Well, the hen house has been finished and ready for occupancy for a couple of weeks now, so we decided that we really ought to bite the bullet and get some little chicks to enjoy the luxury of this lovingly built, hand-crafted, palatial residence. Like most things here, it turned out not to be that easy. We asked where to buy chickens and were given very precise directions; go and see Madame Castex; left before the bridge, up the hill, past the place with the cows, past the concrete house (wouldn’t you think they could paint it?), through the wood, turn left till you pass Robin and Jane’s place (they’re English; don’t you know them? Lovely house), then it’s on the right; but beware, they have 2 enormous, very fierce dogs.  We found the place with no problem, and Robin and Jane, whoever they might be, certainly do have a magnificent house; we even found enormous, twin dog kennels. But of Madame Castex, or the dogs (happily), we saw no sign, even though we wandered around for a good half hour, ringing every doorbell we found.

So our beautiful hen house, complete with automatic feeder and water dispenser, remains unused. I think we’ll have to order them from Point Vert; unfortunately, they won’t arrive till after Alex, Graham and Izzy’s visit.

In the meantime, work has progressed on the new bathroom, though not as quickly as we’d like, since it needs to be at least useable by the time Alex and co. arrive next Saturday. The pipework is all done now, the knot holes in the new floor are all filled in and the basin is attached to its table. Nick skimmed the very uneven wall behind the shower today, but the plaster wouldn’t stick and he ended up scraping it all off again! He’ll have to even the wall up with tile sticky. The next job is mine; to seal the floor before they attach the loo, bath etc., so it’ll be all hands on deck this week to get it finished in time.

The weather has turned warm and sunny again, and we bought some vegetable plants and seeds this week; lettuce, strawberries, cabbages, spinach and beans. So we spent much of the afternoon preparing the potager; we levelled it as far as possible, then I decided using the rotavator couldn’t be as difficult as I first thought and talked Nick into letting me have another go. I managed half the potager, much to Nick’s amusement, as it first tried to bury itself, then veered off to the left, then shot off at high speed towards Nick’s newly placed edging blocks! After about half an hour, totally exhausted, I admitted defeat and conceded that there are some jobs (sorry, any devout feminists reading this) best left to the boys. It didn’t seem to need so much good technique as sheer brute strength. I think I’ve a long way to go before I’m a proper countrywoman (more of a Margot than a Barbara so far, I’m afraid!)

I mustn’t forget to mention our friends Kate, Rob and Holly, who live a couple of miles up the road and who came round for a curry last night. Nick treated all of us to one of his superb curries and we sampled several bottles of very cheap plonk, to help Holly with her research project. It was a fantastic evening; great fun, and I hope there weren’t too many sore heads this morning.