Back home

Once again we managed to survive a whole week of all that France and the French could throw at us: temperatures up to 30 (that's mid to upper 80s in old speak) when just half an hour reading in the courtyard was quite enough sun at a stretch; wine at much lower prices than we would have to pay here in England; evening meals in the square at Chateaubriant watching the swifts as they flew screaming round the church spire. What a hard week it has been!

Of course, all this good life does have to occasional downside. There are those French drivers who will insist on driving about three inches from my rear bumper at 70 mph. There is still the occasional driver who doesn't realise that the rule was changed many years ago and that he no longer has the right of way as he approaches a roundabout but has to give way to traffic already on said roundabout. Our neighbour speaks very good English, but for some reason he insisted this week that we spoke French - and my French really is not up to a technical discussion about the merits and otherwise of those windmill things that are supposed to produce electricity. There was the evening meal disrupted by unruly and undisciplined under-5s whose father objected when I told them not to get in my space: I merely shrugged my shoulders and told him, 'I'm English. I don't understand you.' while other diners grinned at his discomfort, if discomfort it was. Perhaps they thought the discomfort was mine.

Anyway, we're back home in Blighty and this afternoon will be off to my granddaughter's third birthday party.