Mallory Towers comes to France

Monday was an exciting day because Darren and Stuart came to start removing the old woodshed, which is a total eyesore and then Lynne arrived in the evening.  I picked her up from the airport and we came home and chatted over some wine for ages and didn't eat until it was dark.  We spent ages following a mole around the garden.  The ground was obviously so hard that he couldn't dig a hole to go down and he seemed to be a bit frantic.  Anyway, eventually he went to ground under the black plastic sheet containing next year's topsoil.  Hopefully, he'll dig it about a bit and make it more friable for me. Then Lynne said that she was tired, lay on the bed and didn't move until 4.30am when the first rains for ages came and woke us both up so we shared a few cups of tea, philosophised for a while and hunted around for something sweet to eat.  Just like a boarding school midnight feast.  There was no tuck in the dorm, unfortunately.  I couldn't find any biscuits so we ended up with prunes.  The joys of getting old.............

Anyway we both crashed out again until we were woken by the sound of Darren's digger knocking down the woodshed.

Going, going...

............gone

Tuesday was another warm day and, after a slow start, we went to the agricultural co-operative, Bergerac, the garden centre, back to the co-operative and finally LeClerc.  I bought strawberry plants, tayberry, loganberry and, joy of joys, thornless blackberries.  By the time we got home in the mid afternoon, the woodshed was pretty much demolished and there was a dangerous big water-filled concrete hole in the middle of the garden. 

Plunge pool

We picked a load of figs from the trees in Mme B's garden and shared them with Darren and Stuart then Lynne lost consciousness for a couple of hours again.  A quiet meal and a lot more gossip, while listening to the quiet patter of the gentle rain.

Wednesday was cooler and cloudy so I started the day by planting my strawberries, exciting stuff.  Lynne and I went to Ste Foy to enjoy the architecture and then to try a new restaurant for lunch.  It wasn't a warm day and the wine was free...........   We cancelled our plans for the afternoon, such as they were, and returned the caravan for a French coffee [with brandy and cream] and a general laze around.  We walked to the village and took in the sights but, as anyone who has visited will attest, that didn't take long.

We returned home to find that Darren had really cracked on with things and the hole had been filled in.  It looks unbelievably different!

The skip is booked for tomorrow to take away some of the rubbish.  Let's hope it turns up!