Keith & Clare Channing's parking space on the Information Super-highway

When we take the dogs for their walk in hot weather, they always make for any stream or puddle to cool down. With his thicker coat, Ulysse suffers most and sometimes the heat even brings on a fit – not the result we are looking for on a nice sunny day.

With summer approaching (we hope), we decided that we should give the dogs a way to keep cool, without shutting them in the house. Whilst shopping last week we found what seems to be an ideal solution, sold by Carrefour for only 5€. If it works we’ll have cracked it.

Back to the period since the last words here. The weather for the fête was, at best, undecided. Within a couple of days, it changed to decided and, you guessed it – spring showers.

There is, to my mind, something altogether unpleasant about looking out of the window watching heavy rain approach, when there are things to be done that are better done, shall we say, in the absence of heavy rain. Sadly, this set the pattern for a few days – some of the heaviest rain we had seen for a while. We were hoping it would clear up in time for the lunar perigee on 5/6 May, when the moon would not only be full, but at its closest to the Earth.

What can you do in this weather, though? I didn’t even bother getting a big camera out, but here’s a snapshot of what we saw.

Inspiring? No. Disappointing? You bet!

Meanwhile, part of the local herd of Charolais cattle were rehearsing hard for their spot in the hit show “La France a un incroyable talent“. As a title, it is grammatically superior to Britain’s Got Talent, although I imagine the content is no better (I can’t really say, as I have never watched it). The act that the cattle are developing is reminiscent of the dance troupes that graced our Saturday evening screens in days gone by, or maybe even a bit like synchronised swimming on grass. Here they are moving into position for their legendary spoked wheel formation.

Whilst all this was happening, Clare was at a friend’s house, looking after her cats – one of which developed pneumonia and is quite poorly. That put a lot of stress on Clare, and she was not unhappy to hand the cat back when her friend returned.

Back at home, things are changing, too. The bread oven room has been re-purposed as a workroom for Clare’s craft activities and doubles as a lounge for anyone who comes to visit.

This is an early view of the room seen from the entrance door. There is a TV on the extreme right (just visible) that has a UK FreeSat connection.

From the other direction, you can see there is also a HiFi system. Speaking of HiFi but not, except that it sounds similar, WiFi also works in there.

Moving these things down from the study has freed a lot of space up there. Clare still has her corner with her PC, although she tends to use the laptop downstairs more, but the rest of the room is my play area – study at one end (with coffee making facilities and a water cooler, of course)

At the other end is my developing studio (or study-oh) where I shall be trying to produce animations (clay models, Lego and anything else I can think of) to at least pre-school standard

I have been experiencing a little frustration on the technical side. I have good stop-motion animation software on my laptop (StopMotion Pro), and the Microsoft LifeCam Studio webcam is superb for the job. I also have iStopMotion on the MacBook and had decided to use that exclusively, especially as it will interface with my DV camera (which the laptop won’t). It is also a pest having to disconnect the laptop from the external monitor, speakers, network etc just to take it across the room to do animation. The latest twist is that, although the MacBook recognises and uses the LifeCam, there is no driver for it that gives any manual control. It is, therefore, unusable.

Still, it is fun and, without any shame or embarrassment, here is a very short animation that represents one of my very first efforts. Two warnings

1. Don’t blink – you’ll miss it, it’s only five seconds long
2. You may need to watch it more than once to see all the actions. Mind you, it is only five seconds long.

That’s all I have for now. Today is pa(ni)cking day. Tomorrow we set off for a week in England.

We shall be going in the Twingo, although it is astounding how much space there is, even allowing for an extra passenger on the way back.

Sadly, the Astra suffered a total brake failure recently, and is now in the hands of a mechanical engineer. The parts are on order but won’t arrive for a few days. Jan, the man in question, will also see if he can sort out why the camper suddenly decided that starting is an optional activity. Something electrical that baffles me.

The dogs will be in the very safe hands of a friend, and we shall be on our first overseas trip for a couple of years.

Today was the day of the St Maigner fête. Last night, for the second time this week, we had some of the strongest winds we have experienced for a while and we were surprised that there was not more noise and damage than there was.

I think the weather may have affected attendance at the fête. Generally, at about 2pm on fête day, the road into the village is full both sides with parked cars, as well as there being a car park in a field, holding probably 50-80 cars. The field was not in use today, possibly because of the recent rains and winds, and the approach roads were not as busy as I would have expected on fête day. On the other hand, we may just have arrived a little early.

The fête followed a similar format to previous years, with a display of vintage and veteran cars (one of which is four years younger than our camper!), various market stalls and a play. Oh yes – and the band, which was playing when we arrived.

