the epicerie, there’s another blast of heat coming our way before Autumn sets in and local folks are rarely wrong. Mind you, such a brief taste of next season might be good for my other half as I’ve just booked our plane tickets – we’re off to the UK at the end of October and it’s his first visit. Actually, it’s his first visit anywhere on a plane holding his first ever passport.

Speaking of flying visits, I got to introduce D to a couple of friends of mine earlier in the week as we joined them for dinner at a pizzeria in St-Hilaire. Only it hadn’t got any pizza so we had duck instead. Some of you may remember the wedding I set up for Joshua and Jacey from Colorado in the vineyard up the road last year. They have a house yet to be lived in permanently a few minutes from Rouffiac so were shooting through to do a few repairs before whizzing off again. An all too brief reunion but they’ll be back in a few months and we’ve promised to take them out on town Rouffiac style. Which is exactly what Denis and I have been up to the past few days.

Friday started with a traditional Paella lunch over at amis Adolphe and Sarah’s home and wow, what a feast. The dish was huge, spilling over with aromatic rice, fresh seafood and chunks of pork – as the Catalans do I was emphatically informed. All groaningly gorgeous. Thankfully, considering the size of my belly after that, the evening was all about the last night of Le Bistrot which also marked the end of summer as the kids have all gone back at school. I bopped and bounced along to the sounds of an Indie/punk band – flippin’ brilliant although I think the music may not have been to everyone’s taste. Hah, I rocked the clubs back in the early 90’s and Callum keeps me up to date with all the latest tunes so I am somewhat an aficionado of the genre groove . And I got rid of enough calories to inhale down the most delicious, beautifully designed canapés made by our pal Michel for his wife’s birthday do the next day, served on Michel’s hand-made platters before D and I finished our Saturday groaning over brother Simon’s barbecued lamb. As much as I miss the warmth of September sunshine, my body is telling me otherwise – now might be a good time to get back up those hills and run before I end up buying back the wardrobe I sold because it was too big for me…

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.” (Orson Welles)

September supplements

There’s nothing quite like a decent drenching to welcome in a new month so hello September. Okay, I know it’s not technically the end of summer and experience has taught me that we are more than likely to have another heatwave or two before the winter but I am looking forward to seeing the back of this season gone. A statement I shall no doubt regret when the woolies get dragged out from under my bed and muddy paw prints embed themselves over the tiled floors once more. As I write this, Denis is stuck between here and the South Coast having spent the weekend celebrating his great-niece’s baptism, he’s somewhere in the lanes of traffic trying to get home after the long school holiday – I was invited to the celebration but with no-one to mind the dogs or D’s animals, I got out of it. Mercifully judging by the pictures of stagnant autoroutes.

Speaking of D’s brood, there’s been an addition to his non-human family. Gaya the dog, Dolly the cat, Caesar the canary and Gypsy the semi-feral hedgehog have been joined by a tortoise. Denis found him wandering around the front garden and with no-one posting reward posters for the safe return of their roaming reptile, decided to adopt the little creature. The male tortue is as yet still without a name although I have suggested Captain Hilts due to the number of escape attempts. Who knew an animal fabled for its slowness could scale his fenced enclosure so fast? I have to admit I have grown rather fond of Denis’ new companion although having one of my own is out of the question – Arry’s obsession with rocks for starters and Sherman’s penchant for getting into mischief when it comes to anything not canine related for seconds. I accidentally stood on the remains of a hedgehog skin the other day and boy, do those prickles hurt. However it must be said that this one was not a victim of my youngest woofer, these adorable looking spiny mammals regularly murder each other I’m reliably informed.

It’s not that Sherman is a natural born killer, unlike his mum who can rid several hectares of rats in seconds but he is a big lad. A recent trip to the vets with both for their annual jabs had him tipping the scales at a whopping 12 kilos, 4 kilos heavier than Mama Alice. Mind you, as the vet pointed out, my gorgeous lump of a Border terrier is pure muscle – hardly surprising considering he’s best mates with my idiotic German Shepherd.

With Denis being away, I’ve had to do a bit of bicep-flexing myself to hoist the re-conditioned petanque bench into its new home court side. The once tired looking wooden seat is now stripped and varnished and the iron work painted green, typical for the style. It’s a shame all the family have left now that the holidays are over so there’s no-one to enjoy its luxury but I’m sure we’ll have a few more fêtes with friends before the winter comes. And now that almost all the summer jobs have been completed, I can look forward to a new list of ‘to-dos’ – there’s the new extended potager to plant out, the saga of my life needs a second drafting, the outside staircase needs re-painting, the walnuts and almond trees to be harvested, the village map to finish mapping and the old pool liner to replace. Summer’s over kids…

“The end-of-summer winds make people restless.” (Sebastian Faulks)

Heat and healing

It’s hot out there folks. The woofers have retreated under cover or in Mo’s case, under the pool deck and I’m spending far too much time rescuing bees from the water above – Titanic style. Poor things are desperate to have a drink but I do wish they would use the bowls available in the garden and not try and kill themselves with chlorine. Mind you, with the outside temperatures nearing 40 degrees, any idea of cooling off with a nice swim can be forgotten, it’s like warm soup in there. And even if you did want to lounge under the parasols on the deck, you’d have to take breathing apparatus with you – the blisteringly dry air burns down your throat. Denis and I are desperately trying to keep the young plantings hydrated which would be so much easier if the man with the drill pipe had been and gone, unfortunately he’s broken his compressor bit so we have to wait until it’s fixed. To make matters worse, my hopeful harvest of the grapevine has been dashed as all the grapes have reduced to black bullets. According to a local vigneron pal, I’m not the only one suffering the loss – there’s a new fungus about that loves destroying the white variety which could be devastating for next year’s wine.

