FRANCE - May - June 2009

Arriving late in Ambrieres I could see yellow safety jackets on the bridge - perhaps an accident ? It turned out that it was the end of a day of protest by dairy farmers, over the price they are paid for their milk ... they were stopping cars to give away free litres of milk !

The night of arrival was hot and humid, and the scent of the rose by the front door was overpowering. That night there were electrical storms .... all very tropical !

Later in the week the farmers were protesting normal French style, blocking roads, beseiging supermarkets, emptying slurry in the store entrances, daubing " Voleurs " on the windows and setting fire to hay and tyres in the supermarket car parks!

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..... ( Protest pictures courtesy of Sara Blythin )......

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Downstairs, I built a fire surround and cut out the fireplace. Final decoration will be done and a shelf fitted - and the fireplace lined with fire cement - on the next visit.

For the other bedroom, I converted a single bed frame to a double bed frame. As ever, where to work was a problem !

But the finished product was well worth the effort. Some more shelving in the fireplace recess, and curtains, will complete the room.

Cutting the pollen laden grass, and the dryness and the dust from the fireplace construction, helped to give me a hayfever type cold for a few days - ending up with the usual nosebleed - the latter returning for a few more days later in the trip when working again with cement and plaster.

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A wall was built to tidy up an area to the front of the house, and a reinforced platform was put in to create a useful area which may well become a site for a future storage feature.

The trip ended with a visit in the evening to the Gorron music festival, where various bands were playing in the streets. The Blythin family were all engaged, playing in the Lyre Gorronaise Orchestra, or the Batucada street band.

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