I'm off to the spa town of La Roche Posay for three days this week. I'm not taking the waters but playing in the last SG4L competition of the year. As well as the game there will be an AGM and a dinner which is usually quite jolly.

As a result and because I'm leaving a day earlier than planned, to have dinner and stay overnight with friends en route, I've been busy these last few days redding up the place for winter. I've transplanted some window box and pot plants that I think have a chance of surviving and done my final grass cut. We've decided that since investing in keeping the grass tidy over last winter brought no dividends in the form of a purchaser we'll let it grow. I know I'll regret that decision when I'm faced with the initial backbreaking task of getting it into order in the Spring. Somehow I'll have to get David down here before me.

Cleaning up inside caused me to wonder how much spiders need to eat. We get flies and other insects coming into the house but unless one fly feeds a hundred spiders for a week I don't see how the vast population that lives with me survive. Mind you I did read somewhere that a mouse needs only one crumb of bread a week (I find that hard to believe but...) so a spider probably only needs to lick a fly to gain nourishment equivalent to our three square meals a day.

Sod's law was at work yesterday when I used the washing machine. When I went to check on it I found the bathroom floor that I had scrubbed earlier in the day was inches deep in dirty water. Nothing like the devastation in Manila but even that wee drop demonstrated just what a mess water can cause. The leak came from a weak point in the seal around the door. I've fiddled with it and reset a plastic band that looks as though it plays a critical role but I'm not too excited at the thought of trying it out with the large amount of washing that I'll have to do on my return from La Roche Posay. There is a launderette in Gueret but there's a lot of dead time involved in using that. I may just have to take my dirty washing to Edinburgh.

The grapes have done very well this year especially the green ones at the front of the house. Even so they are not the lusciously sweet dessert delicacies that one would wish them to be. Eating them involves a lot of lip puckering and spitting out of skins.

However I found that after a bit of crushing and sieving and the addition of a soupcon of sugar they produce a delicious juice. I daresay that if I had a big barrel I could pluck the lot and dance up and down on them in traditional manner.

But I haven't so most of them will wither on the vine.

I'm glad to report that the weather has improved somewhat in the last couple of days. Yesterday it was even sunny and warm enough for us to have lunch outdoors after our game of golf.

As well as slowly surfing the net (this connection demands patience) and reading while the weather was bad, I spent a bit more time than usual with my saxophone. I've come to the end of "A New Tune a Day for Alto Saxophone Book 1" disobeying the instruction repeated on many pages that the exercises in lesson n must be perfect before moving on to lesson n+1. I don't think I can claim perfection in anything although I'm pleased at my progress in many respects.

There is a CD on which most of the tunes in the book are recorded; on one track with the saxophone and on the next track without it for you to play along. I found that really hard and quickly gave it up but I'm now tackling it again and as well as the playalong I'm having a go at what is even more difficult, playing on top of the recorded saxophone. Anything faster than the death march causes me quickly to lag behind the recording. My brain tries to remember what notes have flashed past me while processing what I'm currently hearing and relating it all to the sheet music in front of me. It's not long before my fingers are flailing wildly, hitting notes at random or just bashing the air.

A small snag has also arisen in that I've broken something. If you visualise a sax you'll see a curved section at the top that leads from the body to the mouthpiece. This is called the crook. It slides into the neck of the instrument and is secured by a small screw. The screw has snapped. This is not a terminal problem since the crook still fits into the neck and I can play but the crook and the body tend to slip away from one another so the flailing becomes even wilder.

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness arrived in the Creuse this week. Keats would no doubt have been delighted. He might however have been disappointed as I was that it was accompanied by the season of continuous drizzle.

Idling some time away at my laptop while the drizzle drizzled I came across this very sensible injunction - You WEREN'T in a sex movie with Sherrie, so why open the link? You can safely click on that one though to read the story.

In the same way I can never understand how anyone falls for those long mails spinning some absurd tale that promise you millions. Below is one I got the other day that modestly asks for only $106. I love the way it leaves the tempter to the very end. Can you believe that enough people are stupid enough to send $106 to provide the spammer with a living wage or is the object really identity theft? In any event whoever responds deserves what they get in my opinion.

Dear friend,

How are you today ?.I'm writing to inform you that I have Paid the fee for your Draft Cheque. Yesterday, I went to the bank to confirm if the Cheque has expired or getting near to expire and Mr.Allen Thomas the Director of HSBC BANK told me that before the cheque will get to your hand that it will expire. So I told him to cash the $1.950,000.00, to cash payment to avoid losing this funds under expiration as I will be out of the country for a 3 Months Course and I will not come back till end of December 2009. What you have to do now is to contact the DHL Express Courier as soon as possible to know when they will deliver your package to you immediatey.For your information, I have paid for the yellow tag fee and delivery Charge.

