Christmas shopping all done including any food needed. Lidl was empty, Decathlon was empty and hardly any traffic about but the torrential rain and flooded roads might have had something to do with that. Treated myself to a small box of choccies to munch on later for the last episode of the Dr.Who spinoff which I have enjoyed immensely.
What’s the spinoff called, please? Is it one I need to hide behind the sofa for while watching?
Not at all. The War between the Land and the Sea.
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Not sure if this is cheerful or not, but our buyers had confirmation of their loan yesterday. And today agreed the 19th February for the Acte de Vente.
Scarily close. Will have to limit my squardling to get everything done!
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Of course that is cheerful news! I’m so pleased for you - one less thing to worry about even if it does mean an unbelievable amount of work. At least you can be reasonably assured that the money will come through to pay the bills 
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That definitely counts as good news, good luck with getting everything done.
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We had our lovely Bechstein grand piano tuned today.I’m embarrassed to say it’s for the first time since coming to France 4+ years ago, as we didn’t know who to approach before now. I do play it every day.
The young man (18?) who came along to tune it, is an ‘accordeur’, just starting out in same business as his Dad. He advised that due to it’s not being tuned for years, he needed to do a pre-tune and then to return in 2 months, once the strings had got used to their new tension.
The piano has been in our family for a century, originally belonging to my great aunt, who was one of the first female (transport) pilots in WW2. Unfortunately she was more of a threat to herself than the Germans, and she flew into a hillside in Wales.
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That’s a nice machine!
My mother has a Blüthner baby grand made sometime between the wars - sadly it rarely gets played nowadays except when one of my nieces comes over.
She had it “renovated” a few years ago and the morons who did it took it upon themselves to replace all the ivory keys with plastic ones, on the grounds that one of the original keys was chipped. 
Notice that they were so proud of themselves that they also “decorated” it with an advertising sticker.
I wasn’t around at the time or I would have been down to see them with one of Basil Fawlty’s gnomes…
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Final visit to the zoo at Doué-en-Anjou.
Saw (and heard) monkeys, penguins, otters (unfortunately, all MOV files so not uploadable) and the about-to-be-7-months-old snow leopard cubs.
(In the second picture, the cub on the left is saying, “Hé! Tu penses que tu es Chris Mann?”)
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Lovely snow leopards, they’re good photos.
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It was so quiet, we were their entertainment!
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Yes, superb photos - the cubs are absolutely beautiful.
I love my 3 little beauties to bits, but the these are magnificent creatures - you are so lucky to have seen them.
This is Charlee sitting as proud as anything …
Here is Tabatha on her favourite settee …
And Lord and Master Bobby - keeping warm under the woodburner …
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Is Charlee a Burmese, Rachel?
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No - she is a feral cat who was abandoned by her mother with the other two. All so different but in the same litter. And such different characters too 
Never mind the piano, what a lovely fort it makes for the pups! 
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They’re all beautiful and seem to have found all the best places to be warm and cosy. I’d say that Charlee has some oriental genes with that colouring.
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Very thought provoking though at what mankind is doing to itself and the planet.
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A friend said she thought Charlee was a Chartreux breed. And she said Bobby was a Tuxedo and Tabatha was a tabby with white patches.
Doesn’t matter to me what they are - they’re just lovely
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A Chartreux would have amber eyes though and I think could be chunkier than your Charlee. The colouring with green eyes could be Russian blue.
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Reminds me of the anecdote that @Ancient_Mariner began the Jokes thread with!
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