Read too much of my drivel, and you’ll end up dumber than a sack o’ spanners...

Little less work to do...with the now 'big' two...

Alex hung his punch bag up on a tree a few weeks ago. He likes to have a little punch now and again. He has, however as I remarked this evening, as we hang out for a bit outside preferring to do this the days it’s nice weather-my motto; better out than in, hung it up on the walnut tree. A recipe for punching and thus being pelted by walnuts that genuinely feel like small rocks when they fall on you. He will be being attacked by determined little walnut-rocks trying to take him/anyone within pelting range, out. They would be sat up there perching on their branches waiting, and waiting, and waiting, until someone wanders innocently by and the walnutters yell ‘Now boys, now! This is the moment you have all been trained for. Steady yourselves…aaaaannnndddd, PELT!’ So due to suicide-walnuts,  suffice to say, he may need to consider a punch bag relocation in Autumn.

I've got a luverly bunch of wallllllynuts, diddly dum...

There’s lots gone on this weekend for us. It’s busy times here, we are in the process of (already) preparing for the 2 month school holidays, preceded by weeks on end of 2/3 day weeks, due to the astronomical amounts of bank holidays the French like to blame on various Saints leading up to it. There are jobs being worked, the House to run, vegetable patch to be tended to, nice word that, ‘tended’. Animals to be fed/wormedwatered/de-flead/de-ticked/fussed over/walked (I am grateful chickens don’t have to be ‘walked’. I would be parading giant Ostriches on leads, flapping ferociously to keep up, chicken hooves cliperty clopping behind me, killing everyone in their path, and pecking everything else to within an inch of their lives. They would too, you know. Freak giant chickens. There is also work Alex and I are trying to set up together, with the aim being to earn an income whilst working from home, thus being around to always be with the kids and be able to hang out as a family as much as possible, before the kids turn into teenagers and HATE us. You may well find Alex and I locked in a cupboard by our own doing in years to come, with 4 (or 5, if I have my way!) teenagers at loose. I’ll keep you posted.

The latest craze in Monty’s school is ‘Toupis’, which are spinny disks that one launches into battle with said friend’s Toupi, to see which wins. Various special codes can be used in battle to help you win. Fascinating. Anyway, Monty got his first one at Christmas, obsessively playing with it, only to launch it down a mini tunnel in the wall at the beach, sending it plopping into the sea. It was a devastating moment, and I have still not recovered from the pain on Monty’s face as we watched on in slow motion with him screaming ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ and dropping to his knees in tears at it plops into the ocean. He had to wait ages for his next one as they were out of stock in the shops for ages. This week, we spy them in the shop, another is bought with his pocket money. He is too excited, and we race to the park to see if his mates are there so he can have ‘Toupi battles’. He launches this effing Toupi off the slide and it gets buried in the teeny stones they have there, never ever to be found again, despite my looking for TWENTY FIVE minutes…that’s dedication to the cause. Yesterday we got him a new, new, new one. He goes to the loo, and as they’re carried around everywhere, it plops into the toilet buried this time in his poo. Nice. “Alex…!” His dad eventually (after dry retching for what seemed like hours, T-shirt up over his nose to stifle the smell) fished it out for him with BBQ tongs, I suggest you hesitate before accepting a BBQ invitation chez the Woods.

Well I must love you and leave you, I have not even mentioned the half of this weekend’s events, but it’ll do for now. Read too much of my drivel, and you’ll end up dumber than a sack o’ spanners, I say.

Till the next time, Tamsyn x