Saturday

Have been in conversation with our chicken adviser about how french housewives afford these huge prices for meat. The vast majority of her customers are french and she says that they have a big 5 course blow out on a Sunday when the family come and apart from that eat pasta/charcuterie/omelettes. But I still think 25 euros for the meat for a meal is a lot. She says that the french are lead by their stomachs not their wallets and they have acquired a taste for farm raised meat and even though most of the young people no longer grow it they want to eat it.

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Uneventful supermarket visit and small DIY shop visit this morning. Went to the bigger DIY shop forgetting that we will get 10% off on Monday so just looked. They still have the worktop I want which is a surprise.

Came back to decide that Hamish had sticky eyes as well as having been sick and generally even more pathetic than usual and we really ought to do something. Had an immediate appointment at the vets and she gave him drops. Having been sick and pathetic here, he munched down some of her cheese. He then threw it up when he got back but as usual he was full of life in the vet's surgery. Found him yowling and sitting on my shoes which is not good and he's now sitting on my lap breathing very oddly. The vet seems to think he's on his last legs and he certainly looks odd.

In between times we opened the pool and Arnie the hoover is busy doing his stuff . Of course the sun immediately went in but the forecast is good for the next few days. Him outdoors managed to reconnect the pump and is now sorting out the pump for the well so that we can have some more water in the pool and start the filtering system. Water is not green but looks like it's full of amoeba. Add lots more chemicals and it's be fine! The swimming pool shop is of course shut on a Saturday!