Thursday May 21

Yesterday, 'Phew What a Scorcher' would have been the Vaupillon Times headline had such a publication existed. Today's forecast is more of the same, temperatures in the mid to high twenties. Precautions in the shape of a hat were taken when exercising outdoors as now with my severe haircut I am liable to sunburn on my head.

Today is yet another Bank Holiday- Ascension - it is always falls on a Thursday. Many French, and particularly Parisians 'faire le pont' or in other words build a bridge between the holiday and the weekend, which is just a long-winded way of saying they take the Friday as holiday so as to have a long weekend.

With the current glorious climate droves of Parisians are fleeing the capital for a weekend away. You may recall from an earlier post that they are permitted to travel up to 100 kilometres from there principal abode, however the favourite haunt of many of the capital's residents is the Côte Fleurie or the area on the Normandy coast of Deauville and the surrounding holiday resorts. A further attraction may well be that the Deauville race course is having a meeting today. Deauville is approximately two hundred kilometres from the centre of Paris.

The bad news for the travellers who left for the coast yesterday was that the gendarmes were watching on the motorways leaving Paris and noting the number plates of the cars as they left. A further 100 kilometres along the autoroute were more gendarmes armed with the list of departing vehicles and they were then stopped and the occupants each subject to a fine of €135. To add insult to injury they were then hit with the news that they would face a similar fine for the return trip.

There are quite a few weekend visitors in the local neighbourhood but they are probably a lot less likely to attract the attention of the authorities as their journey on the motorways would have then exiting at Chartres, well within the confinement rules.

Wednesday May 20

Again this morning the weather is extremely pleasant, as indeed it was all of yesterday. In fact it was so good that it was perfect for an afternoon bicycle ride but I had so many chores that no time was available, perhaps today.

The first task of the day was to collect the masks that had been ordered from the local supermarket and as it was market day I decided to kill two birds with one stone. The market is best for fresh produce, especially eggs, cream and some cheese whilst the supermarket furnishes dry goods and the like. As usual at the supermarket I had some minor issues with the many and varied coupons that are available and I had some for Lavazza coffee which, coincidentally, was on promotion. This caused problems as to whether my vouchers were valid for those purchases. After much toing and froing it was decided that I could have the rebate on half of my coffee purchases. Whilst on the subject of the supermarket another 'good thing' is that at the beginning of March they started to install charging points for electric vehicles, unfortunately due to the current 'situation' the installation team retired unhurt but I am reliably informed that it is only 'weeks' before they return to finish the works.

Another important task was to fulfil my promise to Mrs. T. to remove my beard and cut my hair after our first social encounter involving food and friends. This I undertook in two parts, the first being the removal of the facial hair. The second required Mrs. T. to wield the electric hair clippers, an act of unbridled faith by your humble scribe. As per usual my belief was well founded and I finished up with a head of short hair and a clean-shaven face. A mildly amusing aside is that after the face had been attended to I had a video Skpe conversation with a chum which was repeated later in the day when my head had been laid bear. On neither occasion did my correspondent notice my change in appearance.

In the afternoon my bridge team were involved in an online bridge match. This was the first time I had actually played bridge in over two months. I am not overly fond of bridge played via computer, I enjoy the intimacy of the fellow competitors. However it was only a short match of fourteen boards, taking about 80 minutes and importantly we won, which of course adds to the pleasure. We have another match this evening and if we win that we will continue in the competition that has been organised by our local league. If we win a sufficient number of matches we could keep going for fourteen games.

Tuesday May 19

We seem to be blessed with sunshine at the moment, so much so that Mrs. T. has deemed the weather to be sufficiently clement to bring out the remainder of her plants from the greenhouse, perhaps tempting fate as there is the old saw 'Ne'er cast a clout till May is out'. Hopefully the climate here is more temperate that the parts of the UK where this saying originated. In fact the French a somewhat similar expression with a date of May 15, so it appears that all should be well.

On my perambulations yesterday I saw two minor interesting pieces of nature. The first was heron taking off close by the pond I always pass. This not good news for the frogs that inhabit it but maybe my continued presence will cause it to hunt elsewhere. One of my good friends once told me how to cook heron. The basic plan is you  first catch your heron and then take two large planks of wood and tie these around the bird. Then you find a container large enough and place the prepared heron in it and fill with water and bring to the boil and let it cook for about eight hours. You then remove the wood sandwich and untie the parcel, discard the heron and eat the planks. My second was a small snake of about six inches, it was basking on the warm asphalt and when it sensed me it ayyempted, in a rather inexperienced way, to slither off into the undergrowth. I suspected it was very recently hatched and as its antics made it difficult to spot exactly what type of squamata it was. It was probably a grass snake as we often find those in these parts, frequently well over a metre in length.