Saturday, July 11, 2015

Agate seas and swimming and a little free sandblasting later....


Friday 10 July 2015

Probably very hot at home - delightful 27 on the coast

Get up and examine the doming on the resin pendants and, frustratingly, the resin had run and attached them very firmly to the kitchen roll on which they were resting. Oh bummer!!! Tried to pick it off and it is, literally and actually, stuck like glue.  Will have to sand them down and then paint over a fine layer of resin to give them their shine again. Was not therefore in a good mood when I went into the kitchen and saw the chaos.  Pounded up the stairs and prodded OH who, as usual, was comatose.  Informed him he was lazy and needed to get out of bed in the mornings, do a full days work and get the sodding rental unit finished.  He said things take a long time and I reminded him he was working on a 40m2 flat and a real workman could have built a full house from scratch in 14 months.  He said I was outrageous for nagging at that time in the morning and he would therefore work even slower and I said how was I going to notice the difference and went out and banged the door and watered.

Our neighbour's dog came around and promptly ran off with some washing from the benches.  I found him tossing some of my underwear around in the lane - again black coloured.  He is a knicker nicker that dog.  Had words with him too and closed the big wrought iron gates.  With a bit of luck, he will not realise you can cut around the back.

OH came out with a cup of tea for me after giving me enough cooling down time and said he would go to Spain and do the shopping himself.  The thought of the sea and its cool embrace was too much to resist so I got changed into the car and knitted a clanger in silence as we drove.  This took up my attention so I was not aware of whether or not OH was squeezing terrifyingly close to the lorries on the narrow two lane motorway at the approaches of the big town.  Ikea is nearly finished!!!!  The sign is up and we are just six weeks from opening.  I will never have lived so close to a store.

Arrived and found the top road had been reopened (the fragile cliff surface having been contained with a large wire hair net) and there were a lot of free parking spaces providing you were wanting to walk so we went along the prom for the mile into town and had calamares and mixed salad and I felt more agreeable and OH promised to start next week. He is not yet aware that, in future, he is going to be woken at 8 am...

The main town beach was heaving so we went to the far end where you could see the sand between the bodies.  There were a fair few boobs on show - some more affected by gravity than others.  I could feel OH's eyes swivelling as he tried to identify a pair which were under 25 years old and consequently wasn't looking where he was going and caught his toe in the end of the stair rail and went splat on the sand.  That cheered me up immensely.  

The sea was stupendously beautiful with a Mama Mia white yacht circling slowly where the water turned from agate to indigo.  There is nothing quite like the shock of sea water heating one's overheated body and it took me quite a few sharp intakes of breath to get everything wet.  A Spanish woman joined me in a little gratuitous shrieking.  OH put on his goggles and attempted to do more than six strokes before sinking.  He starts off on the horizontal and then describes a downward trajectory.  Like youngest son, he does not have any buoyancy. After about half an hour, he was puce with the effort and went to sit on the towel.  I started out across the bay, carefully keeping people on my left hand side so I was sure not to be too far out.  The wind became gusting and choppy waves started whacking me in the face. People were getting out of the sea.  I swam back in and picked up a selection of interesting stones and some red seaweed.  The sand, dried by the sudden wind, spiralled up and started sand blasting the standers and lier arounders and the walkers and the ping pong players.  How fast can a beach empty?  Think Jaws.  By the time I saw OH, he was dressed and back up on the top promenade.  I joined the rest in running away from the stinging sand and we went to the big shop and then home.

My colleague rang to say there may be a revisit on one of my houses tomorrow.  Had shark and salad for supper and it was awesome.  Watched Murray and Gasquet go out of Wimbledon in straight sets.  Sad but it does mean that Sunday's final between Djokevitch and Federer will be EPIC!


Friday, July 10, 2015

Its better when the trousers stay up....


Thursday 9 July 2015

24 degrees.  Gorgeous Summer day and no heads boiled

Up early and determined to get to the insurance office first thing.  There are now three claims involving the building in town.  The neighbours - an architects office - are claiming water damage to their roof, dating back in June 2014, when the roof guttering became detached from the down pipe - water got into the wall, some plaster dropped off onto their flat roof and cracked some tiles and then water came in and damaged the ceiling.  Why have they taken a year to get around to claiming.  F knows.

Second claim is from the dry cleaners who are claiming damage on their ceiling from when I had the floor relaid in the new rental unit.  Their ceiling was in a rotten condition when they bought seven years ago.  When the work started, she called me in to see the damage and said I should have told them because they were thinking of redoing the ceiling and could have done it at the same time.  They are trying it on. 

