Our place in France Chapter 91

It has rained every day this week and for the past two days it has rained continuously day and night. The surrounding countryside is becoming very soggy and fields are flooded in some areas. We only wish we could send some of it to Cape Town which is rapidly approaching Day Zero when they will run out of drinking water. We certainly don’t need quite so much here.

As a result our ventures to the great outside world have been limited to the very minimum – once to the chemist to pick up some tablets and once to get the gas bottle refilled – before scuttling back home to the warmth of the house. And yes, to those of you who know our house and how cold it can get, it was noticeably warmer than outside. Mind you, it was nice and warm in the car too, which is why we drove around a bit after picking up our tablets from the chemist, looking at the aftermath of days of rain. Everything is waterlogged and everything that even resembles a stream is running strongly. I am so glad we live on the top of a rise.

France has official sales twice a year, in January and June/July and there are some amazing bargains to be had, if you are looking for anything to buy. The sales cover all goods including foodstuffs, clothing and appliances, and the shops are crowded all the time as more items are brought out to add to the goods already on sale. It appears to us that many people save up their spending money just for the sales and then go mad. I saw a lady the other day with a whole trolley full of towels – she must have had twenty or more – but perhaps she runs a guest house and replaces her linen every time there are sales. It would certainly make sense.

The start of this week was a bad one for me. My computer was having a tantrum and the cursor kept leaping about so that I had to keep cutting out what I had just typed and paste it in where it should have been. It has done this previously but I thought we had overcome the problem. Then the computer and printer decided not to talk to each other and a few things that should have had attachments didn’t get them or only had half the attachment. When I had had enough of being messed around by a machine, I thought I would make a batch of rusks but was distracted half way through and ended up baking them on microwave for an hour! Needless to say the result could have been used in a building project Disaster!! I then gave up for the day and postponed all activities to the following day when I had more success. It must be all the damp, I think. My brain is becoming as soggy as the fields around