Tidying like mad fools!

Today, we had a couple to view the new house for a change. We're used to spending hours and hours tidying up and showing people round the gites, but today we had to get stuck in this side of the road. I still haven't caught up since the kids were off school! DH tackled upstairs and I did the downstairs. I filled two bin bags with rubbish and stashed and dashed the rest! I'll never be able to find anything now. A middle-aged couple from the "north of France" arrived with the agent ten minutes late as is the way of French people. They walked round for an hour, inside and out; it couldn't have looked any nicer since the sun was on it and the garden had been tidied up too, but they didn't give anything away. She was deadpan, and he asked sensible questions, like how long does it take to cut the grass and how much is the heating bill per year.

That's that then. We'll probably not hear another word from them, but at least the house looks tidy for now.

Took Woody for his vaccination afterwards. I had a job to get him into the vet's, he remembers! Luckily for me, there was a little girl who looked just like Dear Daughter (10) who came out to see what was going on, and he followed her back in as I couldn't have forced him in there, he's much too big and heavy for me! €43 up your shirt! Why do vets assume that as you're English, you keep on nipping back and forth across the channel with the dog? I mean, why would you want to do that? If we go anywhere abroad, usually Spain, we put him in kennels, which seems much more logical to me. I had to talk him out of the "pet passport" with rabies injection at an extra €16!

Whilst I was there, I made an appointment for next Wednesday to have the youngest kitten, Shadow, castrated. Might make him less inclined to fight with the other three older, wiser and also castrated cats!

That's it for now, I have to go and get Dear Daughter (10) back from her friend Lucie's house, where she slept last night. It's seemed dreadfully quiet without her. The rest of the family are no company whatsoever - all they ever talk about is rugby! Dear Son (15) is here with his girlfriend cooking some pasta in the kitchen (they'd better not mess it up!) (they will!!) They make a lovely couple, but her mum has remarked that they're seeing a bit too much of DS, so we're taking a turn. It occurred to me that they might as well be wed since they see each other every day at school, text each other constantly and whilst they do their homework, they have MSN with webcams so they can look at each other. It wasn't like that in my day when lads ran the risk of my dad answering the phone if they tried to ring me! No mobiles in those days!

Speaking of mobiles, Dear Son (14) replaced his yesterday, it cost €269 out of his savings for his scooter (that's been put off for a while now), but it does clever things like plays games with dice which move when you shake it. You can even make phone calls on it! I'll give it a week before he loses his stylo!

I'm rambling, must get on, and more importantly, let you get on!

Well, you said you missed me!
XXX