Our illustrious EU leader.

It was just about the most important NATO summit of recent times. One might have hoped that dear Juncker (His Excellency Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission) would have resisted that third bottle of publicly-funded Pétrus for breakfast.

What a bloody disgrace he is, and in front of all the world's most powerful leaders.

I can almost lip-read Mrs May at 30 secs, saying "Pissed as a fart!"

Bok-n-Fred.

You cannot imagine the pleasure this photo gives me.

To see these two lying side by side like this is wonderful; it's taken me about 6 years of 'training' to get this far.

My dream is to have them snuggling up together on Winter nights.....but that may be just a tad too far-fetched. Fred is 13, so not a lot more 'training' time available.

Still; I'm working on it.

Theresa May and the Holy Grail

She's doing her best, but the people aren't happy. Never has the UK been more divided. Here is Mrs May taking some of the stick!

Village Picnic (Marché des Producteurs).

This was the second 'picnic' of 2018; last week's was a bit of a wash-out, and we didn't go.

As usual, our own village event is probably the most popular within a good radius, it wasn't exactly packed, but I would think there were at least 400 people present.



We went with several friends. Margaret (top in white), who lives nearby, and some others from the UK. I love spending time with our old friend Margaret; we turned up in this area at about the same time all those years ago, and have been good friends ever since. Her book 'Tropical and Subtropical Trees' remains the world authority to this day. She is a mine of information of all things horticultural.



On offer last night. BBQ'd Duck breasts, Confit, simple salads, and SNAILS. I was in heaven.



Sandrine, our Boulangère, was also present, so it saved a Sunday 20 Km round trip to her bakery.

The Greengage.

The Greengage (Reine Claude) is a strange fruit. One minute it is green and unripe, the next it is yellow-ish and so sweet that it's almost impossible to eat. Catching them 'just right' is a cat-n-mouse game that takes considerable guile.

This year our tree is surprisingly loaded and bug free. Normally almost every fruit is inhabited by some bucolic vilain that leaves a transparent dribble from its temporary home.

2018 will be a good year. We will freeze plenty, as well as having occasional pies. We will also consume plenty in situ; the best way.

It's a pity my ordinary Plums aren't doing as well.

Numbers.

Normally, through the night, I listen to London based radio station LBC, but recently I've been so incensed by one particular extreme left wing, republican, misogynistic, Scottish, uber opinionated, Corbyn loving, sun hating, football hating, Mrs May obsessed, snowflake, presenter, that I've changed my early morning allegiance to the BBC's World Service.

The other morning I came across a short 10 minute item called 'More or Less'; a programme dedicated to numbers.

The proposition was Carl Sagan's 'There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the world's beaches'.

Well, impressive calculations were made, and huge figures bandied about, and the conclusion was that Sagan's statement was correct.

In fact they even came up with an estimation for the number of stars in the sky as being....

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That's a 1, followed by 22 zeros. About one zero above the calculation for the grains of sand.

p.s. If the programme is on iPlayer; I recommend.

Portsmouth Sinfonia : "Also sprach Zarathustra"

Portsmouth Sinfonia is comprised of a few professional musicians, mixed with a bunch of complete amateurs. The results are STUNNING.

Enjoy.