A Freshly Cut Lawn..

...is as good as a haircut. Or...Lawn Mowers should be designed by wimmin! (more on this later!)

Being a bit of a lawn mowing fanatic...feeds my OCD's...I enjoyed today's outing in the yard despite the constant rumblings of thunder and ever threatening skies.
Waz weed wacked while I raked and then mowed. Visual peace is the objective here, never mind that it is an ongoing thing. Think of all the wonderful exercise we get, says she, when he observes that the ongoing thing is in fact going to be ongoing!

Being outside was a necessity today. Mostly out front with the gates all open, because we had received one of those most infuriating of messages in our mail box, to tell us we had missed a signature-required letter. Grr!! Waz found out how to get them to re-deliver it, online, and we said that we would be home to receive it this morning. I think there is a door bell in our immediate future, also!

Around 10am the Postie arrived, but not before we had made a significant dent in the hedge that threatened to consume the front deck, and the side (west) lawn that was so overgrown as to be unusable.
Well the lawn is still unusable until I get the hedge trimmers out and do some badly needed topiary cutting....notice I said *I*!
Well, maybe not. The hedge trimmer is heavy and my right shoulder is 'stuffed', so perhaps I will allow the Wazster to do it! ha! I see him licking his chops over this one:) Who knows what shape we will end up with!

I first heard the mower out front, and went out to investigate further. He was making nice on the roadside. My own efforts were supposed to be in the large bedroom upstairs, emptying the closets of stuff that we dont want. Plenty still to do in that department, but it looked like it would be more sensible to be outside while the fog was hanging around and it was cool enough to warrant a sweater, at around 16C.
It had rained overnight, and all the plants were looking perky. This single rose is out front on the roadside.

 Still foggy at 9am, and we still have plenty to do in these gardens. We cant expect to do it all at once, but we sure are trying hard, lol.

 I'm not the only 'neatnik' in the family! It looks so much nicer now, and lovely to come home to a place that is looking more lived in. That Wisteria grows in leaps and bounds!

 Meanwhile, inside the fence, I have attacked (yes, literally) the hedge that threatens to obliterate the fence....Waz had to reinforce the fence post before we left for Florida at the beginning of April, and we swore we were going to take the hedge out on our return. I decided to see what was inside the hedge, and if we wanted to take it out after all. The jury is still out on that one!
We actually have some wide steps down to this west side garden, which were unusable before I started chopping.
Yes, I'm anal about how I make piles of stuff too! All sticks have to go the same way...makes for easy pick-up!

 Not a pretty sight, but at least we can now get down the steps into the garden space below....well, we will when we cut those lovely trees back...the aforementioned topiaries.

As I said, 10am the Postie arrived. The letter is addressed to me...are you Monica? etc, and then the please sign here! Duly signed and delivered, we ripped it open. As suspected, it was the car registration! YAYAYAYAY! Finally! We wondered if we would ever receive it. It only took 3 1/2 months! We have been driving on a temporary one, which is only good for a month! sigh!

That done, we decided to get to Jarnac where we discovered is a branch of our bank. Yay! We had been told we had to validate our new Credit Cards at a bank machine, and of course the bank is closed on a Monday, but the machine was available, and we did as required. Phew! Another one down...how's that! Two in one day and all before lunch!

Now that it was 11.15am, we decided to see if a Grand Crème was available from one of our favorite bars in Jarnac (we have only yet experienced 2!).
We really like this medium sized town on the Charente River, with the Hennessey Cognac Distillerie in the middle of the town square.
We were remembered as Les Kiwis, by the bar owner who speaks excellent English, and we were welcomed as French Folks now! He was excited to hear that we are now permanent residents in his country. His bar lady spoke some English, but we insisted (as we do) on speaking French to her speaking English. Grand crème was most welcome, and we sat on the leather sofas to enjoy them. Fortified, we now needed to go to the SuperU supermarket down the road, for some groceries. We had run out! The lunch time menu  in the bar included Fish and Chips....lots of English reside in and near this town...and we were sorely tempted to stay.
We were disappointed by the small SuperU and decided to go to the other SuperU in nearby Chateauneuf sur Charente, on the other side of where we live. Just 13kms either way. Nice!

The latter one is large and has a much better selection of goodies. It also has some relatively (in France) nice toilets! Important, that!

We are always flabbergasted that we can get so much food for so little. A large shop for us is just around 115 euros, and that's about what we spent today, using our new French credit card...whoopee!  dont laugh...it saves us money on exchange rates!

We had intended to find some lunch out, but thought better of it and didnt want to drive the 13 kms back to Jarnac for the F&C's, instead settling on a cup of soup and some of that sliced Cereal bread we had just found at SuperU, once home around 2pm. Of course we had to finish that off with a dessert...as you do.
The raspberry tarte was exquisite! Fabulous flavor in the berries, and just 1,35 each. Later Waz told me we had been overcharged as the advertising in the mail box said they should have been 2,30 instead of 2,70! Merde! Never mind, they were delish!

