I didn't have such a good day today.

I was up and about by 08:00 and that's not something that happens too often as you know. By 09:00 I was busy on the laptop writing up my notes.

Anyway, I became somewhat side-tracked, like you do ..."like YOU do" - ed ... with an exciting little story that I managed to piece together and which shows just how much of a role coincidence seems to play in people's lives. There are two neighbouring villages, St Sulpice and Lavaltrie, on the north shore of the St Lawrence. In Lavaltrie is a man named Riel who has 14 children and as his farm is far too small to support them all as they grow up, the younger children disperse westward to where Canada is expanding. Meanwhile, in St Sulpice is another family, the Lacombes, who also have too many children and the younger ones likewise disperse, one of them becoming a missionary to the Blackfoot Indians in Saskatchewan.

In 1885 a rebellion breaks out in Saskatchewan and the Missionary Lacombe is sent to persuade the Blackfoot not to join in the fighting. When he arrives he finds that the leader of the rebellion is busy trying to incite them to join in and butcher the Government forces.

And the leader's name? Yes, Louis Riel from Lavaltrie. What a small world!

Of course the story is far more complicated than that, but I only have a small amount of space to write it. Anyway, you can see why I've been side-tracked for most of the morning.

This afternoon, when I finally did manage to go outside, I checked on the beans and peas. The peas are slowly coming to life but now there are about 20 baby bean plants busy battling their way out of the soil. I definitely need some more climbing frames for them and so I'll have to see about some wire netting tomorrow.

After that, it was up on the roof and put the second layer of mortar on the roof joint. Hopefully that won't need any more attention. It should be watertight anyway as there's plastic membrane there anyway and there is an overhang off the house roof that will shade it. I used the rest of the mortar to fill in part of the gap in the rendering. There's still quite a bit of that to do as well.

After that  did some tidying up in the lean-to and noticed that I had some cucumber, courgette and gherkin seeds that are okay to plant in the beginning of June. As we are still a few weeks behind with the weather right now I hoed and raked an few empty bits of a couple of the beds and planted a variety of seeds there. They have two chances now, whereas in the packet nothing would ever be likely to happen. I also made up a few pots with lettuce in. I'll see what happens to that lot.

When I was down checking over the beans and peas I happened to look up the slope across all of the other beds that I had set out, and with all of the plants happily growing away in them I really did have a moment of pride. With the drastic weeding since I've been back, I have to say that my vegetable garden looks the best that it ever has. The new climbing frames for the beans really do set it off.

Tomorrow it's Commentry shopping, seeing what I can find for wire netting, and then maybe I'll go for a swim at Neris. I must look my best for the village fête and evening walk tomorrow night.