Goodbye, summer

The last day of August and, coincidentally (although it happens every six or seven years), the last Monday in August, which means that today is a bank holiday, the last bank holiday until Christmas. Not that that fact bothers me much; after all, every day is like a bank holiday for me except that on most of them we get post delivered. More significant for me is that today is the last day of August and, according to my personal calendar, therefore the last day of summer.

I'm sure that meteorologists have a different definition of the seasons, but for me spring is March, April and May, summer is June, July and August, autumn is September, October and November (the ember days) and winter, logically enough, is December, January and February. I know that doesn't tie in with the chronological (if that's the word I want) seasons given that Mid Summer's Day is in June and the shortest day is in December, but it seems to reflect my view of the passing seasons.

Things do sometimes get a bit out of synch. Most years I am picking blackberries until the middle of September, but already this year we have enough in the freezer for the next twelve months, and the autumn raspberries are just getting into their stride - again, a week or two earlier than normal. Could that be a sign of a bad winter to come, or just a sign of the rotten summer weather we have had this year?

As Time Goes By

This is the time of year when there rarely seems to be anything worth watching on the gogglebox. Luckily, I was - for once - prepared for the eventuality. For my birthday earlier this year (yes, I do still have one every year) the children each gave me Amazon vouchers which I used to buy the complete set of DVDs of the old sit-com "As Times Goes By". We are working our way through them, sometimes watching as many as three episodes in one evening! My word, we do know how to live it up!!

But what will we do when we have exhausted the nine series and one special? Will there be anything worth watching? Perhaps I will have to buy something else - "'Allo, 'Allo" might be worth it. Or "Dad's Army" perhaps. We shall have to see.

Got there at last

We have advertised Les Lavandes on one particular holiday cottage web site for the last six years and on others intermittently. The others produced so few enquiries that they have all been given up, but the main site has continued to bring a steady trickle of potential guests. But although we regard letting the house as a bonus, we would prefer to have about 50% more weeks let than we have been getting the last year or two. What certainly will not help for next year are the two distinctly unfavourable reviews we have recently received, neither of them (in our opinion) justified. So we decided cancel our advertising with Site A and move to a different site.

It wasn't too difficult to find what appears to be a suitable site. Many of the sites that seem to be best known expect us to sign the house over to them almost completely, just specifying each year which four or five weeks we want to reserve for ourselves. That's not the way we want to do things. But there was another site which came in the top three when searching Google with the phrase "holiday cottage France" so I signed up with them.

It took me all morning to prepare our ad with them so I just hope they find it acceptable.

More useless trivia

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 (or so I am told. I haven't checked it.)

'8,549,176,320' has all the digits arranged in alphabetical order.

Today's useless info

When dogs are taught to "shake hands", male dogs prefer to offer their left paw while females prefer to proffer their right. It's the same if a dog pats its owner to attract attention: males tend to use the left paw, females the right. The same left/right bias can be found in cats.

Who studies these things anyway?

Report back

It was good. The food was great, with generous portions, and priced very reasonably. Luckily I had discovered beforehand that it is necessary to take one's own wine and we had a screw-top bottle in store so were able to bring back what we didn't drink. We arrived about 15 minutes before a party of 20 was booked to get there, and there was only one table free apart from ours. Just as well I had booked. We shall return.

Ristorante Pizzeria

There's a new Italian restaurant opened down in the village. No, that's untrue: the restaurant has been open for a little while so it's newish rather than new. Anyway, I had to walk past it yesterday on the way to fetch my car from the garage after a service. I thought the menu looked pretty good and the interior of the restaurant seemed attractive, so we are going to try it tonight. I'll report back later.