Third claim is from both my neighbour immediately below the big rental unit and the dry cleaners from water damage resulting from the big leak at the start of July.

I get to the insurance office and am first in and the lady says hello and the claims are stacking up, aren't they.  I say I am concerned and she says it happens.  Will be glad when I am rid of all of those rental units.  OH has spent one half day in the new unit since he got back from the UK.  He has been 'working' on it since March 2014.  I don't know what he does whilst I am out at work but it is not working in the flat.  I need to apply the sodding whip.

Pound rose to 1.42 during the week but then dropped back when, surprise surprise, the Greeks asked for yet another bail out and are not leaving the Euro.  Why should they when they can keep asking for money which they need to borrow more money to pay back?

Get a Whats app message from yesterday's clients saying that they need to think about it some more.  Bummer - this, in general, is not good news.  My colleague rings and says that he may have a revisit on the house in our town.  It is between that one and one of his absolutely kilometres away - I say how many kms is it between us and that house and he replies that between the visits to the town south of us and the two other houses, he did 320 kilometres.  He also says their new lady has had an offer accepted on a house which I didn't take on because it is on the corner of a busy road and I thought would be unsellable.  Well, that just goes to show, I know nothing.  It also shows how good is their new lady - she has sold as much in a month as the pair of them have managed since the beginning of the year.

Back to our town and pick up some keys and then go to the main bar and wait for my Aussie friends.  They are late so I have a cafĂ© alongĂ© - an espresso with extra hot water so it doesn't make your eyes cross - and watch people coming in and out.  My friend arrives and is looking very summery in a washed out blue dress.  She says it started off a darker colour and her husband will be happy to show his lovely blue underwear, when he arrives.   Her partner then rolls up with a handful of CD's from the music stall and they say they are going to the blues festival just over the border.  

OH had booked and I had not been looking forward to it.  Last year he drank himself insensible, his trousers fell off and he was staggering all over the place and then fell over and I had trouble getting him started again. When we did finally get back to the hotel, I was undressing him when he fell off the bed so I just left him there.  He was in bed, partially dressed when I woke up.  The room was icy with the air con and he had snored all night. This year he had booked for four nights.  The music was rubbish last year too.  It is the gin that does it.  The bar tender takes a tall glass, half fills it with gin and then plays 'hide the ice' with the gin bottle and adds a sniff of tonic.  Five euros and I can only manage one of them.  OH knows no restraint where gin is concerned. Or wine.  This is why I prefer going to stay with friends on holiday.  The risk of his trousers staying on is raised by 100%.

Back home and OH has kitchen full of fishing crap.  How can it take him so long to get ready each time he goes?  He leaves and I enjoy peace and quiet, pour some resin and go to post the orders.  Walk dog down the railway track and it is dappled in the sunlight and just the occasional jogger.  Back home and make chili and the stupid telly has no reception so I have no idea how the tennis is getting along.






Thursday, July 9, 2015

A charming couple...


Wednesday 8 July 2015

Opened the door to the sweetest smell of damp earth and gentle pattering rain.  I could hear the earth sucking up the moisture.  Blissful.


Prepared the paperwork for the visits today and had a shower and painted out the irregularities on my face and calmed my hair.  OH crawled out of bed saying What time is it and was surprised to learn it was 10.10 and then I went out and down to the big hotel car park to wait for my clients.  I was early so rang my colleague to find out if he had dropped off the key for the first visit and to my annoyance, he said he was with his clients at a town 40 minutes south!  He just does not listen.  I could not work with him.  I specifically told him that I needed the key for 11 am.  OH says I need to email him and his boss in future.  He is right...

My clients arrive, surprisingly on time, and we go into the cavernous depths of the railway hotel and the foyer is heaving with people so we have to drag the few chairs over to a poorly illuminated corner and I show them the proposed properties on my Tablet and the Internet connection is not good, so it takes up all the time that we should have been at the first property.  They are in their early 30's and living in Asia and teaching and they have had enough and want a property which is easy to reach from anywhere in the world.  With our four international airports within 2.5 hours drive, that is us!  Five if you count the one in Spain.

