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Chanson de la Semaine

To avoid repeating myself on a weekly basis and lose the interest of our regular fan, I will point you towards Week 68 in the Archive for an explanation of why I am suddenly featuring a piece of music each week. Incidentally, the Archive Pics with a little audio icon on them are the ones which will have this little feature..beginning, of course, with Week 68.

This week's song is directed at a number of people. It's a thanks to Sheila and my mother for their wonderful message interception. They'd have been great on radar in the second world war. It's also for Barb, my Belle Soeur, cos it's one of her favourites, and what better reason huh? It was written as a result of my getting a John Lennon music scholarship which paid me to study and write stuff - ta John, much appreciated. It's an ode to Summerland, not the one in Le Chatelier (Ray and Ann) but the other one - over the rainbow and far far away. The song's called Sense Of You.

You've probably already seen a blue or yellow band at the top of the page asking if you want to run this program and showing a 'Run Active X' tab. Click on that and then click on 'Run' and a little CD player should open below the song title. Press Play, Stop or Whatever.

'Sense Of You'

Week 77
The Ever Expanding Patio

The patio is now finished, thank god. It's dragged on longer than I expected for a couple of reasons. One: I ran out of the big paving slabs and had to lay smaller and smaller ones...takes forever. Two: I had an exhibition of paintings and stuff and realised I had sod all to show, so I had to take time out to create some new stuff. More about that below. Anyway, as ever, I've included a few comparison shots. Makes me shudder to look at them. This is definitely one job I wouldn't care to repeat. Incidentally pic four is the last hole to be filled. As trivial as it seems it meant oodles to me.

Exhibition

I mentioned in week 72 that I had an exhibition of stuff looming - July 9th to be precise. Well, it all went off remarkably well. There was a nice turn out of chums, interested punters and some press. The press were there to cover the event in much the same way as they'd cover the egg and spoon race at the local village fête. But it was all very nice and I got a mention in La Nouvelle Republique on the local events page. I even managed to sell a couple of pieces, which is an amazingly inspiring muse. There's an open air arts festival on the streets of Argenton in August so I know what I'm going to be producing for that. Anyway, below is the invitation card and a number of pics. Sorry about the press photos. Formal pics always bring out the frontal lobotomy in me. Incidentally I took the photos of the paintings before the opening, so just in case you were thinking...there were actually punters there that night.

Events

We've been social butterflies recently. Aperos at Ray and Anne's, an invite to the neighbour's birthday bash and over to our chum Jan's place in Argenton for Bastille Day. Ooh la la. Anyway, naturally here are the pics. Incidentally the firework pics on Bastille Day didn't work out so I took some shots of Argenton from Jan's window instead. The shot of Graham and our mate Christine reminds me of a Saturday Guardian feature: why-we're an-item-type-thing - an exploration into the lives of ordinary folk.

The Garden

The garden's been blooming very nicely. I planted a new border with meadow flowers to give a bit of instant colour and it's worked well. Pics below.