 Such intense flavor! I wish you could all taste this! The sweet pastry was perfect too...highly unusual for supermarket patisserie.

Back outside with our outdoor gear on and Waz beat me to the week wacker. I spent time raking the long grass and throwing it atop the ever increasing pile in the middle of the lawn, and cleaning up the mess I had made in the morning, again, further increasing the pile.
Waz wants to have a bonfire! I want to call the Sapeurs Pompiers (firemen) and have them come and do this....there is an almost dead tree nearby that I dont want to end up as an incendiary device...Waz says we have a garden hose that would do the job if necessary! Hmmm.....Fellas and Fire!

Meanwhile, the fog has cleared...yes, it took that long (now 3pm) and the sun came out, making it a hot proposition out there. We sweated it out for a couple of hours before finally coming inside for a drink and shower just after 5pm. I'm a bit sore tonight, but enjoyed being outside making things beautiful.

Down the west side of the house Waz got the hedge trimmer out and made light work of part of the hedge enabling him to get the lawnmower down there, around the south corner of the house. The hedge is a mix of trees, and about 3 meters wide, requiring some serious chain sawing in the near future. We want to get this part of the hedge down to about 2 meters above the lawn, allowing for some privacy but also opening up our gorgeous views across the vines.
The tree in the bottom right corner is pretty, but this is one of three that needs some serious shaping with the trimmer.

 The front lawn has now had three mows and is looking 200% better. That dried arrangement in the center there is about to get the Waz treatment...outski! Too much stuff on the lawn that does not enhance it. You can see where the 'severe pruning company' has been on the hedge by the front gate. I did this at the beginning of April, and it still looks bad. We can at least open the gate flush, now! and dont scrape the car paint.

 At the bottom of the driveway....weed wacked and mown. It will need another mow shortly, but it rained again after we came inside, and all that grass will have grown another two inches before we get back out there, lol.

We will need some new gravel on the driveway, at some stage, but it is low on the priority list I'm afraid.

 You can see the fire pile on the right, covered in grass clippings. I had just finished raking the long grass up, when I felt the spots of rain. The tall tree in the background is going to have to come down, sadly, which means the pigeons will have to find another perch to coo on. The seat thingy at right is also about the be 86'd.

 Can you see the concrete line in the long grass there? Not sure why this is there, but it too will come out at some stage.

 Pyro pile! Yes, that is concrete underneath. This is where the swimming pool used to be places. Waz thinks we actually have two above ground swimming pools in the garage. Talk about buying a 'furnished' house!

 Doesnt it look nice now! Another day and all the long stuff will be gone, and we can concentrate on making irrigation work in the front garden and figuring out what the concrete in the middle of the lawn does. Not good for mower blades, I can tell you!

Now, back to the "Mowers should be designed by Wimmin' thang.

There is a catcher that goes on the back of the mower, as with most. On the right side of the mower (unless you know what you are looking for, you wont find it in this photo) there is a chute. One problem...there is no way to hold the chute open. It has a spring loaded flap...for what? To see if the blade is turning? hmm...
I got very frustrated with the catcher not just filling up, but the grass not clearing under the flap as well. I asked Waz to drill a hole in the flap so that I could raise it up enough for the grass to be ejected out the back. This was his immediate remedy!(photo)  It somewhat worked, but the grass still didnt clear underneath the flap. The poor machine struggles (as you would) when it cant eject the grass and it clogs.
I would prefer a mulcher mower, and this really should have that facility, but it doesnt. It came with the house, so we didnt get a choice in it's purchase.
I can see that the two of us will have to be a little bit creative here. I cant pull the starter cord because my shoulder wont do that, and if you let go of the handle, the machine stops. No way you can empty the catcher while the machine is running, the way I used to do with my most previous one. Safety eh! Humbug for those of us who need it to stay running while emptying the catcher. Waz had to stop what he was doing, to help me start it again.
Ok...if I had to design this machine....well...that would fill a book!

I cooked a rolled turkey roast for dinner with some steamed taties (potatoes), half a large tomato each and the leftover cole slaw from Saturday's lunch with our kiwi friends. Yum! Dessert was a cup of coffee and a sweet cookie...or two. I think we earned our sweet treats today.

Can you believe it, we have been here 7 days tomorrow, and so many changes we have wrought already. I have to find a Brocante tomorrow to help us get rid of some of our furniture. Our kiwi friends are taking some of it for their new home 1 1/2 hrs south east (Dordogne), but there is so much else to go before Wednesday 6th June, when our first container arrives.

I also need to stay inside and get rid of the stuff in the big bedroom closet. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff we have found:)

Well, it's goodnight from me, and I can hear HIM snoring on the sofa, already.

A bientot.