To supplement the efforts of the estate agent I have converted the Barbansais site into a "House for Sale" site. I hope to link it to various sites that list French properties.

I think it looks very smart but remain to be convinced that it will attract any punters

We have at long last put the French house in the hands of an estate agent. He seems quite optimistic about selling it promptly despite the legion of other properties around here that have stood empty and unwanted for years.

When he was writing down the particulars he said that this little room, of which we are very proud, was so small that it would be illegal to call it a bedroom. I do hope that it is nonetheless legal to sleep in it otherwise we have criminalised several visitors.

I made use of a brief encounter with a TV set yesterday to watch some Olympic action. I was pleased to see that although not technically represented Scotland did well in the women´s 100 metres where Fraser, Simpson and Stewart took gold, silver and bronze in Jamaican colours and a Ms Ferguson-Mackensie featured further behind.

England or Team GB to give it its proper title took 6th place thanks to Jeanette Kwakye.

I have not taken up hunting. This is a golf trophy. It was not awarded for prowess at the game but is mine by virtue of my luck in the prize draw held after the competition I played in yesterday.

I’ve had a run of ill luck in raffles and the like since I won a bottle of whisky circa 1960. This prize confirms that the run continues.

My neighbour has been incensed this summer by the chopping down of woodland that has taken place around the village. I can't say I'm keen on it myself.

This is no harvesting of managed forest but more the wholesale destruction of natural woods leaving the land looking wasted.
It seems that if you own a tract of woodland you can do what you like with it and my neighbour maintains that greedy landowners are cashing in on a shortage of timber.
Could this be the Creuse's contribution to the rape of natural resources throughout the world brought about by the rise and rise of the Chinese economy?

If there is a silver lining to this cloud it is that on approaching from the bourg you now get quite a nice view of the village.

Is it reasonable to suppose that one of Josette's hens squeezed its business end into this hole in the wall above the woodpile and laid an egg?

I’ve seen a couple of vehicles with British registrations pass my door recently so when I answered a knock this afternoon to a pleasant looking man and woman I was all smiles when the lady enquired in an obviously English accent “Etes-vous anglais?”

I assumed they must be one of the two sets of British people who have bought properties in Barbansais in the last twelve months or so. As is my wont I made a good-humoured admission to being British but not English. (Will they never learn those Sassenachs?)

You could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather when I learnt that they were English Jehovah’s Witnesses who, having retired to the neighbouring hamlet of Bazanges, are intent on spreading their faith about a bit.

To be fair they were very pleasant. We chatted for a while and they made a half-hearted effort or two to get me worried about the end of the world. I brushed those off. They didn’t insist on supplying me with copies of the Watchtower before they moved on, presumably in pursuit of the owners of the British registered vehicles aforementioned, so I really have no cause to complain.

All the same the sooner this house is sold the easier I will rest in my bed.