After a six day trip back to England, it's wonderful to be back home and amazing to see how much the garden has come on in that short time, with the wisteria already starting to put on a good show.
I went back for five reasons really. The first, a dental appointment, as I am dentalphobic and my dentist in Cornwall treats me like a four year old which is just what I need. The second, to have my car serviced and put through it's annual MOT, which it passed with flying colours thank goodness. The third, to celebrate my birthday. I shall not be able to sing the Beatles song When I'm Sixty Four anymore, as, unbelievably to me, I am now 64. The fourth reason, was to see the children and my grandson Charlie. The last reason was to fetch back in the trailer, huge vacuum packed bags of compost (compost in France is not the best), bedding plants for my terrace pots and those items of food that I can live without, but prefer not to, and they're cheaper to buy in England eg Horlicks, Cheddar Cheese, Bacon, Ginger Biscuits etc. etc. I also came back with a new dishwasher as mine appears to have died and electrical goods are much more expensive here in France.
We went down to the sea at in the morning of my birthday and then had lunch at Sams right on the beach and I was treated to a lovely rib eye steak meal there.
Anyway, it's good to be back. Libby and Charlie came back with me and will stay until Easter Sunday and we are all enjoying the incredibly hot weather. April has been seriously sunny with temperatures way above what are expected for this time of year. We had a lot of good weather days in March too, so I, as a sunworshipper, have been very happy. I noticed today that the temperature in London is expected to reach 25 degrees centigrade, whereas the average temperature generally at this time there is 13 degrees centigrade. On Monday, Charlie caught up with his three year old English friend who lives here and enjoyed playing the Memory Game with her and the Mums on the terrace in the sunshine.
Yesterday, we went off to buy lots of perennial plants to fill up my large border bed. The couple advertising them on the expat website were very hospitable and we had coffee with them on a deck which spanned an enormous pond filled with koi and goldfish. We then drove the couple of miles to have our picnic and spend the afternoon at Mael Carhaix lake. It was a glorious afternoon with only three other families in the whole area, so lovely and peaceful while I took photographs of some delightful ducklings and read my book "A Parrot in The Pepper Tree", the sequel to "Driving Over Lemons", by Chris Stewart. I recommend them both.
The ducklings and their Mums and Dads were being kept in order by a lone goose, who wasn't standing for any nonsense at all - it was very funny - but you had to be there.
The ajuga has really spread this year and has softened the edges of the big border. The blue flowers are lovely against the purple foliage.
The only rotten bit of news this week is that Matthew, my oldest son, who went into Treliske hospital yesterday for a minor operation to remove two screws, was unable to go home at midday as planned as his hip wouldn't stop bleeding out. He eventually had to stay overnight, with instructions to lie on the wound to put pressure on it - not very comfortable! I've spoken to him this morning and the bleeding seems to have stopped, so after he's waited all morning to get some antibiotics he should be able to return home. I am so glad I am no longer under the UK National Health System which compared to the French Health system seems a complete shambles of incompetency.
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