As we enter the year of the optician (2020 – geddit?) I thought I had better get on with ensuring my blog is up to date.

Well the summer finished with a lot of hot days, so quite a few days out and picnics.

One day we finished up at the Taverne de Montbrun, a small restaurant opposite a stunning chateau of the same name. It is near Chalus in the Haute Vienne, where Richard the Lionheart met his fate. One story says he actually died at Montbrun, and bits of him (!) are buried there. The restaurant was nice, but to our surprise is actually run by Russians – and the food wasn't up to much. I asked if they owned the chateau as well, but the proprietors of that are currently Dutch.

For another picnic I looked on the map and found a nice looking lake, about an hours drive away. Scenic for us and a good run for the dogs. Sadly by accident or design a large hole had appeared at one end, and the lake had all drained away.

Later we found some Roman remains nearby. We know how to live life in the fast lane. 

Rather more successful was a return trip the Chirac Museum, which holds many of the gifts given to the now late ex president. The museum is not huge but is quite interesting, and there was a small exhibition of presidential cars. The display of carpets and rugs he had been given was rather more reminiscent of a trip to Carpetright....

Medically all going well – I knew you would want to know. A visit to the dentist to repair a broken tooth was a lot of fun, and the visit to see Dr Lefort about my high white blood count was actually fine – don't have to go back for two years – by which time she will have retired.

At the end of September we celebrated our 10^th anniversary in Voutezac! The time seems to have just flown by, but we have never really regretted making the move.

My Ipad battery was giving up the ghost, so I tried a few ot the more respeactable looking computer repair shops in Brive. None of them would touch it, as apparently you have to remove the screen to get inside. Eventually I sent it to Apple France – quite expensive, but the price included courier pick up and delivery, and it wasn't the actual battery anyway but a controller. Away less than a week.

More Poppy selling for the British Legion. Three collecting tins out this year, and we managed to raise 365 euros.

We switched the central heatingback on in October, before it got properly cold. Good idea as it didn't fire up. Called out an engineer who eventually got it working, but methinks a service and flush after we turn it off.

Very happy to have a couple of RAF friends, Pam and Kevin McCullough, come over to visit us. We hope they enjoyed themselves – we certainly liked having them.

The wonderful American “festival” of Haloween is now celebrated in France. Luckily we had some sweets and chocolates in the house as we were visited a couple of weeks early. It was very well organised with lots of parents, and there was no suggestion of “Trick or Treat”! I think Judy thought she was going to be mobbed!

My photography has continued apace. When there has been a decent sunny day, I have tried to find interesting villages to photograph. They are all on my YouTube channel (CliftonDJ), and I am still puzzled why some slideshows have had 8 views, and another 884!

I was pursuing a SSAFA case which was sadly cut short when the applicant passed away. However thanks to the needs of Data Protection the system on which we enter case information was deemed to be out of date, and I had a day in Limoges learning about its replacement.

From Limoges I travelled to England to attend a School Reunion – just the 50 years since we left! I always stress that the Royal Grammar School in Guilfdord was a state school when we were there – it went fee paying (again) in the 70s. My very good friends the Makepeaces put me up for a couple of nights, and I even saw some of the sites of Folkestone. The reunion was excellent, held in the Great Hall of the Old Building. A very nice meal, lots of anecdotes swapped and a quick visit to the school's famous chained library.

The actual trip to and from England was......interesting. I had to spend a night in Paris, then caught the Eurostar, which does stop at Ashford on weekdays, but not not for my return trip on the Sunday. Thanks again to David Makepeace for chauffeuring duties, and for the excellent speech he made at the reunion – just right!

As in many other places the weather had been poor – does not seem to have stopped raining for weeks.

Decided I had to go on a diet again, just before Christmas – good planning. I have lost a few pounds so far, but our super Christmas Day dinner with our friend Diane, 

and the lovely Boxing Day lunch Judy prepared probably put some of them back on again.....My first New Year's resolution is....