Rural life

Finally have the internet again. Felt very lonely without it! No way to update my blog, get my stats or do any promos. Concentrated on Wimbledon instead, and not overjoyed to see Rafa go out this afternoon. OTOH, Shreikapova was ousted by Kerber, and Lisicki is still going. Seems like all the modern coaching, training, nutrition and knowledge means that players reach their peak at around nineteen. Or, as Tracey Austin says, they’re fearless at that age. No expectations, no nerves, no reputations to uphold, they can take a swing nd they’ve nothing to lose. I expect Kyrgios will be like all the others who break through in a big match – he’ll not get through the next round.

No workmen for a week, and then they turned up this morning and put some top soil on the patch behind the mill. The digger is still here, parked up like a sleeping dinosaur, so they expect to return at some point. It seems that nothing gets done in a rush here.

Bill seeded the patch before the mill pound with meadow grass, so now we’re watching it every day expecting bright new blades of grass to burst through. I’ve been coppicing the trees and cutting off broken branches left behind by the diggers. I couldn’t sleep, so I finally got up at 3.30am and crept into the living room (difficult to do on a creaky wooden floor). The frogs are croaking outside, making a hell of a din. Made myself a cup of Marmite and ate a chunk of bread and jam and began writing this.

When we drove into Vergt this morning I noticed tiny paw prints on the windscreen  - a squirrel has used the car as a vaulting horse. The birds and the deer are eating all the berries, quinces, plums and cherries they can find, and we find little piles of excreted stones everywhere. A bird flew into the house one day this week, panicked and started excreting indigo droplets instead of the usual white stuff. Another has dropped a bomb on the edging of the pool as it flew over, so there’s a nice deep blue stain on the limestone edging. I’ve no idea what will bring that off!