Progress.

Another chill damp start to the day. The lawn squelches as you walk across it. The locals complaining about the wet weather. Talking about the weather is every bit as much a French trait as a British one. In fact , the longer you live here, the more you come to understand that the French and the Brits are rather like twins joined at the hip. Almost identical but determined to amplify their differences.

Bob and Sophie find these chill damp starts to their mornings wonderful. Bob and Sophie find most things wonderful. The hoover is an exception. So is the blender.

The builders return to repair holes in the genoise. They are told to avoid the wrens nests. The side of The Rickety Old Farmhouse they're working on has also become home to no less than five sparrows nests and what might be an owls nest. These are carefully left 'unrepaired'. The sparrows keep up a constant racket. The morose boys mix cement - morosely. The builders plan to do one side of the house every day. They don't say whether this will be done consecutively.

Later this morning we shall change into funeral attire and head off to the church for Loics mothers internment. The mayor tells me there was a time that Downs Syndrome children weren't encouraged to go to funerals because it was felt they were incapable of feeling grief. This was in an age when they were more likely to die before their parents. 


Shuttered shops on Broadway. Is this really unusual ? https://nypost.com/2018/04/07/the-worlds-hottest-shopping-city-is-becoming-a-ghost-town/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons