The end of summer

Well the weather has properly turned on us now and we have a week or so of wind and rain heading our way. I've been helping a few friends out with various projects which has made the past few weeks race by and I'm now getting focused towards doing some serious clearing and logging in the valley. There are a number of reasons for this, the key one being a lack of firewood for this year followed closely by the fact that we own land which to this day we have still not walked on.

Jane is about to start work on the next stage of advancement in her job. I've seen the size of the text book and borne witness to the anxiety already creeping up on her but, as always, I have total faith in her ability and am sure she will give it her all. I shall be the ever supporting house husband and keep my head down whenever necessary.

Kirsty has discovered that now she's at college fashion is everything. I foresee great expense coming our way as she continuously nags for new clothes, shoes,bags etc.... all so that she can be with the in crowd. Even Josh has been taking a slight interest in his appearance even wearing the occasional shirt in an attempt to attract the ladies.

Although I am suitably project mad, the usual shortage of funds or "sans argent" as I tell my French friends, has put pretty much everything on hold. The ideas continue to rumble around in my head though and as and when finances are available I will be all too keen to get on and spend them.

And relax

Chatting with Jane the other night we both commented on the fact that we were feeling a tad tired and, on reflection, the cause for this probably had something to do with the fact that we have been on the go since pretty much the beginning of July right the way through to last weekend when we had the village for lunch. We'd been to Denmark and as soon as we got back I headed to the UK with the kids for a brief visit then came back to sort the softball. The softball was brilliant, then we built the bridge and Jane headed over to the UK with the kids for a short break. From there we have just snowballed into visiting guests and various dinners but finally we are ready to just relax.

The weather has been so dry here that the grass has barely grown since the beginning of August and we are now having to feed the horse and donkey hay to supplement their lack of food. Fortunately the rain is falling as I'm writing this and, however disliked it may be, I'd be quite happy for a week or so to really drench things through. We also had a very weird day last Tuesday when we had the first frost of the year followed by 30 degrees in the afternoon. Depressingly my fuchsias were not appreciative of this gross fluctuation and have committed suicide.

The next few months will be all about the cars as, having got the Renault through it's biannual checks, the Silver Peugeot needs a fair amount of work including an exhaust before it's test in a few weeks time and then after that Janes car has to go through the same too. Coupled with our tax bill, I may have to refrain from drinking for a while so the finances can recover from the shock.

There's not a vast amount in the pipe line other then my usual mad cap projects. We have a few visitors during October and possibly a sizeable Christmas bash to psych our selves up for but, until then, we shall mainly be chilling.