Hold on to that feeling...

Since our return to France, life has consisted of trying to keep two woodstoves supplied with wood and dry four people's washing in the 90% humidity which passes for global warming in Brittany.

There has been a bit of paid work and a lot of cleaning, since teenage standards and my own are not the same...and even mine are quite low...

Drummerboy said that the vacuum cleaner had not worked in our absence but that was because it had not been plugged in and switched on.

Darling D delighted us with the roughmix of 4 tracks that she had recorded in a local studio. They are very good, and that is the singer rather than the mother speaking (although the mother is proud!) She suffers more from proud father syndrome, where Mysweet and a colleague of his at work have a tendency to outbid each other on their respective daughters' achievements. Mysweet played his hand, and the tracks, to his colleague, who enthused about them and then flung down his own ace, saying casually, "I dont know what we have done to deserve such talented daughters... M has just written a book..." Both girls are only 17.

As I finished the washing up, prepared to ferry teenagers here and there and mop the fevered brow of Mysweet, who has worked seven days non stop since our return with jet lag, I remembered that wonderfully relaxed feeling of swimming ...

Here in that giant empty swimming pool....

And thought I am going to hold on to that feeling as long as I can.

I never did get to Sainsbury's and ASDA though. Maybe next time.