We set off and get to the first house and there is no sign of the owner so they investigate the garden and I get through to the brother who gets through to the sister.  She arrives 15 minutes late and says she has been at a funeral and that is why the foyer of the hotel was heaving because of the obseques of a young man who had died from leukemia aged 32. How terrible that his mourners are so much older than him.  The couple poke around the house and love the painted 19th century tiled floors and think that the downstairs rooms are too small.  We leave and go to see the outside of the house I should have shown them first and we are just in the garden and they are circling the large circumference of the property, in a wary fashion, when my colleague turns up.  He is very casually dressed in an oversized pink tee shirt, beach trousers and sandals.  He is with some French people.  My clients look at him and look at me and then say they dont think the property is for them and we leave. Heaven only knows what the French think of his appearance.

We head South and the Pyrenees pop out of the clouds and I show them a farmhouse with a vast and stunningly beautiful bar in galets from the local river bed. (galet - river stone). They love the barn but don't love the house which is rambling and full of difficult to move supporting walls.  The sister corners me in the cow byre and says to ring her direct if my people are interested as there has been a falling out with the brother - the house has been for sale for too long and there are frictions between the five siblings.   I leave the couple in the house and look at the drive way and approach to the property - it is a large cracked tarmac triangle and the house sits awkwardly on the plot.  The garden is a very strange shape.  On a different plot, the house would be much more sellable.  The couple emerge and it is not for them and we head off to the house they actually asked to see.

I arrive and am thinking that they will never like this house because it is so long and narrow and, in fact, they absolutely love it.  They see past the clutter and Indian crap and books and pots and pans and Eastern throws and motley assortment of furniture and see the spirit of the house.  I believe there is a spirit of every house but it only speaks to those it wishes to welcome as sister spirits and that is why, when you enter a house which you will buy, you know immediately it is for you.  It says, I am for you and you are for me and your heart knows it.  I have bought many houses and sold many more and I have felt this rapport myself and seen it in the eyes of the buyers.  The French call it un coup de coeur - literally a blow to the heart.

By this point our stomachs were all rumbling so we went down to the river and sat on the lawn of a Belgian lady who is enterprising enough to do teas and sandwiches and it was just blissful and the river flowed and fish rose and the dogs sneezed under the trees and an old man in a deckchair slumbered with his hat over his eyes.

Suitably refreshed, I took them to see one further house.  People don't usually like it because,although charming from the outside, it is decidedly uncharming on the inside with all of the character stripped out.  The front room has some 70's linoleum on the floor and the fireplace squashed into the corner.  The dining room is featureless and, where there should be a kitchen, is a room where the previous renters decided to install a bathroom and then changed their minds so it is now a kitchen comprising a sink, a heated towel rail and bathroom style tiles.  My clients didn't like it.  They especially didn't like the dead bats in the entrance courtyard.  Sigh.  I do wish I could sell this house.  The owners are lovely and they are not getting any younger.

I drove them back to my town and they left, saying they would talk it though.  I felt really optimistic and went home to see OH and recount the days events.  Suddenly came over all tired.  No orders today.  Poured some more resin and made buttons with Queen Anne's Lace.  When the punters see these, in the words of Del Trotter, it will knock them bandy.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

The neighbour's dog favours black....


Tuesday 7 July 2015

Blissed out 27 with heavy cloud cover, light breeze and rain later

I actually didn't get through the door until very late on in the day.  I opened all the windows, threw open the doors and let the fresh air blow all through the house.  Out went the hot, bored flies.  In came the sweet smell of grass and flowers and fields.     Was awake at extra early even for me.  4.30 to be precise.  Got up and wrote two blog entries and then somehow it was 7 am and another Etsy order came in and I started to realise I may be onto a winner here.  All of the sets of five buttons have sold.  I need to get some more moulds, a lot more resin and start making pendants too.

OH finally crawled out of bed at 9 am and managed to look very tired.  He then went off as usual on a Tuesday to haul the dog around the lake, do some shopping and then have a McDonald's.  I didn't realise that the dog comes into the sitting area with him and hassles people for burgers, cheese and latterly, lettuce.  He also eats dead bees from our front room floor.  He is a very strange dog.  Sometimes he likes the look of a piece of orange or an apple.  It depends on the weather and his inclination.

His dog friend, who comes around to play at least twice a day, has taken to lifting our washing off the various chairs and benches where we drape it to dry, and spreading it out over the lane.  Today, we found an offering of a black tee shirt on the back door step.  My black underwear was artfully arranged on a gatepost.  He must have thrown that one in the air.....

