Sorry but I forgot to do my Sunday night blog as I promised earlier in the year.

Well Sunday night was Easter Sunday and i was feeling a little sickly from all the chocolate I ate.

It was a brilliant and bright day. I left with my progeny for his football game at midday. I was horrible disappointed by the game. The team have been making steady progress all year and when I caught the end of the game on Wednesday they were playing some quite attractive football, you know passing and everything!

This game was in stark contrast to that one. Within 10 minutes We had a near miss in front of goal which the opposition quickly returned to the other end to record a goal and then another almost straight from the kick off and before you could say supercallifragilisticexpiallidosious it was 8-0. It was the team of old. They had forgotten everything. I went and sat in the car before the start of the second half and noticed that soon after kick off we had claimed a goal back. I was obviously the kiss of death so I stayed put in the car for the rest of the half. That finished 2-2 so 10-2 overall but the Ref felt moved to tell my lot that it really was a different team that came out for the second half. Still it was a quiet journey home.

My plumber failed to show on Tuesday an now I have to wait another 2 weeks to get my hot water restored. Damn and blast!

I dropped my 2 darlings off with their mum on Tuesday night and set off for the South Coast.uneventful journey but my car has developed some quirky faults now it has passed 100,000 Miles to go with the downright irritating ones I was already stuck with. The rheostat on the dashboard that controls the on board lighting was an on or off affair from the start, even though the control itself was a wheel and suggested some form of control to dim the on board lighting. The dashboard either had lighting or it didn't and one very small movement of the dial converted it from one or the other. Well now it is permanently dim. Much rolling has to be done to keep the dashboard lit up but one small road bump and it is back to square one. The cruise control switches off if the car is stationary for any amount of time and refuses to be re engaged unless the engine is restarted.

The other thing I have noticed is that my automatic release handbrake doesn't like being released when I am in reverse gear. All I normally do is put the car in gear and engage the clutch and the handbrake automatically releases to allow me to drive off. However when reversing it refuses to release until you have engaged the clutch a couple of times. It is almost as if it is saying "Are you sure you want to do this?" like i had selected reverse by mistake.Says a lot about French driving!

And so to tonight. I took the mower to my mums lawn for the first time today and it felt a bit like the botanical version of rape and pillage. I have to save certain areas as my mother has some rare wild flowers growing and her last instruction was to spare anything that looked interesting! Not much in a garden is interesting to me unless it resembles a Triffid in which case I steer clear. However I can confirm that I did indeed miss 5 Cowslips and 2 Primulas.

It was a beautiful evening and after having feasted on Ham and fresh garden vegetables myself and my dear old Mum sat watching the sun go down over my handy work and observe the too'ing and fro'ings of the feathered occupants. As the light finally dipped i noticed a sudden movement on the terrace outside.

There was a tiny mouse tucking into the seeds left behind that day. I rushed to get my camera, believing this was a photo op that promised some delightful scenes of a biological interest. Who knows I could enter them in a competition.

Well dear reader that was my plan.It was not to be. I blame my camera in the certain knowledge that a bad workman blames his tools. Try as I could not get the damn instrument to register enough light to get a sharp image of the little blighter.

At first i thought i might just get one go. The moment i snapped i figured our furry friend would bolt for his hiding hole and we would never see him again.

But. no! He just sat and stared at me. I op end the french doors onto the garden just enough to stick the camera through lest it wasn't able to focus on the little critter. To no avail, so I started to try and fiddle with camera settings and each time the result was an indistinct browny blur. And he KNEW it!

He just sat there, staring right back at me. Almost within touching distance. He was taunting me! Dangling the prize of unique amateur photo. I tried to use the flash. He didn't budge. It was only as i had worked out how to change the ISO setting and had increased the F number that he finally got fed up and whisked himself off underground.

Wildlife photography is next to impossible, so all these Africa pics just have to staged. There is no other explanation for being outwitted by a mouse!