Tending to nature has been the least of my stress over the last week, my sanity only saved by having the most accommodating guests in Phil and Rosie. Sadly they left on Wednesday but not before having the chance to dine out under the stars chez Abraham and join in on a bongo drum session the night before they departed. As much as I wanted the two of them to experience a little bit of what I’ve come to love down here, chilling out with a few of my close amis, after the day I’d had the evening couldn’t have been better prescribed. Mumo really wasn’t well so thanks to our next-door neighbour, Louise aka La Contessa, we got an ‘in’ with the gastroenterology department at Clinique Montréal in Carcassonne which resulted in an 8 hour stay in the hospital’s emergency. There’s not a whole lot to do whilst plugged into a drip in a room bereft of interest but I did my best to keep her amused. To respect Mumo’s privacy, I’ll not say what the problem was but I will say she is feeling much better especially since the diagnosis turned out not to be serious and she was released the same day.

Laughter may be said to be the best medicine but for Mumo (and myself), the arrival of her eldest grandson and his new girlfriend probably tops that. Louis and Lenaya (spelling of which I do not yet know) have been brilliant company for her and the fact that his cherie is as as passionate about the environment as I am and can talk as long as I can is the best anti-stress tonic. And she understands the need to use the basins in the sink rather than letting the water run straight down the plughole unlike most of my family so the remains of the washing up can soak a bit of flora and fauna. And Lenaya is the only new face to my family either. Yesterday I finally got to meet and hold Denis’ latest grand-daughter Ana who really is quite a star, never crying once as she was handed around like pass the parcel. For all the ups and downs and aggravation this summer has so far thrown at me, there’s nothing like meeting the future to bring a breath of fresh air into your life…

“We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young.” (Letty Cottin Pogrebin)

It’s the little things in life

You could be forgiven for thinking that spending every afternoon for the past week in the bloody pool whilst the sun turned your back into mahogany brown was peachy perfect – it wasn’t. But fingers crossed, I think I have finally found and plugged the teeny weeny hole in the liner. At the bottom of the pool. After God-knows how many tubes of glue bought and smeared around every seam along the walls and floor, the flippin’ fissure ended up being in one of the corners. Trust me, there is nothing fun about shoving mountains of goo underwater and for some reason unknown to man or woman, standing still in water whilst holding down a patch makes you need the loo every five minutes.

As mentioned above, the sun has come out for mid-July in full force with the thermometer barely dropping below 30 even at night. With the poor woofers flopped out in any available shade, I’ve taken to leaving the balcony doors open after sundown so they can sleep out on the terrace which of course they don’t do and instead choose to pant incessantly in the heat of my bedroom. And before anyone gets any funny ideas about a woman sleeping alone with her terrace vitres wide open, Neo may be getting older but he still has his full set of well-used teeth and Arry likes to spread himself out over the right hand side of my sheets.

At least now I can actually get on with finishing all the other half-done projects. Denis and I have begun putting the fixtures and fittings into the outdoor kitchen below my balcony although we still need to buy a fridge. We did try to find a second-hand one but a) they were all too big and b) all extremely expensive. Might as well buy a new one at that price and a guarantee to go with it. I did however purchase the perfect top for the piece of palm we found down by the river, a bargain at 15 euros. All that’s need is more gluing and it’ll be ready for morning coffee. Or relaxing by with a nice ice-cold beer at the end of a sweaty day.

Speaking of chilling out with a glass on a warm summer evening, the last couple of nights have been spent raising them in a toast to Denis who became a grandfather for the second time. Baby Ana was born in the wee hours of Thursday morning, healthily weighing in at 3.3 kilos. I haven’t had a chance to go and see her yet but parents Yoan and Inaya have been sending daily photos of their second daughter who I’m told looks much like her mother but Denis says looks like a newborn at the moment. I’m sure she’s absolutely gorgeous and will stay that way if I avoid holding her – babies tend to start screaming as soon as I pick them up. Must be the witch in me.

With all the pool plugging and baby gushing, I’m hoping next week will be a quiet one although with my sister and her girls arriving on Tuesday, I expect not. Mind you, I adore my nieces and so do the woofers so a little disturbance of my Zen would not be unwelcome. After the last couple of months of swearing and sighing over all things water-related, the sound of swimming and splashing around will be just what the doctor ordered and speaking of orders, the man with the drill pipe is coming on Saturday. I mean he did say he was coming at the beginning of the month which was two weeks ago but better late than never. Now, with luck and fingers permanently crossed, summer can finally begin…

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” (Sam Keen)