Uploaded four properties and it took an age.  Another order came in.  Started to feel slightly manic.  I don't have any suitable envelopes and I need to prepare and pack the buttons. Someone ordered something I don't actually have in stock...  I didn't realise things were going to take off this quickly.

Prepped up the mandates to send off and received a registered letter from the owner of the flat under mine, containing the damage claim form.  Rang the plumber.  He cant come out until next week.  I said I would pop in tomorrow and give him a spare key.  Rang and set up all my appointments for tomorrow.  Fortunately, most of them are with keys so if I think the clients are not up to much, I can cut short the visits.  They don't know this area and live in China.  I used to wish for clients from further away than Europe and now I have them.  May you get what you wish for is the third Chinese curse.  Others are more well known

May you live in interesting times
May you be recognised by people in high places

Cleared the decks in the office and made some more buttons and experimented with lichen in a pendant drop.  It colours up beautifully and the form is so intricate.  Decided to hand print some parcel tags and cut out a heart shape and then sew on the buttons.  Finished off by writing a little message on the side.  All buttons used to be sewn onto cards.  Good to tap into the 1950's vibe which is so current.

Watched Serena Williams obliterating someone but with some effort and it was an excellent match.  Refused to watch the other match, which involved a screamer.  Finished up with Hi de Hi which is the episode when Dempster takes over as Entertainments Manager.

Walked dog as the light was fading and the storm clouds bubbling on the horizon.




Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Greek peoples - are you for real?


Monday 6 July 2015
Stinking, rotten, exhausting hot
36 degrees


Awoke early with my sheets in a tangle.  Pillows were in tortured forms.  The air in the room was leaden so I threw open the windows to let in the morning.  Wagtails were running along the cusp of the barn roof, tick ticking and tails bounding up and down in their characteristic action.  House martins zipped in and out of the upper level window space.  They make me think of X wing fighter planes of Star Wars.

OH has lie in and I list all of my resin jewellery on Etsy.  Manage 22 different lots.  Make a FB page and invite people.  Sit back and wait for the magic to happen.  Consider making a treasury.  Drink lots of tea.  

OH gets up and staggers about and we turn on the telly to see where the Greeks are at. Referendum on the question of the European Central Bank bail out.  They are against it. The Greek prime minister, a man who is not afraid of excessive use of hyperbole, claims that Greece has shown Europe what it means to be democratic. That Greece is taking its own destiny into its own hands.  That everything will change now. So tomorrow, they will start behaving like every other democratic country?  Getting up and going to work? Paying their taxes? Stop frittering their money and then getting other EU countries to stop them going bankrupt?  Mr Tsipras, I really, really, really dont think so, and you would do well to get yourself a finance minister who could do better than a third in economics from Sussex University.  'I shall wear the creditors loathing with pride' - WTF? Are these people serious? How about his next employers not paying him and seeing how much he enjoys not receiving what is due.  These people are a joke.  Yanis has now Varoufakis'd off, smiling as he went.

On with the motley for 11 and hung around outside a previsit house, waiting for colleagues. They were running half an hour late so I went in and sat with the owners and they gave me a big glass of water and were alarmed at how pink my cheeks were.  Didnt like to tell them that pink is just the warm up colour - I pass from shrimp to lobster to Flanders poppy during the course of the day.  The owners then tell me that they signed a compromis THREE weeks ago and the man says he doesnt see how the buyer is going to get a bridging loan for the full amount plus notaires fees plus 20k for the pool.  My colleagues then turn up and I relate this news to them and SS says she cant possibly risk bringing around her client in case they want to buy and then get pissed off and go elsewhere.  

They leave and I decide to check on a house that used to be for sale in the same village. The owner, an English lady, has two massive black dogs which jump all over the clients and then give their crotches a good sniff.  Some people take this badly.  The owner used to teach French but I dont think she ever ventured into the realms of French conversation. She will launch into a sentence and realise half way through that she is heading for a word for which she doesnt know the French version.  She will then revert into English, ask me, and then back into French where she again will head into uncharted territory.  There is a sold sign on the door so I continue up the road a way and find two other houses with For Sale signs on the doors.  Put a card in one letter box and then the owner comes out of the other house and invites me in and shows me around.  Not like the UK.  I dont think people there would let strangers, not even bearing business cards, in and show them around.  I agree to come back in the afternoon and go home and feel very very hot.

Alas all too soon it is time to go out again.  First house is delightful with a shady courtyard and surprisingly large interior.  An 18 month old girl plays me a tune on her guitar and says 'urggghhh'.  She will have a future in modern music.  All done in 20 minutes so go for a Pepsi in the railway bar.  Old men, wearing a surprising amount of clothing for the time of year, are watching horseracing on the PMU tv and talking about temperatures.  One of them claims that La Teste saw 44 degrees last week

Lovely La Teste

Time out and I head back to the house I found this morning.  It is very large and chock full of stuff and not the prettiest of interiors, but the location is good, the garden is well managed and there is a great view of the mountains (I believe).  The mountains are shy creatures and rarely seen in Summer.  They are best at the start of the year, when the snow is like pink Royal icing and there is a clear, fresh, iodine tang in the air.  I do the rounds and measure up and then I have turned from shrimp to half boiled lobster, so they get out an extra fan and then suggest a drink and, before I can stop them (OK I didnt try that hard) they have tipped some mint cordial into a glass and topped it up with ice cold beer.  It is utterly delicious.

They start off showing me pictures of the mountains in winter and then somehow divert into their holiday photos and a village of ochre stone in the Luberon, which was rather amazing, with stone pillars which look like they have been fashioned by African termites.  It was all very pleasant until I realised I was going to be late for my last appointment and had, regretfully, to run off.


http://www.carnetsderando.net/colorado-provencal/

Last but not least was a strangely shaped and surprisingly yellow 1960's house with swimming pool.  I was met by a small man with pale eyes, floppy blonde hair and a nervous air about him.  A large adolescent girl lounged on the sofa and a small boy with black hair and eyes like a toy bear smiled at me from a sun lounger.  Another man appeared.  He was very muscled and tattooed and had a neatly trimmed beard and moustache.  Both were wearing vests.  They looked like before and after pictures that would feature in a joint Holiday/Gym subscription ad.  They gave me lots of water and a fan just for me.  I finally finished at just before 7.30 and dashed to the supermarket and found they were sold out of fans.  Decided I would just have to expire.

Back home and OH presented me with a dinner of stir fried potatoes, steamed cauliflower and very hot and spicy chicken.  Washed it down with glasses of iced water and felt rather sick.  Watered and had shower and watched Wimbledon.  Amused to see that the dreadful Gatsby Club venue has been abandoned after just one week

Goodbye dreadful Gatsby Club

Rather thrilled and surprised to find I have sold four sets of buttons!!  


The sneakiness of butterflies and why a pot of washing powder doth not a lunch make....


Sunday 5 July 2015

28 degrees - very pleasant for most of the day

Up early and lots of writing.  I do so enjoy making this blog and love the discipline of emptying all my thoughts, feelings and sentiments each day onto this clean white page. Like the pensieve in Harry Potter, my pot of memories will stay to be dipped into from time to time and as needed.

The sky was the palest of blue this morning, with tiny cathedral pink and white clouds obscuring the sun.  A light breeze played and the garden called.  The potager is starting to be infested with weeds again and I spent a useful morning going through the potatoes, strawberries, haricot beans and cabbage side of the garden.  Took off three barrow loads of weeds and neatened everything up.  So many cabbage white caterpillars on the cabbage - it looks like shredded lace.  Washed them off with the hose.  They start off as tiny yellow seeds on the underside of the leaves - sneaky those butterflies - and then the babies break out and start creating havoc.  By the time I got around to noticing them, they were lined up like buses at the main station.

Dug up some of the Amandine main crop.  They are still very small but perfectly formed, with creamy and firm flesh and good texture.  Ate the first cherry tomato and some blueberries.  The raspberries are very small.  Poor things.  They would so love to be in Scotland, where they are rampant and hanging with fruit.

Found many interesting snail shells.  Have an idea that they may make interesting subjects for resin pendants.  Boiled them up (rest assured the owners had moved out!!) and was amazed at how much grot came out.  OH thought I was making lunch....  Yes, I find the use of washing powder in my cooking gives a certain je ne sais pourquoi....

OH decided to power wash the patio which was not a good idea and I am now worried about how much water is left in the well.  The Karscher is old and has never worked well.  The hose attachment didn't come with it and our technique is to jam in the end of the pipe and then twist.  Sometimes it stays in,and sometimes it doesn't.  It stayed in today largely because the water pressure is now really low.  The Karscher was not happy and started with a low mechanical groan on being awoken from its sleep in the porcherie.  After an hour this had risen to a scream and it stopped every ten minutes or so and needed a rest.  OH made the most of this to keep on popping into the house and watching telly.

