relationships – Widow plus woofs

I went in the pool yesterday. It may sound a little odd to start my blog with that statement but peeps, it’s the end of September, Strictly Come Dancing is back on the telly and I’m still in shorts. Admittedly, it was more like a plunge into an ice bath with a face lift thrown in but the fact that the weather still gives you the desire to dive into those depths when most of us in the Northern Hemisphere should be thinking about pumpkin soup is, well, a bit disconcerting. Looking out over the garden this morning, I saw dark clouds – just not above us. Monsieur le Météo unreliably tells me there is wet stuff on the way and cooler days ahead – not low enough for me to have to drag the winter wardrobe out from under the bed just yet however. Let’s be grateful for small mercies.

On the plus side and considering I spent half of it not being able to go anywhere, being able to potter around outside last week under blue skies and sunshine was no bad thing. We had a surveyor surveying for three days. No, I didn’t think our property was so big that it required such a lengthy visit either but since we aren’t the ones paying for his time, I won’t grumble. Mr Morris was very nice though and didn’t mind the woofers following him everywhere or my chattering – the latter probably accounting for the time spent here. To be honest, I didn’t have an awful lot else to do. Anything Witch Wackle is sort of on hiatus at the moment since I haven’t had a chance to go over to St Hilaire to get my wares out of the shop so I can start organising for the Christmas market (there, I’ve said the dreaded word) and I can’t do anything in regards to the website until I find a suitable perch for the computer Denis’ has let me borrow as this one is still waiting for a new battery. Yes, my man has a computer – hard to believe I know since he has yet to master his new phone as he’s even more technically challenged than I am but it was a gift from his son-in-law. Never having actually used the contraption, he arrived with the bulky machine underarm with it missing most of the necessities, like a keyboard and a mouse. Lucky for me, living in this little village means everyone has something you might need and better still, someone who knows how to attach all the bits together. For now, the completed set is parked up in my guest room until I can find a more suitable surface and a spare plug socket.

I’m sure that I’d already be tap tapping away on that keyboard if my man-child were here but instead I had to wait for a suitable hour last Monday to wish him happy birthday over in Oz land. He doesn’t seem old enough to be 28 but then again, he did say I looked old enough to be almost 60. Callum hadn’t had the best of celebrations after a game of frisbee left him with what has turned out to be a torn ACL in his left knee. Poor lad will have to have surgery and be on crutches for a while, shame he isn’t here to take an ice bath really. Still, I’m told that ducking oneself under freezing waters is good for body and soul – something to consider as September slides away and October is upon us. And another birthday…

“I notice that Autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature’ (Friedrich Nietzsche)

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)