in hiding

 Bruno and I shared pre-dinner oysters last night, the other guests being in hiding. We had Chez Charlie Lasagne, yum, salad and strawberries all with a dry muscadet. Worked well :)

Sunshining for the market... so far -

more abomination of d.

 Scene of former glories, The TyRex is gently rotting away. Sigh.

Since I'd collated all my tax figures yesterday and was insisting on a celebration lunch, we had to go to Quillan - where of course we visited our Tibetan friends. 

They seem to be doing well, barely an empty table. Really enjoyed our meal which was enlivened by the children playing in the street outside; a reminder of how simple life used to be. 

Apart from the exciting news about our frog - clearly finished with hibernation - and that me and our guest are preparing beds for the next wave of visitors, thats it!

Tout-la

 Great Tout-la Wednesday, featuring O-B's family in from Norway to check on him -  and him still blossoming. Plus Peter G turned up as well as the usual suspects. And new boy Richard, new persons Deidre and Russell and others... Missed Roy who was away collecting Jo from the airport so no Alan who is usually wheeled round by the ferociously fit Roy. Pete and Claire left for blighty so also absent. 

Victoria

Olle

Justin 

Spot the Madso tribe!!!

the abomination of desolation

 

Here's le Healthy's terrace this morning... truly dismantled. Sad that another of Esperazas little treats has been lost - it looks very like TyRex today - 

Other news: The roof of the ex-Scottish Daves house is being redone.

Half of Esperazas glitterati are in Dublin for Kennys exhibition. The portrait of Mike, much admired, has been sold! 

Eclipsed, very partially

 

Yesterdays cryptic partial solar eclipse - or whatever this is. I trotted to the riverside garden at Garenaud which I thought would give me the best view, in full sun - and it clouded over as soon as I arrived, some 5 mins before the expected excitement. I did actually see the edge of the sun being nicked between cloud cover and found this perplexing photo when I got home.

But Bieke was there and that was a treat, we chatted through the light showers. Walked home along the river where there is quite of lot of damage from the high winds, fallen trees and branches. Saw a little black squirrel! And all the spring flowers are out, magic.

Now the clocks have changed. It's later than you think.

The ladies in my keep-fit class were talking about it; in France, the hour changed so they could work in the garden before school. 

same old same old

 There's a certain amount of repetition going on for lack of anything to say.... here's todays frog, coming up to battle the mossies -

It's been raining but the mighty Aude is taking the water in its stride -

...But look what excitement looms!!!

Me and Aileen Hennes will be signing (and flogging) our books in the British Library, Quillan, April 12th. Def a diary date.

Nel has made a poster, photographed in the window of the library. 

I'm sharpening my quill.

Our mayor gets a grip

 Here is our Mayors letter from Facebook,  clumsily translated by their resident bot:

4 prickly issues.

Regarding the Avenue of the Pyrenees, the SAUR will intervene tomorrow to clean the gravels and make us a clean avenue.

Contacted Enedis this morning regarding power outages. They are working on it but having trouble identifying the cause. We should quickly regain the sustainability of our networks.

Similarly, at the City of Sarrault's public meeting, the selection of trees didn't seem to have everyone convinced. We shredding this morning. There will be honey trees and other caramels. Less high, less harmful and clearing more friendly effluves.

Final point much more complicated as we have no return on TNT and the loss of channels. Following the calls from our assistant Rose-Marie Darot we currently have no return. Business to be continued...

Good to know! The entrance to the town, the Avenue of the Pyrenees, has had work on it for ever and is still a mess. The power failures have become routine, they are so many - we've lost a TV channel and would like it back.

But exciting to know that le Maroc will be having honey and toffee trees!

Other than that, we had a splendidly cheerful Wednesday night at tout-la - Ole-Bendick and Cleopatra got a standing ovation when they arrived - and Bob and I concluded the evening by eating chez nous with Pete and Claire, Terry and Di. It was good.

Here are some of the guests leaving, which is when I remembered the camera. Sigh.