Who says you can't be happy all the time?

For the next ten (12?) weeks, you can certainly be happy on Sunday evenings providing you have BBC2. Yes indeedy, the "men with the best jobs in TV" are back. [Lis beams with glee]

There's something happening somewhere

Finally we may have a breakthrough in Hubby's quest for a new (and interesting and challenging) job. He has been offered a 3-month secondment in London to work on the roll-out of WiMax projects. More details will be forthcoming. Suffice to say we are all mightily pleased and hope that it will be a fulfilling experience for him, whatever it may lead to.

No more working for a week or two

Actually that's not strictly true, as it's back to the slave-caves tomorrow as it happens. Still rewind a fortnight and it fits just nicely.

So here I am back from two blissful weeks in the Ardèche. Sunshine, kayaking, hiking, local markets, swimming and general lounging around for two weeks sounds like a decent holiday in my book. And that's what we got.

I don't know where to start or what to tell. We hired a car, hoping for a Scenic as we've had in the past, but instead Avis fobbed us off with a cheap and nasty Citroën Picasso. Disclaimer: no offence intended to Citroën owners. Now, Citroën make cheap and nasty cars made by and for people who's brains are in the wrong way round. Still, ripping the piss out of the car did pass the time in Paris traffic jams.

We stopped overnight at Hubby's Dad's. C made an absolutely lovely meal all of local produce (asparagus grown on the neighbouring farm, boar shot by JP this winter, local cheese and salad from the garden, and strawberries again from the neighbouring farm). It doesn't get much better than that! C's cooking is always a delight, even her 'just everyday' meals. Even though we were still quite full from a big lunch, we all took second helpings. I guess holidays are no time for watching your weight anyway!!

The next morning we had a walk round the farm with JP, and he showed us a foxes' den. It must not have been in use as Doggy didn't seem to pick up a scent. As JP said, if any animals had been there recently, even our "townie" dog would have noticed. It was lovely to walk round the farm and chat with JP. We were even lucky enough to spot a couple of red deer near a copse of woods.

Temperature was cold and sky was grey on arrival, but it soon got better and we enjoyed visits to local markets, mini-hikes, kayaking, swimming and lazing around in the sun. We did have one day of rain, but we managed to make that go by fairly painlessly by simply faffing around so expertly it took us all morning to leave the gîte and all afternoon to have lunch. How about that.

I love going to the Ardèche. I love the ace weather, the walks (we went on walks for wimps, as it was too hot for us to attempt the interesting-looking mountains in the distance - maybe one year we'll conquer them in October when it's cool!!), the markets, the fresh local food, the scenery... It's all jolly fab. So if you're looking for a fairly active holiday in France, go to the Ardèche. I have even added the gîtes to my links list so you already have somewhere to stay!!

Anyway I wanted to tell you all about it in great detail but I can't recall it all/be bothered to structure it all. Pics on Flickr.

And so they're back

No prizes for guessing where I'll be at 20:00 GMT+1 tonight. Slap bang in front of the telly, goggle-eyed in front of the new series of Top Gear! Perfect timing to keep away any end-of-holiday blues.

Relax, take it easy

Following Mika's orders to the letter down here in sunny Ardeche. Hubby and I are so definitively addicted to thei nterweb, we have sought out a McDonald's and have scoffed a muffin and pulled out the laptops. Read laptops, Hubby's using mine and I have swiped Mum's. QWERTY keyboard is requiring some acclimatisation after so many years in France!

Anyway, Hubby at least has an excuse. He has a phone interview Friday am, and needs to get the job spec off his email. I just can't stay away from the interweb!! Thought I'd grab the chance to say a big blog hello. Holidays are very much fun though no kayaking has been done thus far. Will tell all on my return.

Slobbery cyber kisses to you all. xx

Pleased but hacked off

I'm pleased because it would appear my laptop won't have to go to laptop hospital after all. A couple of weeks ago, the screen started behaving oddly. It looked like somebody had drawn on it with a fluorescent felt pen. I was getting odd vertical blocks of bright pink on the title bars of windows instead of the gentle blue-fading-to-lighter blue we Windows slaves know so well. The clouds on my desktop wallpaper picture had lost their fluffy whiteness and were becoming a garish red around the edges.

Hubby (on my nagging instructions) called Dell and the bloke made him go through the usual IT quick-fix of updating every possible thing there is to update. It seemed to work. But then the fluorescent felt pen came back and it was worse than before. I was deeply distressed. My laptop would have to go to laptop hospital. I was to be deprived of blogging, the interweb... And how long would it take? I mean, I can use Hubby's computer for a couple of days in an emergency but it's not nice like my laptop. What was I going to do??!!!

Hubby sent another email to the man at Dell saying we had a relapse and things were looking critical. Dell-man wrote back with a last resort repair plan to try to keep my laptop out of after-sales service hell. Plug in an external screen and see if the same problem occurs (why didn't we think of that d'oh!). Everything looked fine on the external screen. Well, it wasn't the graphics card, but it was the screen. Oh no, repair gloom loomed... But wait, one last thing to try. The other IT stalwart of "unplug it and plug it back in again". This involves open-keyboard surgery on the laptop, to get to the bit you have to unplug and plug back in again. And it was there we discovered the source of the problem. A dog hair.

