Water

Our village sewage system is being brought up to European standard.  New drainage, which has the added benefit of new pavements (sidewalks). Don't ask where the old drainage went, but note that France is full of rivers.

We've been pleased at the timing because we have to do the plumbing, anyway, with separate pipes for used water and rain water.  (Our neighbour says, "Poof!  I'm not doing that."  He will, though; they can check.) 

Yesterday the workers and the mayor stopped by and pointed out that the current kitchen is in the middle of the house, between the two new sets of plumbing and has its own outlet.  We can re-do it or pay a double water bill.  Whoops!

So Nick is busy digging up the living room floor (packed earth) and drilling through two 2-foot stone walls to connect the kitchen plumbing with the new bit.  I'm locked in the bedroom with the cats.

Today, when I came back into the bedroom after lunch, saying, "O.K. cats, let's go," Nala got up and followed me.  I know that Chows are cats and our friends know that Chows are cats, but I didn't know that Chows knew they are cats.

Here's how Polo and Nick got the rain water tank and the roll of pipe to the back of the house.  They rolled them up boards onto the trailer, drove the trailer up the hill to our neighbour's house in back of us and then rolled them down the hill, through the olive orchard, to the back of our property.  And didn't tell me, so I could get the camera.

In other news, my other big toenail came off yesterday.

253 by Geoff Ryman

The book began life as an internet novel. 253 people on a Bakerloo line tube train heading toward Waterloo. 253 words describing each passenger: their outward appearance; inside information; what they are doing and thinking. The train will crash.

A clever book and well-written and I read half of it before I tired of it. It's a bit like sitting on a train, yourself, making up identities and thoughts for your fellow passengers, if you have an inventive mind. But the train should have been shorter.

Another minority report.