Tuesday 21st July

We had nothing special planned for today so we woke and had our usual morning, then i spent ages trying to get ants new notebook to sign in to the wireless access, it simply would not take it. I gave up on the wireless and decided to have a move about, bring the desk downstairs and put it in the hall so ant could use the internet via a cable. Having moved the desk out of the bedroom i now had a gap that needed filling so we decided to go to Fruges to have a look at the depot de vent, like a junk/antique shop, to see if we could find a chest of drawers that would fill the space. We also decided to stop off at Jackie and Tony's on the way and drop off the egg cartons we had been collecting, they have four chucks and a lot of eggs.
We arrived at Tony and Jackie's and the whole family were there, Jackie also works for BA and had just returned from a trip, and their son who now lives near Melbourne and is over visiting with his girlfriend, we stayed there for a while and chatted then moved on to Fruges. When we got to Fruges it was still in the lunch period so nothing was open, we wandered around a bit but were being driven mad by tiny little flying insects called thunder flies, to escape we went to the local supermarket to get something to eat, while we were there ant saw a garden furniture set that was quite cheap, but i didn't like it, because it looked quite cheap! so we decided to give the depot de vent a miss and head off to Ikea to see if they had any better garden furniture.
Ikea is about a half hour drive from here, we got there, looked around, didn't see anything we liked and ended up leaving with three candles and a wok, so not a very productive trip.
When we got home Janine was in her garden and invited us over for an 'apero', apero's are a little unpredictable and can range from drinks with a couple of nuts for an hour to a full blown evening of drinks and eats, we naturally accepted and set to letting the dogs out. It is normal practice to take something along to an apero so i dug up some potatoes and cut some of the gladioli that are coming up, put some chicken in to roast just in case we needed to eat and then we headed back out. We had a very nice time at Janine's chatting away and drinking Pastis and water, she put on a nice spread of snacks and had made a flamiché, a local tart, a bit like a quiche with bacon bits and leeks, very tasty it was too, after about an hour i had to nip back home to turn the oven off.
We were at Janine's for about four hours, half way through another couple of neighbors joined, Christel and Philippe, with their little baby son Antoine. By the time we got home it was about ten in the evening and too late to be eating, we had had a good fill at Janine's anyway, so we cracked open a bottle of wine and settled in for a long chat about aus.
I went online and checked emails, part three from mum, it was quite a revelation and something i had never been told before, so it was a bit emotional, not so much for me personally but for the empathy with how hard it must have been for mum, i sent of a quick email, then we headed off to bed. The girls were in with us again and half way through the night i could not move my legs, after the initial panic i realized it was because Banjo was pinning them down. Ruby kindly peed on the carpet in the night, she is such a giving dog, so i will have to get the vax out and shampoo it now, life is full of these enjoyable tasks!!

catch you soon