Getting Ready - Part 1

Yesterday was the last bank holiday of the term. We have so many that they don't give us a half term holiday, which seems a shame, but now we are straight through for a month and then it will be the summer holidays! We'd intended to go camping but the dog was having a horrid reaction to an injection, and we couldn't take her anywhere, poor thing (she's OK again now). I used the time at home to do the first batch of baking for my Garden Party. Most supermarkets aren't open in France on bank holidays, so I had to look at my dwindling supply of flour and work out a recipe I could make, in bulk, using the ingredients I had! I settled on these lovely Spicy Pepper Biscuits, which I've made before. They are sweet and dry and airy - they melt in your mouth. I also love the part of the recipe which says: 'roll into balls and place on an UNGREASED baking tray'! My kind of low-maintenance baking.

The plans are going on apace, and this map with lists is now on the fridge, along with the artwork:In the afternoon Ben and I took the boys out to the African Safari (note the non-French name!). It's nearby and it is a very pleasant place to go, with the animals well cared-for and the surroundings shady and beautiful. Some new babies were in evidence...For a few years now they've run a bird show in the summer. This is well worth the wait. In France they let the birds fly down really low, so that their wings and tails almost (or actually) brush the heads of the taller people sitting below.For once, the small Nile Crocodile was looking real. And to end the day, we saw some peaceful flamingos.

Today, in the garden, the grapevine over Ben's pergola has come into bloom. The flowers are tiny, but full of promise. When we moved in we found the vine creeping over the ground, and Ben built up a pergola specifically to support it. We can now sit under it on the rustic stools made out of our poor, fallen acacia tree.The tree came down in January's storms. We managed to prop up the younger tree which was growing beside it, but clearly there had been too much damage to its roots, and after a faint attempt to flower and produce leaves this spring, it too has died.It's in the nature of accacias to plan for the future, though, and our 'lawn' is sprouting baby accacias from the roots of the old ones. We are going to choose one to nurture and mow the rest!

It does mean that the pergola now provides the only shade in the entire back garden, so we are going to have to think about awnings for the garden party, and for eating out throughout the summer. More plans...