Our lawn had itās first cut off the year this morning - a sign warmer weather has arrived. TBH it seems a few weeks early.
With our very wet spring the grass here has been crazy for weeks - and we have been mowing for weeks. The joy of robot mowers is they can cope with long wet grass much better than sit on mowers.
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I mowed for the first time a few weeks ago. Had to wait for the water table to go down enough so that there was no surface water ā¦ except for the wettest patch that I couldnāt do where the grass was about 25cm high. OH strimmed that yesterday.
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Lidl selling the Somerset cheddar again from Bruton, unfortunately the cost was a euro more but still less than a small block from Super U the origin of which is dubious EU I think. Good for cooking so can be frozen, got several blocks. Went to the biggest store in France, I believe and they had baskets and self cash out tills plus exit only by printed receipt.
A couple of our Lidls have recently had self service tills put in and thereās now only two normal ones instead of five.
Is this good news? Try taking a trolley into the self scan. A skilled till operator can rattle through a whole trolley whilst amateurs at the self checkouts take more time, maybe thatās the reason trolleys are not going through self checkouts?
To get firmly back onto Cheerful News: sunshine is wonderful, fields are covered in frost and look fantastic, forsythia is in full bloom everywhere, even in the wild woodlands , and gives a golden glow to the still slumbering hedgerows etc.
and the extra-cheerfulnews: Weād caged one rare orchid to save it from strimmers but before we could cage the only other one in the village,
it was zappedā¦ aaarghā¦ but OH has seen it finally rising from the debrisā¦ hurrah. Iām off to fit a cage and give it a chance to survive.
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Well I think itās good news especially if you only have a few items and not a trolley, hence the pull along baskets on wheels. Self scan here means one of the hand held self assessing thingies and then going to a designated main self scan till as in Carrefour, LeClerc etc takes twice as long as the smaller self scanning without a device tills as they make you empty all your bags here especially in summer when the thieves are out in force. I gave up using those hand held whatnots a long time ago.
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Same here, and I have 2 blasts of yellow colour growing through the greenery, but thank you for reminding me of the name, I had forgotten it when chatting to myself this morning, and Jules is useless, he never remembers names.
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Weāve also got gorse bursting yellow, but the flowers are not so densely packed as the forsythia.
Hazel trees, with their yellowish catkins bursting with pollenā¦ are also looking wonderful ( but they do give the sniffles to those with sensitive nosesā¦).
Had a super time at our local leclerc jardin this morning. Terreau was on offer (3 for the price of 2) so we bought 6 bags of it, we also bought some beautifully coloured violas and managed to find an Alchemilla Mollis to replace one we lost last year.
And itās a lovely day today - sunshine, light fluffy clouds and around 13c. No rain forecast for several days so Stuart can have a couple of sessions chipping all the hedging heās cut down over the past several days.
Itāll soon be cuckoo time too! Thatās when you know spring has really sprung.
Keep smiling everyone. 
And I forgot to add: Lidl have got some super stuff on promo starting on Thursday. So Iāll buy some nut brittle, a small jar of asparagus and some pastel de nata !
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Really cheerful newsā¦ after a fraught few weeks during which our lifestyle was threatened, the local election is over and done with.
Hurrah.,. the āgood guys/galsā have been re-elected and peace and goodwill wafts over us allā¦
Here in Brigadoon, we are breathing a sigh of reliefā¦
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Yes, itās the same people elected here again. The current Maire was included on every single valid ballot. Not surprising as he was elected for the first time six years ago and since then the team has transformed the finances of the commune, almost eliminating a sizeable debt whilst managing to get a lot of very positive things done.
You mean it is 100 years since the last one? 
I think I can speak for all of us here then, you have weathered very well if I may say so. 
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The work on re-doing my waste pipes in the vide sanitaire started yesterday by my very competent plumber who did not install them when the house was built or they would have been attached to the Dalle. The DeƧenelle insurance has paid me direct plus some extra for inconvenience getting said pipes debouched and for strengthening the new ones in place. Speaking to various neighbours who all built roughly the same time and by different companies, seems they too have had the same problems which goes to show where corners are cut that the customer cannot see easily or the employees have no idea how to do the work in the first place, scary!
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I hope that solves your problems, Shiba. Could I ask where/how you found a competent plumber please? We need someone to do a specific job and Iām having trouble finding the right person.
My chap lives in a nearby commune and actually did the inside plumbing and fitting the bathroom units and the water heating system when the house was built. Since then he has been to replace the reverse clim system for a newer better one for me as the original, only two years and a bit old did not work very well and was out of the two year Mitsubishi guarantee so I bit the bullit and paid for a new system complete and am very pleased. He probably would not travel far at the moment due to the petrol/diesel prices as he is very busy locally. You could ask your neighbours who they use or ask at the local Mairie for a recommendation as they use local artisans etc
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A common problem it seems Shiba. The Normes state burried pipes should be thick walled pressure pipes and depending on the depth either 10 bar or 16 bar pipes. Even on many French built swimming pools by some quite large companies they used domestic waste pipe burried down at 1.5m hence they collapse.
You must try Farmer Gracy, excellent products and prices, UK site but also Dutch grown and sent direct from there I think dahlias are currently 40% off! 
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Thanks for the reminder Tory. I will certainly have a look the next time we need some plants. But weāre really happy with Dutchgrown.eu and the guys who own the nursery (Ben and Pete) are extremely helpful and friendly.
Glad to see you on the site again - hope things are going OK for you and your family.
Rachel xx
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