It rumbles on.

Bob and Sophie are in particularly fine form. They exude happiness. As the sun sets they position themselves on the wooden garden table and watch the world turn slowly purple. 

One of the most wonderful of nights. Mild, no clouds, and not even a hint of a breeze. We traipse into the garden.  'The Font' takes out a telescope, Sophie glares at the owls roosting in the barn ( and they unperturbed glare back at her) , Angus nurses a glass of a 2010 St.Estephe and Bob settles down for a lengthy doze across his masters feet. The Space Station lumbers across the sky and a couple of Chinese (?) satellites cast parallel tracks above the big aerospace plants in Bordeaux before heading out across the Atlantic .

This morning we're up at the crack of dawn. The garden centre has taken delivery of two Vase d'Anduzes in the original colour scheme. Just what we've been looking for. Someone else has had the same idea. They've already been sold.

Am I alone in thinking that the orchids look as if they've had some DNA enhancement ?

Back in the village the saga of the rocking crucifix rumbles on. A builder has been called in. He spends an hour clambering up ladders and taking measurements. The mayor, various retired Gendarmes , the man who wears a yellow day-glo jacket , the Old Farmer and the village odd job man watch him. The builder suggests hiring a crane to lift the statue out while the brick plinth is repaired. It doesn't take long for the mayor and his coterie of helpers to work out that this implies cost. Maybe considerable cost. There is much shrugging of shoulders. Bob takes it all in from his position on the stump seat by the front gate. Angus can't help but feel we have a village crisis in the making.

Just another of those happy days too unimportant to take up much space in a diary but too important to go completely unrecorded.