I’m glad we managed to see that part of the proceedings, one of the trumpeters, Michel, is a good friend.

Among the stalls were those that we are accustomed to seeing – those selling saffron products and donkey milk products as well as those selling cheeses, bags, small jewellery and so on. There was also a stand displaying irons through the ages:

A sign on the stand requested that visitors not touch the irons. I don’t think I need telling that! A fascinating collection nonetheless.

To say that this has been a week of inclement weather might be a bit of an under-statement. It has been muggy, drizzling, raining and blowing on and off all week. The week started with some very high winds, one result of which was an adequate demonstration of why gardeners refer to these things as blow-away greenhouses.

We have been trying, without success, to source a replacement cover for the larger one. The smaller one is still serviceable and withstood last night’s blow very well, being now secured to the terrace with bungees.

I looked out of the window during the week and the mixed livestock I saw made me think of veal and egg pie. I wonder why.

Our noble, unelected, overpaid rulers in Brussels know what is best for us. They know what we need for a happy and carefree life and, provided we all continue to throw our hard-earned cash at them, they will part-control, part-nanny us from cradle to grave.

In a demonstration of hypocrisy of the most blatant kind, the people who gave instructions to national governments (remember them?) about the use of CCTV surveillance for our enhanced security and safety, to ISPs about the keeping of detailed records of all web site visits, emails and telephone calls (I shan’t go on; the list is almost endless) are about to bring into effect the EU Privacy Directive. And what is the main thrust of this? Cookies. Those little text files held on your computer which are surprisingly easy to delete, which the options panel in all browsers allows you to control and for which, in the event that users don’t know how to delete or control them, there are a number of add-ons for the better browsers. Cookies can be used for what may be seen as bad things. They can be set up to allow a web page to read where you have visited and choices you have made, and can use that information to deliver adverts that are likely to interest you rather than random ads. They can be used to analyse visitor behaviour. I hold my hands up here – I use one (through statcounter.com) that sets a cookie when you visit this blog. Next time you visit, the site sees the cookie and, instead of adding one to the count of new visitors, it adds one to the count of returning visitors. Sorry for the intrusion. Oh yes – they can also be used for good things. If you click on Cards by Clare and add a card to the basket, it is written into a cookie. When you tell a site to remember your credentials, it is frequently written into a cookie. That’s why, if you use another machine, or even another browser on the same machine, it doesn’t remember it – the cookie is specific to a browser and is easy to delete and control!

The lesson we learn from this is that individuals’ privacy is paramount, unless it is some level of government, or someone on behalf of some level of government that is snooping. We live under the blanket of certainty that, when government allows strictly controlled snooping for our security and safety, it will never, ever be used to check whether people really live close to the school they want their kids to attend, that they always put the right stuff in the right bins and that they pick up after their dogs. These are, after all, hardly matters that fall within the set of things that laws designed to combat terrorism and serious organised crime are designed to cover.

Rant over. Be advised though, that from next week, there will be a banner or pop-up asking you to confirm that you are happy to accept cookies from this site. If you choose not to allow this site to place cookies, it will have no effect on your experience unless you wish to buy from Cards by Clare.

Next Sunday, our local commune, St Maigner, celebrates its annual fête. Called the Fête de la Saint Georges, it is always held on the Sunday after 23rd April and has, for the last ten years at least, featured a reconstruction of bygone times. This year should be quite interesting. We are promised a retrospective covering life in the town from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.

There will be a full programme, starting at 8:30am with tripe in the auberge. We shall probably pass on that, for a raft of reasons, not least of which is that it might take more than the allotted half hour to force it down. At 9am there will be a high Mass in the church, followed by a procession. Whilst that is happening, I shall be in the study, updating my Picture of the Week on the Trust’s web site (link).  The ancient, traditional street market starts at 9:30am.

We are looking forward to the music. In at least one of the ensembles, friends of ours will be playing, and it is good to support them. The market itself generally has a number of very interesting stalls, amongst which are those run by a saffron farmer, selling an amazing array of products based on or enhanced by saffron, and a donkey establishment that sells, amongst other things, ass’ milk soap.

Although the event, including the old vehicles and farm implements, are drawn from a long period of history, the reconstruction, generally taking the form of a play, is concentrating on the Middle Ages, the reign of Louis XIV, the Revolution and the first empire.

I feel some photographs coming on!

And now a photograph (smoooooooth transition there), simply because it shows something quite rare.

Two dogs on the same sofa – non-one’s teeth bared and no-one’s back up. A moment to treasure.