Two more sleeps until the cats get to play outside!

For some reason, despite the cats having had a late dinner last night, they wanted an early breakfast and tried their luck at 4:30am. Lucca's preferred method of grabbing our attention is to claw at the mattress, and sometimes our toes, while Florence prefers to jump onto each of our bedside tables in turn, rattling things, acting clumsier than normal, and knocking stuff onto the floor. Today, however, it didn't work - they weren't quite as persistent as they can be, and on this rare occasion we won, they retreated and left us to sleep.

Helen got up to exercise, albeit with an extra snooze on the alarm clock, while I drifted back into a strimming-induced coma until half past eight, while Helen managed nearly an hour's spinning on the turbo trainer courtesy of music supplied by Ady last week (thanks mate).

When I finally joined Helen in the office to reply to an email from our accountants regarding registering to work (so that we can this residency application sorted), I found my brain was so tired it was refusing to wake up and thinking in syllables was a struggle, never mind whole sentences. After managing what I think was a coherent reply to the aforementioned email, I gave up with office work - I just wasn't capable at all today, and any attempt would have only resulted in huffing and puffing and generally ruining Helen's work environment. I decided I had to do something that didn't involve thought. Yep, back to strimming it was (despite all the way home from work last night thinking that I wouldn't have to strim again for days).

After making a start on the area immediately along the edge of our lawn and guest patio, I quickly conceded that being under the glare of the sun wasn't something I was up to today, so I retreated to the driveway, which was due a good cutting back - at least here with the chestnut trees I had some shade.

160 metres seems an awful long way when you're strimming it. Before I knew it, Helen was beside me to announce that lunch was ready - which must have meant it was 1 o'clock as her gluten-free bread wasn't due out of the bread machine until then. I've no idea where the morning went. Despite the aches in my wrists and upper arms returning within half an hour's strimming, it was much more comfortable to be standing on flat, firm ground.

After lunch, at which I could barely utter a word to my poor wife who had been looking forward to having me home today, I disappeared back along the driveway for another three and a half hours of strimming. Nothing of note during this period other than when I came to the old donkey track that joins our drive and heads up the mountain I came across what looked like driftwood - about half a dozen pieces. Judging by the deep, wide grooves cut into the gravel driveway and this latest bit of evidence, it would seem that when we have these torrential downpours the donkey track acts as a drain or river bed and funnels everything off the hill onto our driveway towards the house before it veers off down the hill. The deep grooves the rainwater had made in the drive were quite something - so much so that I'm determined to go out in the next storm to witness it. I think we need to add a couple of drainage ditches to our ever growing to-do list!

At just before five, Helen came to find me to tell me the printer had run out of ink so she'd thrown the towel in. This meant that a trip to the supermarket was on the cards, to buy replacement cartridges. (In fact, I'm not sure an inkjet is up to the job of editorial duties, so a laser printer may have to go on to our shopping list.)

After a quick trip into town and back, I retired to the patio (having had shower before going out). Helen, on the other hand, changed and disappeared to trim the terrace around the guest patio.

I write this in the evening sun, with a glass of beer in my hand. The midweek rule has gone out the window (not the ones with flyscreens on) this week with my hard labour - call it an excuse if you like, but a beer after work has definitely eased the aches.

The ants are still with us, and have turned up in force since I came outside to blog - though in significantly reduced numbers: our ant powder attack last night devastated their ranks. I used a ladder to get a closer look at what they're up to, but need a longer one as I can't quite reach the window. I can see where they're going in, but being beneath them means that I cant squirt the powder upwards (if you've ever used ant powder in a bottle you'll understand - whoever designed the bottle obviously made the ridiculous assumption that ants only live below humans: wrong!!) So either a new ladder or an improved means of administering the powder is needed. The doses I did manage (with some rather flamboyant flicks of the wrist) will  hopefully reduce their numbers a little more before bedtime.

Right, this is where I stop for today - the hedge trimmer is out of fuel so Helen's taking that as a prompt to call it day and join me on the patio. The sight of a cold beer is too much I think!

I spotted this at the house in Lanciole yesterday.