Returning

We left Limoges just after 7am and arrived at our house around 9.30am.  We always drive the last few kilometres in trepidation, somehow expecting that the house that we left in October will have had its roof blown off, or will have been infested with vermin, or will have suffered burst pipes everywhere.  None of that turned out to be true.  I had set the central heating to kick in if the living room temperature fell to 5.5 degrees.  We arrived  on this, the coldest day of the winter with outside temperatures as low as minus 10, to find that the thermometer inside the house showed 6 degrees.  It did feel cold inside, but we got the central heating going, lit the big wood stove and turned on the backup electric radiators (no-one is ever going to freeze in this house!).  Then off to lunch in L'abri du Moulin  with Janice (Peter being away on a book tour).  Karen and Marco have done a fabulous job on their new restaurant and will, hopefully, reap all the rewards; good luck to you both.  We repaired back to Betaille with Janice for cups of tea and yet more catching up chit chat.  Back home in Lentillac, with the house now well warmed we have been nibbling on local delicacies and drinking some wine, exhaling the stresses and strains of the last few months.  What do you mean, "what about the horse"?  Oh, that horse.  She has been around here, in the field that adjoins our property, for a long, long time and has featured in quite a few previous blips.  She came thundering down the hill to see me this morning, clearly believing that I had apples or other delicacies to give her.  Wrong on both counts!  But she did stay long enough for me to take her latest portrait. I'll get her some apples tomorrow.  Extra Blip is wee Bella, our faithful Fiat Panda, who (yes she is human) fired up on half a turn of the starter after sitting around for three months in the cold and rain.  No rats eating at her wiring like last year!