As bizarre as it may seem, but we did have trips which didn’t involve Switzerland. And as hard as it seems to me, trips that happened before Hawklad. A time before I had digital, so it’s been time to try out the scanner.

France about twenty years ago, a hot summer in the Loire Valley.

The Loire if I remember right is known as something like the Garden of France, a perfect description. In our experience, it’s also ‘if you want to see a glorious Chateau, Loire is the place to be.’

Chateau de Villandry is almost 500 years old and in those years they have been working on the gardens. Really really really working. We came here twice and I’m sure with more years, we would have come again and again.

Now can I get my garden looking like these……

That’s as Spring-like as it’s got so far…

You know those meetings, the meetings where TIME becomes irrelevant. In fact everything seems irrelevant. Everything goes into slow motion. You do that neat shark trick, where they switch off half the brain but still manage to swim. I had switched off more than half my brain and was still able to hold a pen, randomly nod and prevent gravity pulling me off my chair. The words just drifted by. Then like a half sleeping shark smelling blood in the water, I was jolted awake.

Did he just say ‘you need a HUG’.

Panic setting in, this was the oddest looking kind soul, this was a bad tempered, grumpy, ex rugby player who looked like the only thing he had tackled in 20 years, was copious amounts of FAST FOOD. In his own words – a man who looks like a garden shed.

Two emergency escape options open to me, sprint through the fire door (but that went way too close the the garden shed) or dive through the window.

But I stayed put and quietly whispered ‘yes I probably do, the last one was probably 7 years ago’.

This produced a puzzled look from my colleague.

‘Are you saying the van is 7 years old, I thought the van was that older. Well anyway I know a garage which could probably fit a replacement Wheel HUB way cheaper than the main garage,’

HUB not HUG.

Good job I didn’t crash through the window.

Really Good job I didn’t act on impulse and take him up on his initial HUG offer.😂😂😂

No sign of Spring yet….

Twenty odd years of living in rural parts kinda makes you accustomed to power cuts. The other night seemed no different. The flickering of lights like a Hollywood Ghost Movie, then everything goes off. Usually the lights come back on within a couple of hours.

But not this night.

This night, the lights flickered and then a huge explosion from somewhere across the fields. Then blackness.

A recent innovation is that the Power Company now sends out text messages to say when the power is likely to be restored.

This night, the first text was as expected.

“Specialist Teams are on their way”

Then

“Specialist Teams are on site, power is likely to be restored by 11-30pm”

11-30pm and no lights….

“The work is taking longer than expected, power likely to be restored 12-30pm”

12-30 became 1-30 became 2-30 became 3-30.

“A large equipment failure has resulted in serious infrastructure damage….further updates to follow as soon as we have more information.”

The only lights apart from the house candles are the work team head torches and vehicles zigzagging across the muddy farm fields.

Morning breaks, more activity along the power lines.

7-30, 8-30, 9-30, 10-30, 11-30.

Finally in the afternoon the lights flicker back on. Lights not quite as bright as usual. A huge temporary generator has been dropped into the village. It’s a noisy village for the next few weeks.

The dog walk reveals what’s happened to the poor farmers field.

Apparently technologically speaking the local infrastructure failed. In normal speak, a local sub generator EXPLODED. It was old and didn’t like getting flooded repeatedly.

Well at least the sheep still have the field to themselves. No sign of the previous nights mayhem.