Triangulation.

Thunder and lightning all through the night. Overhead, cold air from the Atlantic battling it out with warm air from North Africa. I get up and go through to watch the news from Manchester. The bomb attack was just being reported when I headed off to bed last night. Is targeting teenagers a new low ? The PONs join me. This morning the storm has passed through but it's a cloudy and muggy start to the day. The angelic duo head out of the front door and across the garden. Sophie sees the collar doves and gives chase. She howls with delight. The village wakes.

Sophie was groomed yesterday. This morning she manages to look as if she's never seen a brush in her life.

When we return from our morning walk The Old Farmer is checking his post box. He greets Bob formally with a hearty 'Bonjour' and tells Sophie, in an altogether more intimate tone, how beautiful she is. Sophie looks at him spellbound. We laugh. The Old Farmer says our local owls have one ear larger than the other. This helps them triangulate exactly where a rustling vole is. He thinks we have so many on top of the ridge because there are fields on either side ( rather than woodland ) which makes it easier for them to find the small critters they live on. He's counted four nesting pairs on the mile long stretch of lane.

The young Arab couple with the seriously disabled boy walk by and we wave. Both doctors, they work in Toulouse during the week but have rented a house by the crossroads and come into the country from Friday through to Monday lunchtime. It's the Ascension Day holiday on Thursday so they're here all this week. They wheel the boy along the lane - en famille - three times a day. The mother says the peace calms him. I'm left overawed by the simplicity of their devotion. The boy doesn't notice much but he now seems to recognize Sophie and her brother and laughs. The parents smile. Another of the small things that make the world spin.

Events too unimportant for a diary but too much part of life to go completely unrecorded.