We have finally finished the last of the clearing up that needed to be done when we arrived back here. The thieves left a shocking mess as a welcome home greeting – we have been to the gendarmes and reported it all officially, we assume that most of our stuff will be flogged as a vide grenier (car boot sale) or two in the local region. We still cannot work out how they broke in as this place is like Fort Knox when it is secured and we triple checked everything with zeal when we locked up and left back in January. Yes…we do also have some suspicions as well but until the gendarmes investigate we cannot say anything just yet.

After the huge storm in February we lost some roof and metal tiles off the building – we assumed they blew off in the winds but then again they could have been removed by hand…

Our lovely big tree in the garden got blown over during that storm and is lying across our pond – that tree had a very deep root base so god knows what those winds were like. Nevertheless we know have a good source of firewood!

One of the nicer aspects about spending a couple of months back here in France is the four weeks I am getting to spend with my son and his fiancee here. They have been living in Versailles for a year and are about to make the move to Germany where she will complete her university degree – they have a flat sorted in Kiel and Patrick is really looking forward to setting up house in a new country. He certainly is satisfing his inner travel bug.

They are staying here with us until end of July and have half their previous flat packed into several suitcases which they have to lug all the way back to Paris on the train and then on to Hamburg. We have offered to store some of their heavier items in moving boxes whichwe can then deliver to them at a later stage so they are considering that. It is a good excuse to have to pay them a visit in Kiel and get to see some of Germany for ourselves at the same time.

I sure will miss them when they take off on the 27th…