After posting last week about the swallows, this morning the valley in front of the house has martins flying around. I did see them in the distance high up yesterday, but now theyāre closer. Iād guess they took are going to be gathering before migration.
āWhat a good place beā with thanks to the house martins 
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My discography is lacking here. 
Happy hour
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I think @vero might have been quite proud of me today. Visiting Porto Vecchio old town we got chatting to a couple of French ladies for a few minutes. One of them said that I donāt have an accent in French which was a lovely compliment. I know I do have an accent and a lot of people hear it but I wonder if she meant that I know to accentuate the last syllable of the words.
This lady also said that she"s learning English and understands how hard it is to get the pronounciation right. Itās a shame we couldnāt have chatted for longer but it was nice while it lasted.
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I repotted an orchid (after watching many videos and getting some great advice from my SIL) and appear not to have messed it up.
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We love orchids and Stuart is the Orchid Master in our house. He feeds, waters and repots them on a regular basis. We call it āweakly weeklyā meaning a weak orchid fertiliser fed to the orchids each week. Sometimes in winter the week extends to 10 days - it all depends on whether they need watering or not. But Iām not allowed to touch them - Iām a plant murderer apparently! 
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I have been instructed in the reading of the roots to tell if it needs watering and a bottle of orchid feed is on my shopping list.
I have been known to kill plants, but such events usually featured the enthusiastic use of mowers and brush cutters.
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Your Stuart sounds like a bit of an Alan Titchmarsh.
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And Monty Don et al 
I can kill plants when they are still in their seed packets.
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I salute your superior skills, Sir!
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This brought a gentle smile to my face anyway. https://youtu.be/hbxzhtgDf_o?si=c8_wuiDhPYdvfLVn
No swearing, no politics, except a passing mention of Count Binface in the comments section.
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We have new opposite neighbours.
The previous owners were from Paris and had zero English but immense amounts of good-will, and that made precision of communication un-necessary for the amount of interaction we normally had. The new neighbours are a Belgian couple, about 5 years younger than us, wonderfully polyglot and also very friendly. They havenāt moved in because thereās no furniture (only completed this afternoon) but will be around for deliveries of wood etc later in the week.
This is particularly good news because friendships that we started in the first 2 years have struggled because those people havenāt been around for the last couple of years, and itās not the same over long-distance.
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Not sure how cheerful this news is but I sold my motorcycle on Monday - we wonāt have anywhere to store it at Diās so it had to go. (She Whose Views Must be Taken Into Consideration is also nervous about me getting knocked off a bike).
That said, I really havenāt been using it very much in the last two years so it was sensible to sell it.
Anyway the cheerful bit is that the chap who bought it (as a surprise for his daughter!) came all the way from Devon, and gifted me two and a half dozen farm eggs as part of the deal! 
Weāre also about to put my Mumās house on the market now she is settled in her care home - had the first estate agent round yesterday - so progess is being made on that tooā¦
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We have some rain, not a lot but enough so I donāt have to worry about the garden. Its cooled down too after days of high 30ās again
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You didnāt strike me as being all that dangerous when I met you, mind you you were standing next to it at the time. 
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Madame is more bothered about other road users knocking me off the bike, rather than me being some sort of two-wheeled terrorist.
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I know there are several of you on here that wonāt buy from, or have anything good to say about Amazon but we feel different about the company.
In June of last year Stuart bought a nail stapler/gun with several packs of suitable staples and nails to fit. He hasnāt used it until last weekend when he began the job of stapling the wire mesh netting for the catio.
Then yesterday, it packed up. Heās normally a good āfixerā but he couldnāt get it to work so he said we should get in touch with Amazon to see what they said. We werenāt expecting such a good result - after all the stapler was bought more than a year ago.
So we contacted them via their Contact Us/Chat Line, they agreed to give us a full refund for the machine and also the nails/staples. We did explain that a couple of the boxes of staples had been opened and used but they said donāt worry, youāll get a refund for all of it. They sent emails confirming all the refunds (which ties up with the orders we placed) and a āpostageā label for us to send the items back. We packaged everything up and went to the local La Poste agency in the village and they accepted the package.
We have always been satisfied with how the Amazon CS Agents deal with us and yesterday was no exception. The agent couldnāt have been more helpful or friendly. So weāre on the lookout for another stapler. Trying to get a Bosch (to go with all the batteries weāve got) but canāt find one suitable at the moment.
Apparently Stuart said we need a machine that will take narrow crown staples so while heās gone to do maintenance work at the lake, Iām tasked with doing a search on the internet for suitable staple gun. Wish me luck 
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I feel the same way Rachel. I have always had excellent service and would rather buy from them than a local shop.