Thursday 23rd July

I woke at the usual hour and had my morning ritual: dogs, coffee and fags, then phoned Mark to arrange when i would pick him up to take him back to the hospital to get his paperwork filled in for his health insurance. I had decided it would be best to do this in the afternoon so arranged to pick him up at 1.30. I settled in to my usual lazy morning, doing the farm, writing up the blog and messing around on the internet. At 12.30 i had lunch and set my dinner going in the slow cooker, a nice Mediterranean style duck stew, and then sat and watch a bit of daytime tv, then got myself organized to go pick up Mark.
I picked up Mark and off we went, conversation is quite difficult as he is quite deaf and has no batteries left for his hearing aids so we had a half hour drive me shouting at him and him not hearing what i was saying and veering off in different conversational directions. The hospital staff were very helpful, there was a strange hospital moment, lying on a bench in the reception area was a large older lady looking very unkempt, she motioned to me to come over but i declined the offer, a few moments later two gendarmes arrived and took her away, it is quite a rare thing to see here in our little safety bubble life.
When we left the hospital i said i would take Mark to look at a car he had seen in the local newspaper, the garage was in Humieres, the village next to ours, so i knew where it was. As yet the future of his car is still uncertain, he is trying to get his money back from the garage and buy a different car but i am less than optimistic for him. I said i wondered what he would have left to moan about once the car was sorted, but i'm pretty sure he will manage to find something. We had a look at the car, a Renault Laguna from 1996, it was in really good condition considering its age, and the garage guy was very friendly, i asked about getting our car fixed there, i have damaged the back bumper, he said this would be no problem and would only take a couple of days, so this is something i will have to look into.
I dropped Mark at home but declined the offer of coffee and headed home, released the hounds and went back online, chatted to aunty m on skype, played a game for a bit, then Jacqui arrived with her niece Sadie, so i sat and had a coffee with her for a while whilst the Sadie played with the dogs outside, great for tiring them out a little. By the time they had left it was late afternoon, i checked the dinner, smelt really good, then decided on the evenings viewings, nothing much of interest except Team America World Police, i had missed this the last time it was on so programmed it in. I phoned gran to see how her week was going, she had had a big day of social engagements on Wednesday so we chatted about this, she seemed to have enjoyed it, but everyone else involved had moaned about the food, she did not moan about the food but had chatted all night to an interesting woman, which is good.
By seven i was settled in front of the telly watching the Simpsons and enjoying my delicious stew with some fresh baked bread, a most enjoyable repas. I enjoyed Team America, it was still quite topical despite it being a couple of years old, i am not a big fan of South Park, written by the same guys, but this was much more up my street, so that was good. Off to bed, Theroux has finally arrived in Singapore and is really grinding his axes about it, he worked there for some years in the sixties. I worried a little about my feelings about Singapore, i like the fact it is a clean, safe and attractive place, and am impressed by what has been achieved in the way of economic growth, but it is on the back of an aggressive government who clamps down on any opposition and stifles individuality, so it does not sit well with my liberal views, i will just have to proclaim myself a hypocrite and live with it.

Thats all for today, who knows what fun tomorrow holds!!