You know who your real friends are ...

... when you ring them up and as if they fancy a trip to Montlucon on Friday morning - arriving there (45 mins from here) at ... errr ... 07:00.
"What's the score?" asked Terry
"Brico Depot has some interesting stuff in the arrivages that has caught my eye but it's big and bulky, and we need to be there early"
"I'll bring the trailer then".
I hate to tempt fate by making announcements about things that are outside my control but if this comes off it won't 'arf be a stunning development for round here.

So where was I? Ahh yes. After the usual couple of hours on the web pages I went outside and spent a good deal of the afternoon putting the second coat of paint on the rendering of the lean-to. You can see what the rendering was like prior to the painting if you look at the bottom left-hand corner where I couldn't reach. I know which one I like better.

That took me until 17:00 when I went off and attacked the garden. Clotilde gave me some of her lettuce thinnings yesterday and so I weeded and hoed a few spaces in a couple of the raised beds and planted them in ... note to self - when I thin out the leeks, send some round to Clotilde in exchange ... and then gave them a really good watering - not that they need it of course in this weather. After that I checked on the carrots and beetroot that I planted a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be doing fine and so I planted another row of each. Cetainly covering the sowings over with old caravan windows seems to be the way to go here.

That took me until 19:00 when I knocked off. Thoroughly exhausted - you've no idea how much like hard work all of this is.