it is so easy to be generous when you have a glut of everything.

Yesterday I threw back the shutters to the fresh smell and exciting sound of rain, I shouted out "thank you god" woke Mike up, and probably the whole of Brevands. It was all however, very short lived and by breakfast we were all dried up and bathed in bright sunshine again..not complaining, just thirsty.

We are in the middle of a change of use for the out buildings and what was the wood shed is going to become the recycling room so that we can clean up the out house which is the exit into the back yard from the back kitchen and should be clean and organised or at least have a storage purpose of some kind. Mike cleared out the bundles of kindling that we inherited from the previous owners and intended to dispose of them at the dump so we loaded the trailer and this morning intended to set off into town, but Mike had a Belamy moment and decided to see where we could make a couple of bug palaces in the garden. I am always up for a natures-way solution to anything and we went off for a ramble onto the field to think it through and decided to make two piles in the middle of the wild flower area so that in the winter we will have structure and in the summer there will be a las vegas venue for the bumble bees and creepy crawlies who frequent such places.

Having emptied the trailer we were free to go to the gravel pit for our first load of red course sand for the Boule park. There is, with all things wholesale or direct, a strict procedure and we were asked to go to the weigh bridge then collect shovels and make our way to the private client area. Alarm bells started to ring at the sight of shovels and Mike was very ill at ease at the prospect of loading our own trailer. Sure enough, as non business people we were expected to load up by hand, no front loader or JCB or anything. Our astonishment and disappointment at having to do the work ourselves was, I am pleased to say, echoed by a French couple who told us that this was a new procedure and were spitting feathers at the inconvenience, then came over to ask what we were doing with our sand and when we said a boule park or as Mike prefers to call it a terrain de petang, they both confirmed that we were using the right material and nodded and confided with each other. I wouldn't mind, but we hadn't asked for advice but silently I was glad to have a second opinion.

My neighbour has gone and I look out of my side window from where I used to count the cars in and out and there is no movement or action, I am sad but today their oldest son rang the gate bell and asked if I had a spare lettuce because some friends had come to see him at the house for the last time and he had nothing to feed them with so we marched into the poly for a lettuce four tomatoes and an onion, it is so easy to be generous when you have a glut of everything.

I forgot to mention it was Maggie and Gig and Neils birthday on the 1st August HAPPY BIRTHDAY xxxxx