Last Friday Nick finished tiling the garage roof, well almost! He still needs to cement the ridge tiles in place, but it’s watertight. Just a bit of wall to build above the lintels now, a new concrete floor to lay, then doors to build and fit and it’ll be ready to use.

Having worked so hard last week, we thought we’d have a weekend off. The weather was glorious on Saturday so we went for a wander around the Nogaro vide grenier; this was part car boot sale, part market, part brocante, with hot roast chestnuts and bourret for sale on every street corner. Bourret is a delicious, cloudy, fizzy, slightly alcoholic drink, taken from the early stages of wine production and is for sale everywhere around here at this time of year; it’s always served with roasted chestnuts. I found a mirror for the bathroom and Nick bought an old spoke shave, so it was a good trip.

You must understand that, as market towns go, Nogaro doesn’t rate in the top 5%. There are two markets a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays; there are three stalls on Wednesdays and a huge seven (on a good day) on Saturdays. However, there are a couple of good veg stalls on Saturdays, so, rather than buy in the supermarket, I shop at the market; the only problem being carrying the goods back to the car. So I have had to not just think, but do the unthinkable and am now the owner of not a tartan, but a bright pink pull-along shopping trolley! Just how old lady and Grannified is that?!

On Saturday afternoon, I worked at the communal garden. Christian, who helped set it up, has sent me some photos taken in the early days when they’d just started up, so they’re included in this post. I was sent home with loads of strawberry runners and instructions to plant them that day as it was the most auspicious day according to the lunar calendar, which everyone around here seems to use. There wasn’t time, however, on Saturday, so I decided to do the planting on Sunday; but it was wet, so wet that, by the time I’d finished digging over the plot of ground to put them in, the water was trickling down my jeans and puddling inside my wellies. Being a fair-weather sort of gardener, I gave up, came inside and lit a fire; I planted them today and hope the moon doesn’t mind too much.