What squeals at the bottom of the garden?

A WILD BOAR

Will try and get a picture, but preserving self is main priority... so dont hold your breath!!!

Invaded by the neighbours kids today (along with a responsible adult!) and had to relinquish my sole use of the pool - thought about charging them €5 each but on reflection thought maybe that was a little uncharitable.

Had a very pleasant evening round at the neighbours for drinks and nibbles and about 10 kids running riot - about 95% of the evening was in French but managed to keep abreast of some of it.

Will try and get that picture....

A few pictures from Hamburg taken with a pocket ixus job.

Life the universe and everything

Nothing comes easy and toughing out the bad times must surely lead to good times.
Having spent some real quality time with the parents, spent what seemed like a lifetime closing cupboards and drawers after them, I am now back in the house on my own - unless you count the cats.

Good things this week in that the gate has at last been fixed so that it opens and closes by remote! Hurrah! Only taken six months but that is the speed of French workmen apparently.

Had the testing in Hamburg last week, was succesful as far as we can tell so far, so six and half hours sitting in the cockpit of an A321 taxiing around an airport seems to have been beneficial.

Managed to get to look around Hamburg for a bit on Saturday morning so not all work.

Next up is Matt's stag on the 11th looking forward to that, but not sure about the golfing element of the day - could be interesting, and could be a LONG day!

Larressingle and Woad is me...

Took the folks over to Larressingle a fortified medieval village that is almost perfectly preserved.

Apparently one of the most beautiful villages in France, it is an amazing place.

On the day the moat was filled with children on a school trip, fortunatly there was no water in there, and it was just grassy banking.

After spending some time looking around and discovering a bit of the history of the place, we moved on to Lectoure, passing through the Fleuarance.

The purpose of the trekking around was to try and find some "Woad" dyed items, however, being a monday in France pretty much everywhere was closed. So we have to return at a later date, probably on market day to try and find the elusive woad...

Close ups and the house

A few close ups from around the garden

Wildlife and nature

Been a while since I have had a chance to post anything, been busy with visitors and away in Germany for a few days - working unfortunatly - but hey ho, not to worry.








Going to just post some pictures this time, first some from around the garden.









Giant black bees, took ages to get one decent shot and doesnt quite show of the Indigo blue that covers the body and the beautiful wings look like oil on water, with multiple swirling colours



Managed to bag one in flight though!

Blue Tits in flight

The toad that won the swimming competition!








The cherries have been amazing and it is really difficult to eat them quick enough. Even with the birds helping themselves to the high branches there are kilos of cherries to be had

Toulouse Markets and Art

An early start and made our way into Toulouse - starting at the Capitole, we walked down to the covered market at Place Victor Hugo - an amazing array of food and drink on display. Everything from Lapin to Cheval on the meat counters, and Angler fish to Turbot, langoustine the size of small lobsters and a myriad of shell fish and small fish the majority that I have not seen before.

Cheese, bread, wine and coffee were available and for a Sunday morning it was amazingly busy.

We then took a walk across to the Eglise St Auban, where there is a fantastic market around the outside of the Basilica, with everything from food, drink, materials, crafts and potteries. Too much to take in on a first visit - will be going back - no doubt with the original house elf...!





Once we had our fill of the market and all it had to offer, we found a lovely little bistro for a spot of lunch - lovely little place with great artwork over the walls, shame it wasnt busier as it certainly deserved to be - maybe it is a later afternoon/evening place we were early birds I suppose.

After having our fill of great homemade food, it was time to wander back towards the Captiole - on the way wandered through the little parks with the merry go rounds, water features and lots and lots of people sitting and chatting to while away the time - obviously we need to get the hang of this sitting doing nothing of an afternoon, and people watching.



Once we got back to the Capitole, there was a wing of it open that you could go and look around and what a good job we did, fantastic art and sculpture and amazing rooms that are obvioulsy still used for official functions and ceremonies.

After a pleasant 45 minutes wandering the corridoors it was time to head back home - hopefully with some sun and the opportunity to get a refresher in the pool.

Spent the afternoon, reading, floating and chilling out by the pool.

After a great day, we were just out by the pool at 1030 and found a glow worm with the brightest green glow I have seen, the only one we could see but hopefully he will find what he is looking for tonight.

Back to work tomorrow, Hamburg via Munich on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Hamburg taxiing around Finkenwerder airport doing some testing, and then hopefully back Friday afternoon for the weekend.
Hopefully the garden elves will cope on their own!!!

