Journal Tuesday 9th September

Morning all. Yesterday I started to fettle next door for the arrival of (hopefully) multiple guests next week for what has been somewhat extravagantly named Beerfest.

I say hopefully, because French ATC strikes are threatening to scupper some of the groups transport plans, but we’ve got everything crossed.

Next door or the gite, as it is usually referred to, (despite no plans to ever house a paying guest), is a 2 bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom, separate house that is attached to our main house. It usually houses any summer visitors, but as it doesn’t have central heating, and the log burner door handle is seized, winter visitors tend to stay in the spare room of the big house. With such a big group of us though, we need all available bedrooms and potentially a couple of airbeds depending on the strike situation, so lots of bed making and general sorting out required. It hasn’t been used much recently, so everything is in need of a good clean, and all the windows opening to air everything out. I got 3/4 of it done yesterday, before the battery in the hoover ran out, but today is a garden day, 19-21 degrees, sunny, yes please!

The plan is to finish the strimming, it’s a 2 day job usually, again due to batteries and the prolonged period of rain meaning everything is super long and a bit damp. The feral blackcurrant bushes need some serious pruning, I really need to plant the 3 hydrangeas I have, but I am struggling to decide where they’re going. It’s also time to throw all the cut flowers currently in the house into the compost and cut some more. I did a very heavy cut when we came back from our trip to the zoo, so everything has been a bit slow to flourish.

I’ve also ordered some more fairy lights, and a shade net which I need to fix to the pergola to try to deal with the few evening hours when the sun hits you square in the face. I don’t think they’ll be here until tomorrow though.

I collected a load of glass bowls from the resourcerie with a view to making glass toadstools that would house a solar light. Have I done it yet? Nope. They are cluttering up the pantry, and I have no idea which of the solar lights work as the cats like to use them as scratching posts and knock them over so they don’t charge. Maybe today I’ll have a go at that. Any excuse for a hot glue gun and a side quest away from the more important things I should be doing.

TTFN,

V x