then to Brico Marche and Vive le Jardin to shop till we drop.

I threw the shutters open this morning and saw a tanker-lorry parked at the gate, we had no delivery scheduled so I ignored him and hoped he would soon find his delivery destination as he was sending HOSS into the cosmos barking out a warning " there's a tanker at the gate". the phone then rang and it was the tanker-man full of the joys of spring here to top up our gas. We have learnt that you don't argue with these merchants, we are under contract and it seems they can come and fill up when they fancy it.....or need to russel up some business. We took on a half load so the anxiety of more cold weather forcing us to order gas in a hurry is illiminated. Our unscheduled delivery did however get us both up and breakfasted before the sun was confidently in the sky so we set off to St Lo for a day out in town. We started at the "Archives departementales de la Manche" and ordered a viewing of all documentation for Brevands which had us enthralled for nearly 4 hours. We read through years of newspaper cuttings and maps of the area revealing some amazing facts about our little and seemingly sleepy village. We knew that there has been a house here since 1750 and the soup warming stone in the kitchen is the oldest part of the house, what we didn't know is that in 1765 the sea was only a quarter of a mile from the property making it a nice little seashore residence, in the following 200 years the dykes had been built and developed to bring Brevands from 780 hectars to 1290 hectars putting our house and land bang in the middle of the village. We found pictures of the boarded- up and derelict chateaux in her hey day and promised ourselves a naughty little look soon, it is a fantastic structure, I am told that our Maire has tried to contact the owners to tell them they have a civic duty to put it back on the map for Brevands but his letter was returned not known at this address.........someone needs to go and squat there for seven years and take it over.......but fear not, it will not be us. The other job for the day was to get vaccinated against flue but having found the place, it only opens two days this month for three hours each day...shame they did not mention that on the invite to take part so I called our caisse maladie office and gave them a true Viv style piece of my mind and suggested that France was doomed as nobody was vaccinated and we were all going to die.......I hope the poor chappy on the other end just thought I was mad and has not taken his cyanide pill to end it all sooner. We visited the depot vends in St Lo, had lunch, big event for us.. then to Brico Marche and Vive le Jardin to shop till we drop. Happy birthday Debbie....30 today