July and August has seen us fully booked here at which we are very pleased about and even September is starting to fill up - dates still available and don't rule out October because it can be a wonderful stable weather month.

We have had a little time off ourselves and had a few trips out. Lots of eating and the odd glass of wine too.

Fleur has gone on a four day trip with her school camping in Sarlat by the Dordogne river and Henry, together with his best mate Glen (who he has grown up with) left for Bordeaux at 7.30am for a flight back to England where he will spend three weeks with Glen, family and friends.

Henner's and Glen have been doing this every summer since we moved which really pleases us because they have remained great friends and whenever they meet it is as though they have never been apart.

We have all taken the weekend off and I think it is the first time we have all been away from Jean Blanc at the same time for a break.

We have some good friends who we met back in 1997 while on holida in France. They have just bought a house in Charante and they invited us up for the weekend.

It was great fun, thanks to Martin and Angela's hospitality we were able to forget about the project and relax.

Driving up on the Friday was a bit tough because of heavy showers but the brilliant countryside was anough compensation to get us bye.

On the Saturday we all went to La Vallée de Singe - valley of Monkey's.

I was expecting to see lots of cages with saddened faces peering through the bars but was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the Monkey's were free to roam at will and even walking amongst us.

The more dangerous such as the Baboons, Gorilla's and Chimpanzees were all on cleverly constructed islands with pathways circling them for good vantage points.

If you are in the vicinity on your holiday's then this is well worth the visit in my opinion.

It costs 13.00 euros for an adult and children 5-13 8.00 euros. Under 5's get in free.

Do you believe in coincidences?

I certainly do and this week it has re-inforced my view.

Donna has a little job updating a database for a UK company. Part of this entails calling people on the data base and trying to place them on contracts worldwide for oil companies.