Stars

When in doubt, blip flowers. It's an Indian summer, we haven't had any rain for months, and what were flowers are now dried up seedheads. At least the gales of the last few days have dropped. This summer was the second hottest since records started -- after the notorious summer of 2003 -- and it's still easily topping 20C despite it being October.

I went to the mairie in Lagrasse this morning to renew my French passport -- now a very efficient digital procedure where you do the initial steps online and then go to any participating mairie to get your documents checked and stamped ... and your fingerprints digitally taken. The system even sends you a text when the passport is ready for collection.

Dinner was pizza, dough made in the shiny new machine!