A spot of grocery shopping in the morning results in my buying a couple of pieces of meat which would be ideal barbecue material. As it’s turned out to be a nice sunny day, this will be what we’ll do for supper.
LSS has been busy organising some “home help”; basically this is done by a company which specialises in looking after elderly people. Most of the costs will be met by the aged FIL’s insurance policy, but he’ll still need to contribute something. He’s not too happy about the idea but LSS has pointed out that we didn’t come to France solely with the aim of looking after him; we don’t mind helping out, but full-time carers we are not!
I spent the afternoon cutting through the stems of the ivy which is covering the future garage. Although ivy on a building does look attractive, it’s not very good for the brickwork. And this particular ivy has decided it likes the interior of the building as well, so it has to go. Chopping through the base should cause the majority of the vegetation to die off, at which time it should be easier to remove. I’ll tackle the root system at a later date.
At the same time, I prune the grapevines which are being smothered by the aforementioned ivy. It’s probably a bit late in the year to prune grapevines, but too bad.
With the day’s labour complete, I lit the barbecue. But as soon as I put the meat on the grid, it started to rain. However, we’re made of tougher stuff than that. LSS dashed indoors to fetch an umbrella, and I finished cooking our supper under the protective covering of a fetchingly-coloured purple ladies’ umbrella.
“I’m coooooooking in the rain, just coooooooking in the rain…..”