Marching on into March

Animals

Schula has had the snip and consequently been confined by her plastic lampshade to stop her licking the wound. She's done her best to chew it off and we have to do constant running repairs with sticky tape. Today is her last day of confinement as hopefully it will come off tomorrow. She does find it very useful for digging up mud in the garden though.

Obviously I took this before she started to chew it.

She looks glum doesn't she?

Well chewed and muddy

In the house

New shade of red has gone up behind the fire and as you can see the fire is working again - we had a new chimney piping done by a local company - so that's three times we'll have paid for that bit of kit! Still not convinced that it is heating the water as it should so that little glitch still has to be sorted out.

Spending time with friends

My lovely friend Jane (who was a gite client looking for a home here when we first met) came for lunch and some sewing fun. Jane and I will see each other again at the weekend for the annual hunter's meal in their village - we were at one in another village last week so you can imagine we are consuming quite a bit of meat at the moment!

My lovely friend Jane makes her first ever cushion cover

Getting to grips with the machine

Trying out the end result on our bed

I have some funds in my Kiva account so as sewing has been high on the agenda recently I made a new loan to an Asian woman wanting to buy sewing supplies. I do like Kiva's way of supporting people to build their own businesses through loans and I feel proud when they manage to pay the loan back on time so that it can be rolled out to help someone else. You can find out more about these loans that change lives here.

Holidays

Since 2004 I have been a member of an online forum called Lay My Hat which is for people who have holiday rentals. I've made some real friends through this forum and have viewed some great properties. Kevin is finally going to retire at the end of October so we are hoping to start visiting some of these lovely places as holiday makers. We're starting with a long weekend in September in the Ariege at this lovely location - La P'tite Maison at Le Grillou

We'll get to sleep in this lovely bedroom

Outside

The sunshine has finally returned and with it the builders to do the external pointing. This old house is putting on its best frock!

All cleaned off and raked out

Getting there

First section complete

Top of the wall done

Our thoughts turn to outside projects and we snapped up some edging stones on promotion to neaten up the entrance and parking area. Still too wet to plant in the potager but I'm planning some more broad bean sowing in my paper pots over the weekend - the first ones are sprouting already. Hopefully when I get back from my UK trip the soil will have dried out and we'll be able to start the growing season in earnest.

Me time

Oh yes my next UK trip starts on Tuesday. I'll be there for my granddaughter's 5th birthday on Wednesday and the weekend of the 14/15th I will be attending the first event to be held in the London velodrome since the olympics.  I am so proud of my son who has organised it as part of the Revolution Series. It's being broadcast on BT sport and live streamed on You Tube if you didn't manage to get a ticket (there have been some more standard tickets released but you'll have to be quick and there should be VIP places left ). After all that excitement I'll look forward to some chilling chez ma fille.

Here's a shot from round 4

Hope the sunshine has found its way to your door too.

A bientôt.