To pick up where Fox left off on the beautiful nights of our little village, a fortnight ago the Perseids meteor shower was once more scheduled to light up our skies. We went to the Galopin for a couple of drinks then headed home. I took the air bed from upstairs, along with a blanket, and set it up in the middle of the playground. With a glass of wine in hand we waited for the streetlights to go off. When they did at 11 p.m. sharp, we laid on the bed with Mooh between us and marveled at the spectacle. Some were quite small and disappearing fast, one or two were big and left a scar of light on the black sky that took some time to fade away. It was quite unique, and we were happy to be able to enjoy it the way we did, in our home lookng at our own bit of sky.
Now that the holidays are drawing to an end and that France is reluctantly going back to work, we are finally bracing ourselves for a second wave of quotes and, we hope, the imminent start of the renovation of the classrooms. The guy we are hoping to retain for the job came last week to have another look and to discuss some issues. Unmistakably French with his thick white moustache and red cheeks but with the adornment of an African chief, Mr G. was worried about the cost of digging a trench along the walls, inside the classrooms, for the foundations of small walls that would support the concrete beams of the new elevated floor. It would be quite an expense because there was no way a digger could be brought inside to do the job, and now that the men had gotten used of using effort-saving equipment and machinery they weren't too please to go back to the shovel or whatever it is they were using in the past to dig trenches.
But after much grunting, head scratching and measurement taking, it was decided that digging trenches was no longer necessary, the beams would be directly inserted in the outside walls of the school. Crisis averted. Well, until the quotes are in, of course.
As for the teachers' house it's slowly happening too. Suspended ceilings came crashing down, with the exception of the kitchen's and the bathroom's, and Fox and I are often looking at the regained height with delight. We went to buy sinks, toilets and shower trays the other day as papa is coming soon to give us a hand updating two of the bathrooms (he didn't plan to but got concerned, I suspect, when I told him I'll be "doing it all by myself", including fitting toilets where there are none at present).
Fox also did a tremendous job in the garden by smothering the knotweed, digging it up and covering it with tarpaulin and drenching anything growing through with poison.
As for Mooh she's still growing up fast. Now in her teenage years she has developped selective hearing and a taste for rotten pears (don't ask). Her baby teeth have fallen out and the big, white, adult ones are coming through. She ain't gonna be small and she'll have teeth to match.
