Mistys first day out

This was a big day for Misty. She has been wanting to go out for the last few days, but we wanted to be around to 'supervise' her.

Misty and I got up around 8am, she had a light breakfast and then .... she was allowed out into the big, wide world for the first time in about 5 weeks. First of all she looked warily out of the door, as to make sure she was really allowed to go out. Then she took a step outside and had a good sniff of fresh air.

She climbed all over the pots outside the kitchen door. I took this great picture of her sticking her head out of an acer.

She has explored everywhere. The garden, the flowerbeds, the potager, the decking by the pool and the wood pile. I worked in the garden all day to keep an eye on her, she was very good and when I couldn't see her, she came running when I called her.

I spent the day removing grass and weeds from a long stone path that goes down the garden. It had completely disappeared in some places, and has taken most of the day to dig out all the weeds and pressure wash it all.

Of course I took a break for an hour to watch the last hour of the Tour de France. This was the final day in the mountains, finishing at the top of Mount Ventoux in Provence. It was estimated there was between half and one million spectators lining the route up the mountain. It was the first time there had been a mountain stage before the final day of the Tour. Brad Wiggins retained 4th place overall. He gave the most awesome performance. He deserves the Maillot Jaune for being such an incredible rider and making the phenomenal trasition from track to road cycling. Our other British star Mark Cavendish won his 9th stage victory yesterday, the first British rider to do so. I will be glued to the sofa tomorrow as the Tour reaches Paris and the victor is crowned

Photos at the Tour de France

This is Juley and me waving like loonies at the Tour de France. The picture was taken by her husband Paul, and Ian is hiding behind us!

Isn't it funny, we only live 10 mins from each other and would have never met if we hadn't joined the same book club! Juley and I get on like a house on fire and have a similar sense of humour. Every time we get together we have such a good laugh. We are so lucky to have such good friends over here.

This is Juley trying to attract Lance Armstrongs attention!!

Actually she was grabbing as many freebies as she could, as we all were. The bloke on her left in the striped top had originally started on our side of the road, then when Juley and I moved over to where she is now and started getting some goodies he followed us over.

For those of you not following the Tour this year, the British rider Bradley Wiggins is now in 3rd place overall and looks set for a podium finish this Sunday in Paris. There is a time trial this week which he should excel at as he already has Olympic gold medals and world records at this. He has made the transition from track rider to road rider amazingly well. He is one of the worlds best cyclists and the whole of Britain is behind him.

This is wonderful Brad in action.

Tour de France

What a great time we had watching the Tour de France on Bastille Day. This race takes over France for 3 weeks in July. It takes place over 21 stages and this year covers 3,500 kilometers. The race has 10 flat stages, 7 mountain stages, 1 medium mountain stage, 2 individual time-trial stages and 1 team time-trial stage. I am addicted to watching it!

Ian, Juley, Paul and I went to a village called Lauriere to watch the race go through. It is about 44km from Limoges where the race was starting. Before the cyclists arrive there are 200 support vehicles that throw promotional items at all the spectators. It is really competitive trying to grab these items, which can be anything from baseball hats, key rings, mouse mats or little bags of sweets and snacks. This caravan of vehicles passes through over an hour before the cyclists arrive.

The cyclists are preceeded by motorbikes with flashing lights and loads of cameras. There was a breakaway group that came through first, they were about a minute and a half ahead of the peloton. As the main peloton arrived the a huge cheer went up in the village and we were all trying to spot our favourites. I saw Brad Wiggins and Lance Armstrong, and Ian spotted Mark Cavendish. Brad and Mark are two British cyclists who are doing fantastically well in this years tour. Mark has won 4 stages so far in a sprint finish, incredible to think that he can race for 200km and still have enough energy left to sprint for the line! Brad is 4th in the general classfication at the moment and only 46 seconds behind the yellow jersey. They are both so brilliant.

We took a packed lunch with us and sat and ate it after the caravan has passed. There was a young Gendarme keeping an eye on our section of the spectators. He looked about 12 but was probably about 20! He spoke extremely good English but we took the opportunity to speak French to him. He had learnt English at school and then college as he said it was the international language of business, and felt it would really help him in the future. He was very interesting to talk to, he was a reservist Gendarme and was called up when extra police were needed. He was intrigued by the fact that British police in general do not carry firearms, which Gendarmes do. He had had lots of training with his, and said he was a very good shot.

We had such a good time, laughed loads and grabbed loads of goodies!