I have just noticed that I haven’t blogged since July 14th, virtually a week.
Remiss I know but my only excuse is that I have been busy.
My nephew Owen (of the same ilk) and his friend Conor Mc Sweeney came out on Wednesday and have been house painting for me since then.
Now as they are paid on a sort of vague Meitheal system, they get fed and watered and the odd treat but no wages, I do feel duty bound to work beside them, this doesn’t leave much time for blog writing.

One interesting moment happened in Carcassonne airport while I was collecting them.
I was for the first time recognised by someone who reads my blog.
It happened that a man near me at the arrival gate had started to chat and asked was I here on holidays.
As I explained that I now, sort of, lived out here the lady in front of us swung around and said “Are you Martin Dwyer ?, I read your blog every day”

A moment to treasure for the Dwyer Ego.

Otherwise the week has been spent painting; or to be more accurate stripping off old loose paint, spackling (French for polyfilling) and bonding with undercoat before the easiest part of the whole job; applying the top coat of paint.
Having the two lads here, both a credit to their rearing, has made this job go much faster so now all of the bedrooms have been decorated and also the corridor and even now they are attacking the stairs.

Yesterday I offered them a day out as my half of the Meitheal and the two young lunatics opted for a days Canyoning in the Gorge de l’Herault
No I didn’t know what Canyoning was either until it was explained to me.

Canyoning means that for a day you offer up your body to group of people who then dress you in neoprene and crash helmets and proceed to throw you down the gorge of a river. This can consist of putting you down waterfalls on ropes and throwing you sometimes 30 feet down into rock pools and doing a whole heap of very painful scrambling.
As it was described to me I confessed that, if offered the choice, I would opt for root canal work as a more enjoyable way to spend a day.

Nevertheless the lads headed off and declared afterwards to have had a wonderful time. Furthermore to my great relief they still had their full quota of limbs so I didn’t have to make any uncomfortable phone calls to mothers.
While they were scrambling down their canyons Sile and I were in a village called Laroque at a “Medieval Fare”.
This mainly consisted of a craft fair where everything normally sold at craft fairs was labelled the French equivalent of Ye Olde and sold for twice the normal price.
We did however end up at a concert of Medieval music in the chapel which was interesting, one group consisting of three bagpipers and a drum (and a lady with two scallop shells) while totally arresting in sound did remind me a little of the definition of a gentleman;
A man who can play the bagpipes, but doesn’t