I hope it doesn’t seem too much of a cop out, but I’m going to point you in the direction of my Books Are Cool blog today. I’ve been beavering away on that this last week. There are some more book reviews up, details about some more of my books and plenty of new posts, so do catch up on it. I’ve also dished out an Unexpected Index Award!

Apathy hasn’t struck at the Blog in France end – just exhaustion! This morning I had a good, long bike ride, and then a food shopping session (ugh) at Boussac, amazingly accompanied by Ruadhri, voluntarily! That was a nice treat for me. Washing, washing-up, animal husbandry came next and then a gentle hour’s lugging lumps of tree to the trailer from our woods, followed by splitting and stacking all the logs. Now that I’ve sat down at my computer to be creative, nothing’s happening! And I know I had a really good idea for this post a little while ago …

Approaching Thunderstorm by Martin Johnson Heade

We had a major thunderstorm last night (Monday). It went on for well over an hour, and the fuses kept tripping. Finally some much-needed rain for us. Nessie, the dog, couldn’t cope and tried to hide in a corner of the lounge. She can’t handle thunder at all. In contrast, the llamas and alpacas didn’t seem to notice. A couple of them didn’t even try to get out of the pouring rain and hail. They’re very stoic and resigned animals – possibly not very bright!

Normal blogging service will be resumed tomorrow.

Daily snippets for 27 April

Today’s saint:  Saint Zita of Lucques, born around 1218

Today’s dicton: À la Ste Zita, le froid ne dure pas. (It won’t stay cold on Saint Zita’s day.)

Famous French person born on this day: Marc-Antoine Parseval des Chênes, in 1755, mathematician

Famous French person died on this day: Olivier Messiaen in 1992, musician and ornithologist. He incorporated birdsong transcriptions into most of his music.

Today’s French words: l’épuisement – exhaustion / la paresse – laziness (which am I really suffering from?)

Today’s French expression: avoir un coup de barre – to be worn out