Well back in Hampshire after a nine hour drive from the Auvergne, a five and a half hour ferry trip from Le Havre and a short drive from Portsmouth, the grass has grown , as has the alchemilla, the geraniums and almost everything else, especially the weeds is also looking extremely lush and well grown. Can we walk up the path between the garage and the house? Only if we don't mind crunching a snail or two. Such is our homecoming late in the evening after a day driving through France to catch the ferry back home. Unload car, unpack suitcases, fill up laundry basket, a quick coffee and bed after a long day.

Reflecting on what I've been reading the last weeks in France seems like another life, which in a way it is. Much of our time there has been spent on working on the house, replacing items the builders took out and hadn't put back, either from incompetence or neglicence. We managed a few swims in the local pool, along with a handful of other middle-aged swimmers who do their lenghts in the section roped off for "nageurs" as soon after opening time as we can. The other part of the open-air pool is for young children being given swimming lessons by a very bronzed, fit youngish male instructor. Later on the pool will get busier with people coming to treat it as the local "plage", to sunbathe and swim as the fancy takes them.