Here are a few pictures taken in and around the Capitole

Wow - 90 in the shade

Wow, what a day, peaked at about 90 in the shade and the thermometer refused to give a reading in the sun - displayed HHH, when brought in it started showing 120 after about 5 minutes...

Great morning wandering around a local garden centre, bought some fabulous geraniums - Anti-Mosquito's don't you know - and some black eye susans for along the balcony railings. A few other bits and pieces - somehow managed to get in the line that had the woman with a problem - whilst all around managed to get through we were stuck waiting for the problem to be sorted, she was very apologetic though and the young girl on the register was very good humoured.

So on the way back home we thought we would grab some lunch stuff and some BBQ stuff from the supermarket, Mum again picked the line and arggghhhh, we had to wait about 15 minutes whilst they tried to swipe her individual savings vouchers into the system - it wasn't playing and the woman wasn't bothered, with all the stuff on the conveyer it was a gamble whether to move - baring in mind we had left my Dad in the car - with the window open a crack of course - it was getting to be a little tedious. Eventually escaped and got home tout sweet to spend the afternoon by the pool.

Had a great afternoon in and around the pool, reading, chatting and generally having a very laid back time. Dad seems to have forgotten how to swim and apart from the grimaces as the "cold" (26c) water reached those delicate lower parts, it was very amusing watching the half drowning half doggy paddle that then ensued.

After a failed attempt at a BBQ the previous evening - totally the useless charcoals fault...- and having bought a 10kg real "restaurant quality" charcoal from the garden centre was determined not to be defeated again!!! Not sure exactly what "restaurant quality" means, apart from bloody good! You could see that it used to be wood and wasnt some compressed lump of coal dust.

Had some Toulouse sausages, fantastic steak, salad and roast (in duck fat) potatatoes.

Finished off by watering the plants new and old and hosing down the poolside ready for tomorrow.

Off to Toulouse tomorrow to visit a couple of "fabric" based markets so Mum will be happy - I guess Dad and I will have to find a Coffee shop (bar) to wait in.

One other thing that did happen in the last few days is that the "Garden elves" have been, and have done wonders for the Roses, borders and driveway. They also collected 5lb of cherries of the tree!

New discovery today is the mulberry tree in the garden, small black mulberries that are so sweet, the ground is black in places where they have fallen.

Todays Wildlife count...

2x Lesser spotted woodpeckers - although may have been Middle spotted as seemed small

2x Jays

2x Green woodpeckers

2x Nuthcatch

Flycatchers; Swifts

many blue and great tits.

Black Kite

Buzzard or maybe even a short toed eagle, and then this evening bats and an owl of some description but in silhouette so not sure what it was.

Tree frog returns

Mum and Dad arrived via Easy Jet - apparently a very good flight, and very good service so thanks to Stellios and gang!

Spent the late afternoon picking cherries and looking around the garden and house - they both love it which is great, actually heard them talking about 'leaving some stuff here for the future' - will have to watch that they dont decide to move out permanent, that may just be a bit much...

Had some mail destined for #61, noticed it was from the UK so hand delivered it and met the english family living there, been in the house since September and in the area for five years, apparently there is also an American in one of the other houses, so will have to keep my eyes and ears open!

Another great day of 26c, although a short shower in the late afternoon didn't put too much of a dampner on things.

Whilst doing the pool chores managed to grab a tree frog that was sat on the pump house, took some pictures - best one here, also had a wonderful sunset again, still working on getting the best out the camera in these conditions, really think it needs a tripod, but will persevere.

Three!, yes three hours of French tomorrow morning - mainly due to me being a doofus and turning up at the end of the last lesson and not the beginning... oh well.

Keep an eye on these posts as I haven't spent this much time with the parents in years, who knows what might happen!!!!

Cherries and Rain and old photos

Well not even got a decent picture to post today, rain and overcast for the weekend, which has pretty much matched my mood.



However, the cherry trees branches are brushing the grass with the weight of fruit on them, almost but not quite ready to pick, have had the odd one here and there, but I think another few days of sun should do it.



It feels like one step forward and two steps back at times here, just when you think everything is straightened out in your head, it does a complete u-turn on you and gives you some nasty suprises, all part of the process I think and just have to push on through.



Preparing for the first visitors - excluding house elfs... - this week so should be a fun ten days coming up - although I am keeping the sanctity of work available in case it gets to be too much of a strain.



Been a very busy week with lots of work on the A380 certification, and in a couple of weeks a day taxiing around an airport in Germany to look forward to... maybe not though!



As I dont have any new pictures to post, will put one up from Kenya from a couple of years ago....