Today I realised that the external hard disk attached to my laptop had crashed. I started using the external hard disk last year to remove lots of photos, videos and music from my laptop hard disk (which is only a 256G flash drive), because the lack of free hard disk space had slowed the laptop to a crawl. Since moving the files to the external hard disk, the laptop has increased its speed and reliability enormously. Before leaving Australia I had been backing up the internal and external hard disks on a regular basis, but had not done so since coming to France this year because the backup disk was still at home. After the crash, I tried to recover the data from the hard disk with a rescue program, but was only partially successful. As a result, I have lost many photos/videos from this trip to France, plus the recent source code additions to several websites (including this one). That is why there has been a paucity of photos on this site for this year, and why it will take a long time to re-construct the source code so that I can update the website online. I have now added a couple of online backup procedures to my files for the future.

Since Doug & Krista were staying with us for a few days, we decided to throw a little party at La Maison to introduce them to some of our French friends. As part of the party, Valérie and Susie put on a little concert singing some traditional French songs, and our elderly neighbours (the Gisberts) absolutely loved it.

Our American barging friends Don and Laura also came along with their little dog Annie. During the afternoon, our ginger cat from next door arrived (as always) to wander around the garden, but Annie spotted him and so they both settled down for a “stare-off”, which went on for a considerable time. In the end, Annie ran out of patience and just walked over to Meggsy and chased him off. After that, Annie positioned herself at the top of the stairs to the Terrasse, where we were having a bite to eat, to protect us from the “dangerous feline”.