The only money you will send to the DHLCourier to deliver your Consignment Package direct to your postal Address in your country is US$106 One Hundred & Six United States Dollars only being Security Keeping Fee for the DHL Service so far. I would have paid that but they said no because they don't know when you will contact them and in case of dumourrage on your Package with them.

Please write a letter of application to the given address below:

Company Name: DHL EXPRESS COURIER
Manager.Nelson kessier Febian
Email: infodhlservicebj@inMail24.com

Contact Tel: +229-93-80-66-48

Finally, make sure that you reconfirm your Postal address,nearest local and international airport, Direct telephone number contact address and picture or id to avoid wrong delivery, they will issue you a delivery code#, to enable you track your consignment box and know when it will get to your address.

Let me repeat again, try to contact them as soon as you receive this mail to avoid any further delay and remember to pay them their Security Keeping fee of $106.00 for their immediate action to deliver urgently. Note this. The DHLCourier don't know the contents of the Box Package. I registered it as a BOX of Africa cloths. They did not know the contents was money. this is to avoid them delaying with the BOX. Don't let them know that box contains money ok.

Thanks and More Blesssing.

Regards,
Ms Anita Hall

United Nations

Financial office

The hunting season started yesterday south of the Loire. For some reason those north of the river have to wait another week.

Anyway I passed a few chaps in camouflage loitering about on the fringes of the woods with their rifles and their dogs as I made my way to the golf course. I mused idly whether any of them might be interested in stalking my unwelcome visitors but I dare say they prefer being out in the fresh air pitting their wits and their overwhelmingly superior resources against bigger game.

They (my unwelcome visitors that is) have consumed a fair amount of poison these last few days but it doesn't seem to have done more so far than give them a bad case of the runs.

I didn't catch sight of any interesting wildlife on my golfing excursion last week but I fear that I have now come across some traces of uninteresting wildlife at home. I thought I might be in for a nuisance free summer but some spoor appeared a few days ago in the cellar, their usual haunt.

I put down some poisoned grain and checking this morning I see that the bait has encouraged at least two species to come around for a nibble. The small droppings must be mice but the large lumps are surely from a stoat sized beast. It will take a daily bowl of enticing blue cereal for a week or two to discourage him from making our home his winter quarters.

When I passed through Edinburgh airport last month it was 50 years almost to the day since I had flown from there on my very first trip to Europe. It was a big deal at the time to the extent that my friend Graham came across from Kirkcaldy with my dad and me to enjoy the excitement of waving me off from the BEA office in George Street.

A lot has changed since then. BEA, which was almost the only user of the airport, has gone but has been replaced by more airlines than you can throw a stick at. The airport itself has grown like topsy. Air travel has become a banal everyday experience. And of course there is security; in 1959 no-one gave a monkey's who had packed your luggage. I'm not sure if my mum actually packed for me but she would certainly have kept an eye on it and ensured that I had a nice sharp pair of nail scissors and at least a pint of refreshing lemonade in my hand baggage.

I experienced a lot of culture shock on that trip, most of it delightful and all of it enlightening. I had never for instance seen lunch as more than a brief refuelling interlude between morning and afternoon. So I was amazed to find myself sitting in a garden on the shores of Lake Geneva in the sunshine enjoying a lunch that lasted all of a languid afternoon. Every so often I would sip my wine and stretch my arm upwards to pluck another ripe apricot from one of the trees shading our table.

The pleasure I took in that activity, or more accurately inactivity, has never faded and I spent just such an afternoon yesterday. After golf we had lunch with some Dutch friends. Their lovely garden was washed in warm sunshine as we chatted our way through a leisurely four hour lunch on their shady verandah. It was delightful. All that was missing was an overhead apricot.

After six consecutive days of golf on various courses, two of which required the athleticism of a mountain goat, I'm having a day off.

A postscript to the wild pig meeting. My neighbour Josette, a lady in her 70s, who was born and bred here, who has spent much of her later adult life here and who has spent lots of time walking the woods round about has never seen a wild pig. So how lucky I was.

I'm off to the wilds of the Auvergne and the Millevaches plateau this morning for a few days. The object of the expedition is of course golf but coming across interesting wildlife is not out of the question.