Solutions

I've been really pissed off with myself recently because when I reformatted my C drive, I had forgotten to back up my email address list. Heaven knows why, but something in the back of my mind told me to check to see if I'd exported the addresses to my Gmail account. Yup, I had, so now I'm a happy bunny again. (It doesn't take much, does it? - Ed.)

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Max and Min continue to play nicely together, if you can call having your head in another dog's mouth, nice. After several minutes of being tormented by Max, Min will turn, lunge and snap at him. Even though she is only ten weeks old, a pushover she is not. It's early days, but they appear to be settling down well and Jan and I look at them with undisguised parental pride. (You big girl's blouse - Ed.)

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Monsieur Dupont (now there's a real French name) arrived, mid afternoon, to give us advice on our fireplace. He's a fireplace expert and I've decided that his is the last bit of advice that I will seek. He confirms what we already know, that the fireplace is basically to big, in relation to the chimney for it to aspirate properly. He has solutions, which we discuss, and he will prepare a devis, however he can't complete the work until June or July next year, so a smokey winter it will be. Having said that, after an hour, the fire worked perfectly last night. Bloody thing!