Too busy to write

Gosh, I realise it's been ages since the last post. What have we been doing? Well, finally Ali, Erzsi & I have finished cleaning all baked on mud and clay from the ancient tiles that came from the chapel bit of the house.

As Ali's done 99% of the work on these tiles, over the past three winters, she is justifiably delighted that they're done. There were thousands, so don't think we're making a huge fuss over the few you can see in the photo.

Justin, my lovely brother (also known as Freddie), is going to be re-laying them while we are in Australia.

And we leave the day after tomorrow. I'm so excited. Thanks to our guardian angel M, we are being air-miled club class on BA all the way to Perth where Ali's family live. We are taking the fab TGV train up through France, then hopping onto the Eurostar in Lille. From there it's a short ride to London where our great-mate-Kate is giving us a lift to Heathrow. Next stop Singapore, although for only a moment, then on to Perth where we hope to be greeted by Ali's parents Don & PAm & her sis Trisha and her partner Tam. Then I suppose we'll sleep for a fortnight before heading back.

Meanwhile Lee, Zoe & Ioan get to look after Le Couvent and all its ailing animals. Because we are going away, Tabloid the fish looks close to death, the hens have all gone off the lay, Gouttierre the fat cat has decided to stop eating for the first time in her life, Kit looks miserable and Flynn didn't bother with breakfast. Oh, and the hot water boiler's gone on the blink - as it always does while we're away. Our phone hasn't been accepting incoming calls for nearly a fortnight thanks to a France Telecom cock-up, so everyone thinks we haven't paid the bill. Fortunately we can still phone out and have internet access. But apart from that everything's hunky-dory. And we're in excellent spirits.