10th July 2010

No modem, again!!

The dog had his first appointment at the Boite a Toutou – his first professional shampoo and haircut. What a difference it has made! He is Top Hat and Bow Tie and now looks absolutely fantastic, but also smaller and totally different. Beatrice has cut his coat short, about 3/4 inch in length. She has trimmed the hair on his ears, beard and muzzle to the same length. His eyebrows are now neat and tidy, so facially, he looks a bit like a trimmed 'terrier'. She has also trimmed his tail so it looks really neat. Such a difference!!

The weather has been far too hot at the moment and he was suffering with the heat, not only that but picking up all sorts of nasty things in his coat. I would spend hours combing him out and then having to do it all again after he had been out of doors. We took a visit to Toutou yesterday (9th) and had a little chat with the owner. She was absolutely lovely and booked the boy in for this morning (8.00 am – early for my man!). She was absolutely delighted with him and he was as good as gold. When he was collected Mme was working on another pooch and our boy was just resting on the floor waiting for his Papa.

Another canine milestone, it is amazing how good he is. He loves people, young and old and is very social with other canine species. We cannot believe how lucky we have been.

The weather is still very warm but on Thursday 8th we had the most horrendous storm arrive in the evening. It started, I suppose, around 6.30 pm. The clouds had started to gather and there were a lot of rumbles going on in the sky. That was the day that I was looking forward to as there would be an opportunity to see the International Space Station overhead later on. I was a bit put out by the pending storm to say the least.

I decided to unplug the modem – just in case! And sat, and read, and waited – the night arrived along with lots of clouds and more thunder and lots of lightning. I kept taking a peek outside and around 10.30 spied a gap in the clouds with stars. Hmmm maybe I would be lucky!

The thunder and lightning continued and I kept a check on the sky. Just after 11.00 pm the ISS passed overhead heading in the direction of WNW to ESE…. Absolutely perfect. The window in the clouds stayed open long enough for me to witness this wonderful thing.

We went to bed not long after and the storm continued throughout the night. I think it eventually blew itself out around 6.30 am…. It was the most ghastly of nights, there was a couple of times I thought that we would be shaken out of our bed. The power was knocked out briefly at 2.00 am when the storm was overhead. The noise was horrendous…

Friday morning woke nice and clear but the air was still very heavy. There was no damage done, well at least not in our neck of the woods.

Plugged the modem in, went online during the day. No problems at all. Then in the evening a little – just a couple of drops – of liquid was spilt on it….. Drat!!!! No modem again…. Don’t know what my internet providers will say about it.. Oh well will see.

Did another trip to Puy du Fou on Thursday. Brilliant as usual. The shows that we have been to see before have been updated to include other things, absolutely fabulous. I still find it an absolutely amazing place to visit.