I was a very proud Nona listening to my georgious grandson read from a book....I miss that

We put our clocks forward an hour and for a day it seemed that everything was out of sinc. It was blaring daylight when I went out to invite the hens to go bye byes and they were most certainly not playing ball, if you have never rounded up hens then come and have a go, it is secretly funny but publicly humiliating. I will now need to change my age old winter routine to accommodate the girls. HOSS is well pleased, his normal little trot after dinner is now too early for the hens to shack up so we will need to get out again later...ohhh gooodie in doggie speak. Today we had a three hour power cut, Mike has instilled a deep and robust lack of confidence in French electrics so when we realised nothing was working after lunch I immediately rushed around the house to see where I had overloaded the system, but today, it was not me, I popped over the road to see if it was a total black out and ended up staying for a coffee and handed over my British shoulder-to-cry-on as my very French neighbour is in the middle of a messy family split up and with no electricity and pouring rain outside I was the dish of the day. I wouldn't mind too much but I honestly only catch 50% of Annie's conversation, so much of the discussion is guess work. It was good coffee though. Mike got brave and agreed to take me to the beach to collect sand on Sunday. We both feel like we are plundering and pillaging from nature when we take pebbles and sand but I really can't see why I shouldn't have a few buckets for my garden, that said, we still act like we are stealing the crown jewels and put HOSS on watch in case we get nobbled. The first three buckets gave us a good idea of how it is all going to look and I am delighted that a little idea, nicked from a local roundabout design is looking promising. I got up a little earlier today to catch Toby in Australia, he was four today and catching the kids on skype is the nearest to being involved and taking part, but it is still tough and I was left a little empty over breakfast but he had a great day and we did laugh together. I buy books on-line in Australia so the kids get books from us. There is a great childrens Australian book section and I chose a book called "far out brusselsprout" and it is a collection of play ground chants and Blue read me three today on line from the other side of the world and I was a very proud Nona listening to my georgious grandson read from a book....I miss that . Happy birthday Toby