What Lurks Above

What could it be, that nightly scrabbling above our bedroom ceiling? That scratching, digging, pattering about even, right above our pillows?

A mouse? A bat? A lizard? A Thing? Then we started hearing the dreaded hmmmmmm.

Outside, sure enough, we found a sizeable hole high up in the wall with buzzy things happily popping in and out. Careful study suggested that these were not bees or wasps, but Frelons - fearsome Killer Hornets very common round here. They’re like plump flying cocktail sausages, and we’ve been gleefully warned about their agonising sting since we first arrived in France.

Inevitably, the day we spotted their nest was the day before friends arrived to stay, one of whom has had traumatic experiences with bees and is therefore somewhat phobic.

So that evening, we placed a ladder up against the wall (which made them quite angry to start with), and girded George’s loins for battle.

Clad only in woolly hat and welding goggles… Barbour jacket zipped up to the nose, two pairs of gardening gloves and reinforced trousers, George valiantly scaled the first four rungs, then came back down.

However, after sustained encouragement, he wiped his goggles, went back up and squirted half a can of Critter-Kill vaguely in the direction of the entrance, slid rapidly down and we both ran like hell indoors.

I think we reduced Frelon numbers, but the colony was not obliterated. Three days later, arriving home with our houseguests after an evening out, the yard lights attracted several survivors. No need to panic – we scuttled everybody inside without a mention.

Imagine our delight when three of the sneaky little devils suddenly appeared in the living room and started bombarding the light fitting like mobile cigars. Our bee-phobic friend was either remarkably brave, or just dazed by the toxic cloud I hysterically enveloped us all in. Squashing the poor things out of their misery was like jumping on lumps of Crunchy bar, but at least it disguised them.

We got through the rest of the visit without further confrontation, and our happy band of hornets seem content to stay above the ceiling, where we are content to leave them for now.

Unless, of course, they invite Hornets We Don't Know.

Blog Day Afternoon

It’s a month since I last did a blog. I vaguely planned to do one a weekish… so what’s stopped me?

Well, anything can happen during the Dog Days of summer, as that brilliant Al Pacino film told us. (I think it was Al Pacino – he was trying to do a bank robbery (in August) and it all went horrendously wrong).

But it’s a well-known fact, apparently, that the sultry days of July and August, with their sweaty discomfort and festering disease, cause people to go bonkers. So there was that to contend with… and the rest of the time I was doing a lot of Stuff – vital Stuff.

And I had to get my hair done. Revitalise the streaks this time – custard highlights and a hint of Fantasy Pink, as Sandrine calls it. I love Sandrine– she’s friendly and bubbly and talks at the speed of a machine-gun. She’s always happy to explain the bursts I didn’t quite catch, so I learn loads of useful banter words and come out looking GORGEOUS to boot (refer to Profile Photo).

Mind you, it was a rocky road finding Sandrine: I’ve been turned effervescent orange, frizzed like Leo Sayer, and then some Fiend with a Bet Lynch beehive, black nails, big jewellery and a voluminous chest (of which I was quite envious), gave me a no2 Skinhead. Not sure why... but if we hadn't found George’s army cadet balaclava I'd have been sobbing in the cellar for six months.

Anyway, we have several serious projects for the summer: for a start we'll have to clean all the windows before the first of our visitors arrive - usually we convince ourselves that people coming round to Make Merry won't notice concretised bird splat on the upstairs velux, but you feel more effort is only fair when people are spending days and nights here.

We should finish the half-done paint job on the landing, and start the paint job in our bedroom. George has made huge inroads into outside renovations - chunks of wall inexplicably fell off when he redid the shutters so now he's redoing the wall.

Sadly he's been thwarted in grass-mowing by the scary noise the lawnmower suddenly started to make. He immitated it (eerily well) to a professional gardener friend who said if he used it again the blades were likely to fly off (in an Omen-like manner). So now it's languishing in the repair shop.

So there we are, and I'm off to do more Stuff.

Very Brown in Parts

Blessed with a natural tint of porridge, I have devoted many, many summertime hours to Leg-Dying.

It began in the hopeful teenage days of TanUfantasticallyFab – an exciting innovation at the time and a sure way of making yourself indefinitely orange in two unfortunate swipes.
Since then, it’s been one letdown after another.

I’ve tried baking in the back garden, too dazzled to read but fully occupied in fighting off millions of tiny flesh-eating creatures that never land on anyone else.

The beach is just as bad and you get sand inside your vest, to boot.

Actually, there was a six-month stay in Australia when I went brown, but only after four months of very pink and a terrifying week of Deep Violet after a foolhardy topless afternoon on the lawn. (The dangers weren’t quite as fully appreciated, then).

The month leading up to my wedding twenty years ago, I spent hours and tedious HOURS on a sunbed so that there might be a sort of healthy contrast between me and my dress, but to no avail. Mind you, I think it helped for the honeymoon, because for the last two Searing days there was a definite tinge of brownish.

I have desperately and fruitlessly tried a new version of autobronze every year… until now! Because they’ve invented a cunning gradual tan. Slop it on every morning and after five days you’ll be beautifully bronzed. And because the inevitable streaks are in different places each day, they cancel each other out!

The results of these potions (for there are many inventors suddenly) are indeed Magical – at last shorts and jaunty skirts can be worn with careless abandon!

There are even face and arm autobronzers so you can join up all the bits! (Personally I haven’t taken that plunge for fear of mismatching and tide marks).

Admittedly, the smell can be a bit potent (but no worse than an essential Mossie-Splat spray). And it’s somewhat sticky for an inordinately long time after application. But what the hell! Just don’t touch anything for three hours … or get dressed or sit down…

And you do have to remember to keep the slapping-on up for fear of pasty fading...

But why not try a version – I’m just THRILLED with my results! and at the barbecue this afternoon as we huddle shiveringly under our damp tarpaulin, I shall flaunt my Brown with pride.

Cast n'er a Clout...

… till May is out, as agèd auntie Doris was wont to say. Well, since every day in April topped 175 degrees, George and I have felt the need to cast quite a few already.

I’m not very keen on heat. Sunshine’s terrific, but preferably with a chill in the air - you can swathe yourself in nice woolly clouts and sally forth for an energetic ramble, returning wonderfully invigorated and ready for a large dollop of Treacle Pud.

In hot summer, however, you must first lather yourself in sticky, smelly unguents to repel attack by horrid flying things and prevent the loss of quite useful layers of skin. When you finally drag your sweaty blobbedness back home, you are ready only to beg someone to pour ice cubes down your vest.

Admittedly, picnics in summer are more fun, because that’s the only time you can get other people to eat outside with you. And in France, everyone loves to eat outside in the summer. Last year we bought a chapiteau – a sort of tent-roof on poles, reminiscent of Camelot. We had a lot of jolly parties under it, but I can’t help thinking they would have been more agreeable if the wine hadn’t been gently simmering and the flies hadn’t been quite so numerous.

Apparently, we may be due for another hideous heatwave this year, like the constant 40C of 2003. We made desperate use of the riverette at the bottom of the garden that summer, specially when we had people to stay. We stuck a couple of old plastic chairs in the middle and sat in turns with a glass of rosé, cool water lapping at our nethers. And we got an inflatable boat for paddling round in hysterical circles. Bliss.

Looking at it now, I can't believe we voluntarily plunged into those festeringly muddy depths - who knows what lurked beneath and why no-one ever caught typhoid.

This year, I shall have all my frivolities down in the cellar.