JUST DRONING
ok at...
A tongue-in-cheek lo
Life in rural SW France
by the editor O
ne for sorrow, two for joy! Well, that didn’t ring true last week. After three hours searching for car keys, and blaming one of the dogs for taking them into the garden and not bringing them back, I gave up. Later that evening my daughter called to say she had seen my keys on a social media site and that they had been found outside a property 700m away! It was either the Easter bunny having a laugh or the two magpies that had been in the garden earlier that day. Only in France! Mind you, I am surprised they could see them. Stupidly,
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I exchanged my (I thought unlucky) tractor for one that might not try to kill me, I kid you not. Now it takes three times as long to mow a smaller area of grass but at least my family have lessened the restrictions on the mowing kit. By that I mean the stuff I have to carry with me in case I have yet another tractor accident (at least two ditch “whoopsies” and one episode where I was trapped under it and had to chew my cardigan off)! Having recently moved house, my new garden is flat with no ditches or hidden bumps, apart from the mounds of
mole hills and, in a grassy ruin, a very large snake that doesn’t seem at all bothered by my shiny red mower. It’s a bit like the daisies, pops its head back up as soon as I’ve gone past! Yes, I am now the proud owner of a ruin but, having carried out three renovations in France already, I have to say that I have never experienced such difficulties in finding a builder! Alongside horrendous price hikes for materials, they are all booked up for around a year thanks to the rush to buy in France pre-Brexit and, perhaps surprisingly, Covid. It seems
that city dwellers have been seeking a less populated life in the countryside and have bought up almost everything in sight. They should beware though. I ventured out for the first time in two years without a mask and, two days later, the signs were there and the test was positive! The good news is that work on the offices, in the ruin, has started and it won’t be long before I can quit my kitchen workspace (at least it’s near the kettle). The mason had best evict that snake first though! Until next time …
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