All friends together

As you can see, the kids are all getting on famously.

Actually, they are. But this note, found scrumpled in the garden, did amuse me.

We visited the MBH today with our guests, where we had a tedious meeting with the electrician, confirming that everything was as we had said (placement of lights, sockets and light switches) as in the previous long tedious meeting. Somehow, despite that, he now says he will tell us every couple of weeks how much money we owe him. This is interesting firstly because he said initially that he thought the work would take two weeks, and secondly because quotes are binding in France, and he can't exceed it. Well, I think we made our point of view quite clear.

Extraordinary light show in the sky last night - the lightning storms must have been running along the lines of the Pyrenees because they were far enough away that we could see them but not hear them. Quite spectacular. Very hot stuffy night though, with me bizarrely waking from a dream about septic tanks (oh the joys of renovating) and continuing to think about the septic tank until I was too wide awake to do anything other than lie there for the next few hours feeling too hot and worrying about the rat that was going to come and nibble my toes. (Obviously, typing that now I feel like an idiot, but it all felt very real at the time. I realise now that the scrabbling noise was probably rain. And not giant toe-nibbling rats.)

We managed a brief trip into town to to buy way too much fruit at the market, though I did get to have a chat with a couple of folk about fruit politics. There's a lot of hostility about Spanish fruit here at the moment, though one man was astute enough to point out that the Spanish fruit growers were just smarter at getting better varieties quicker, and the French are only just catching up with all that.

The kids had a theatrical afternoon (in all senses of the word) and after a barbie dinner, they are finally beaten by sleep, and we are retiring to the terrace.