Double autoroute espresso

The problem with having a fire a week before the (revised) HDD - even with the best efforts of our wonderful builders who rebuilt the roof, replaced ceilings, plastered and installed dehumidifiers all in just 7 days (!!!!!) - is that when you start to drive you realise that you are not just tired, you are SO very, very tired that an infusion of caffeine straight into a vein would probably still be insufficient to keep you in the land of wakefulness.

Double espresso, biscuits and extra strong mints must have worked, because somehow we got here safely - to the Dordogne (a very long way down into France) and French rain ... which is pretty similar to English rain.

Now to plan wet weather activities ... and wonder what the builders are up to at home.

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Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

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My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

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Walking, wondering and not walking at all

We all walk. I walk every day. I also lie. I don't walk every day, as in I don't take the dogs for a walk every day. Poor boys, in this season of tax returns and desperate seeking of extra work and working to pay the tax bill, they are the losers. Four-legged-friend was looking distinctly skinny in his hind legs, when I brushed his coat while he wolfed down his supper this evening (he tries to eat the brush if I take it near him at any other time, so meal times have become grooming times). Oddly, I lose out on the walking too, but this fails to have the same effect on my 'skinniness'... Anyway, we all walk. We walked on Christmas day - Littlest and I walked at the weekend - Slowly. Time to appreciate the trees. Time to encourage the smelly boys into the freezing water. Time for the sun to go down. Time to walk very, very slowly - Littlest's finger phone was engaged throughout in deep discussion with the zoo warden - da...

Walking The Dog

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