My first weekend visit of the year has coincided with glorious weather and therefore lots of time spent in the garden.

The first surprise is that there is a new drive through McDonalds at the entrance to the Intermarché in Montpon!

I was very pleased to arrive and find a clean and clear pool and the garden’s looking better than ever. This picture is taken after a load of jet washing which has been my main activity!

Now that the tree behind the table has gone evening sunbathing is no problem, particularly on wonderful days like those I’ve enjoyed. It’s 8.30 p.m. as I’m typing this and the sun is only just going down. An added bonus is that the pool light has survived the winter!

It’s definitely all systems go for another great year of trips to the house. I’ll be shopping tomorrow for a new DVD player and pool bags so a trip to Bergerac is most likely. There’s no sign of any activity at the bar in the village but I’ll be going to the town hall to see if there’s any news on that front.

The only big gripe is the internet which is worse than ever. It’s dropping to dial-up speeds, particularly during the evenings. For example it dropped while I was typing this post and I had to start again – very irritating! Our exchange is at Villefranche which is pretty near the limit for a signal and I suspect that the problem is the number of users. I think we’ll definitely have to change to satellite internet.  On a positive note our TV signal for satellite is absolutely fine so it seems that we’ve avoided the problems that others have encountered in the last few months as a result of the satellite being repositioned.