"Suction, nurse," commanded Hubby as he prodded at the innards of my laptop with a screwdriver. And no, it wasn't some odd new sex-game we have going on. My laptop was infested with little white dog hairs. Now this is something you can't use a Dyson for. Too much suction. It would have sucked up all my keys. Lucky we still have the ancient cleaner with adjustable sucking speed. Cleared up the dog hairs and put the laptop back together and the felt pen has gone! Hurray!

So why am I hacked off? Well, my new toy is broke. Proper broke. I've only had it for a month. Don't buy a Sony digital camera is my advice! So it has been shipped off to after-sales service hell and won't return for at least 3 WEEKS! How long??!! And what really made me fizz was that if it had gone broke two weeks ago, they would just have replaced it pure and simple. That'll be the fantastic statutory consumer protection in France then. Grr.

Alan Johnston freed

I guess I can take my Alan Johnston button down now... the BBC's Gaza correspondent was freed by the Army of Islam in the early hours of this morning. Relief all round in this house in any case.

Looks like Hamas will be trying to make political capital out of this happy conclusion to events. Let's see ...

The ultimate gift

Some heart-lifting news at last! Toddler Zoe Chambers today underwent heart transplant surgery. You may have seen or heard Zoe's story at the weekend, when doctors in Newcastle had her placed at the top of the European transplant waiting list, believing she only had a few weeks to live. Even being number one on the waiting list would not necessarily guarantee a match would turn up so soon (or at all), given Zoe's young age and specific needs.

It's truly heartening news and I do hope that baby Zoe recovers well from the operation and that her little body accepts her new heart. But, naturally, happiness for the Chambers family is matched only by grief for the anonymous parents of a small child who has passed away. And they found the courage and humanity to give Zoe another chance at life. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I admire you! I'm praying that your selfless decision to help Zoe, who you don't know and who possibly lives in a country far from yours, gives you some solace at this most difficult time.

These people are an example to us all. Organ donation would appear to be quite a taboo subject, with many people who are registered as donors failing to inform their next of kin about their choice. Ultimately, this can mean their wishes are not respected when something awful happens, as their surviving family refuse to give consent for organ donation. Whatever one's personal views on the matter, we all have a duty to respect the wishes of those we love. I truly hope none of you are ever faced with the decision ... but if you are, remember the chance you have of giving someone else a new life and new hope.

Party under the sun and clouds

We just spent the weekend at Hubby's dad's farm in the Sologne region of France (just south of the Loire around Orléans). Saturday he held a family party to celebrate his 60th birthday and our wedding. It was another lovely day and interesting to meet many of Hubby's family. There is quite a strong family resemblance actually it's rather striking. And one of the cousins gave Hubby a book of his family tree. They have managed to trace back to 1609. Fancy that!

We (hubby, parents and I) arrived on Friday early in the afternoon. Immediately got to work blowing up balloons and making them into sort of balloon arrangements and attaching them to the picnic shelter down at the pond (well, it's a small lake really). Unfortunately we lost a few in some heavy rain showers. So we changed tack and just filled the Clio with balloons ready for the next day and last minute decorating.

Once the car was full, the menfolk helped the marquee people to put the marquee up (they only turned up at about 5.30pm!) and Mum and I took Doggy round the farm. Poor Doggy, she unwittingly tested the electric fence round the corn fields (used to keep wild boar from getting in the fields and scoffing the tender corn shoots). She got such a fright I felt so bad for her.

Bro, whom we had expected to arrive for dinner, got stuck in some especially nasty Paris traffic and they finally turned up at gone 11pm. Super nephew was in a good mood though and had been really good on the whole journey (from Selsey to Romorantin!).

Fairly early start on Sat. to lay the tables and empty the balloons from the Clio. Weather looked ominous but in the end the sun shone nearly all afternoon, with only one heavyish shower. Yet again, step-mother-in-law had orchestrated a veritable banquet. She should go into events hosting, I swear. We had giant pike (from the currently-drained pond), two whole legs of ham, various yummy salads and some rather magnificent cakes. The French are quite good at eye-catching cakes.

All in all it was a lovely day and a pleasant weekend. I just wish we could have stayed for longer. Parents and Bro and his hangers on are spending the week at the farm the lucky things. Wish I could have stayed on to enjoy super nephew. Of course, Doggy doesn't reckon much to him. Stumpy little person, she probably thinks! He is quite fascinated by Doggy, but fortunately for Doggy his attention is often quickly distracted. I have plans to teach him to pull the hairs on his dad's legs. :)

Wedded at last

Time to do some catching up here, but where to begin? We are now back at base camp after two weeks away, first in Scotland then in the Sologne region of France (where hubby's dad lives).

So, Edinburgh... We had a great time but it was a bit of a big rush as usual. The main reason for the trip was Anne and Garry's wedding. Anne and I have been friends since playgroup. Anyone around my age will know what playgroup is and will thus know that means we've known each other since we were about 3½! So I couldn't possibly miss her wedding. Especially as it has been such a long time coming and was postponed from March to allow for the arrival of baby #3! See some pics here. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny and very enjoyable. I was really pleased to see two school friends there too, we'd somewhat lost touch but I am determined not to let their email addresses disappear from my contacts list this time! Hubby and I had such a good time. I had a bit too good of a time and was one of the living dead the next day, but that's another story not to be told here.