Came in when it got to 1.30 and dozed on sofa.  This heat is turning me narcoleptic.  I cant open the windows at night because the mosquitoes love me and the bites become swollen to the size of dinner plates and itch and then get infected and take a week to go down. Various remedies have been suggested - notably heating up a spoon in boiling water and tapping it on the bite.  That really hurt...  also toothpaste - that was more effective.  The most immediately effective is putting the infected area in a bucket of ice cold water but I soon heat it up and it is not easy to coordinate with sleeping in one's bed.

Watched Lord Jim with Peter O'Toole.  He has the eyes of a maniac.  There is an actress called Daliah Lavi.  I rather like the name Daliah or Dahlia.  I may take it up, on a part time basis, to see how it works out.  I know a live and kicking woman by the name of Darcy Dahlia.  She is from Brazil.  She says our town has more strange people than exist in the whole of her country.  I feel that is somewhat of an accolade....


Sunday, July 5, 2015

Hot words on a hot day


Saturday 4 July 2015

Stinking hot and very humid.  Am fed up of dripping

Got up and did some watering as it was forecast 33 with high humidity.  Potatoes are starting to fall sideways - hope some tubers have had time to develop - interestingly the La Ratte are holding up better than the Amandine.  Amandine are a lot taller and flowered earlier and I am going to dig some up tomorrow and see what they have managed to produce.

OH went out to do some shopping and walk the dog before the mercury got going in earnest and I went down town to meet our renters and give them back the key.  We sat outside the main bar and had a coffee and I noticed he had still not stuck back his tooth and they surprised me by saying that they would be back in October and wanted to stay in the flat again and also they would be interested in seeing photos of the new flat when it is finished and they may well be interested in buying one of them.  Exciting news!!

They left and I went to the rental unit and, on opening the front door, heard voices on the first floor and realised that the owner's daughter must be there.  I hovered, thinking do I really want to see her and the voice in my head said don't be such a wuss and I wish I had ignored the bloody voice in my head because the daughter, awkward at the best of times, was really, really mad with me and she rang up her mother who was also livid and said she had asked her daughter to go and report it to the police and I said it was a leak and what on earth were the police going to do about it.  The daughter said I didn't give a xxxx about her mother and her mother had had to move out because of all the renovation work we had done over the years and things were always needing doing in the flat she had bought.  What does she expect?  The building is 18th century.  Things will need repairing.  OH has taken an age to do the bloody renovation and only goes periodically.  

The daughter said her mother never knew who was doing what in the building and I never notified her when we would be doing work.  Her mother hasn't been there in over two years and she only needed to poke her head out of the door to see it was always OH doing the work.  He does play his music very loud though....  Anyhow I finally managed to get away and the police didn't ring me so I presume they told the daughter to sod off and stop wasting their time.  The ceiling was a terrible mess - all cracked and brown.  Her flat has been for sale for an age and they have never asked my advice for why it isn't going but it is partly the price - 90k for 67m2 compared to 105k for the flat I have just sold which is 98m2 and also it is full of junk and Indian stuff and looks like a student bedsit.  If they really want to sell it, they need to empty it of her mother's stuff, put up some lovely white voile nets and install an Ikea kitchen.  And improve the lighting in the kitchen, which is rather sombre.

Back home and did some ironing and watched the marvellous German rastaman Dennis Brown go down unfortunately against a very boring opponent.  Shame, he is so athletic and exciting to watch.  He didn't play as well as he had previously when he beat Nadal.  Nadal drives me bonkers with his tweaking of his pants and having to touch his face in four different places before he can serve.  

OH decided to go and power wash the patio.  Shame Wimbledon isn't on more often - he has done no end of useful things this week.  After the women's match, it was Murray time and he was making mincemeat of an Italian for the first two sets and then it all went terribly wrong in the third and he dropped it 6-1.  He then dropped his serve on the opening game of the fourth and I thought, this is torture and will go to a fifth, so went out and watered and, to my amazement, when I came back in, he had won so I wound back and enjoyed his success.  OH particularly hates Murray.  

He also has a certain antipathy towards the Greeks 'what have they done in 2000 years? Fxxx all'

Left him to watch our brave girls battling it out against the Germans for third place in the Women's World Cup.  Lay in bed in pool of sweat and could not get cool.  Bites itched. Finally nodded off in small hours.  Thought I heard rain in the night but it could have been my imagination which was as fevered as the rest of me