It hardly seems possible!

It hardly seems possible that this was how I left the cottage just two months ago. Since then I've experienced temperatures up to 40 degrees C.

Now I'm back in France and our daytime weather is typically erratic; one minute sunshine, the next pouring rain. Classic springtime.

I took the above picture, and many others, to show my two 'Australian' grandsons what snow looks, and feels, like. It's a strange concept to us Europeans, to have never witnessed a proper winter. Snowmen, sledging, and blazing open fires, are all just part of our annual life. To people who live in hot countries, they exist only as pictures.

The picture shows the middle, and oldest, section of the cottage. It makes it look very ancient, but in fact it only dates from somewhere between 1700 and 1750.