Exhaustion

Adrian and I are completely knackered at the moment.  We're working like mad to finish things off before the first 'summer' guests get here and most of it's very physical, in the garden stuff and also we seem to have been gripped by a heat wave.  Not that I'm complaining, I love the sun and hot weather, I just don't like lugging tons of rocks and chippings and slabs of slate all over the place in this heat (I am not exaggerating on the weight).  Just had to get in the pool this afternoon - a bit fresh - only 20 degrees today, but much-needed.  It's so hot, the sand-bed has already dried out (that's the underground filter for what goes into the septic tanks, I don't think I need to explain further) which doesn't normally happen until mid-summer.  Just hope that the weather stays like this really - we've got guests in all gites starting from Thursday....

Today one of my many jobs was to uncover the boule pitch.  Normally it's left uncovered over winter and by spring it's turned green with little weeds and tufts of grass which have to be pulled out by hand.  It's a long job.  Bright idea last autumn - had some black plastic lying around the place so I covered the boule pitch with it and weighted it down with rocks.  So first of all I had yet more rocks to remove.  Then I took off the plastic sheet.  Wahey!  No weeds!  Boo! The local worm population and their friends and relatives had moved in over winter and it was all muddy at the sides and there were lots of little mounds scattered all over the surface.  A depressing sight indeed, I did not have time for this kind of thing.  Anyway, gave it a bit of a raking over and a few stamps with my boots here and there and it's looking a lot better.  Still need to resurface around the edges, but we've got the stuff for it, so I'll get around to it sometime....