A day like any other..

I am pleased to be able to report that Jacques appears to be making a remarkable recovery, especially when one considers that such a fuss has been made of his illness. His fever has broken and I was heartened to hear that it is, as I expected, not entirely my fault that he was taken unwell. Madame Grognonne was given short shrift by the Doctor for using red lead polish as a hair colourant and was chastised liberally by him, which quite buoyed me up after her gruff treatment of me yesterday. As a result normal routines were resumed and I was brought my cup of tea au lit comme habitude by Madame Grognonne, which I took to be a sign of remorse on her part, and no doubt the nearest I shall get to an apology from that quarter!

However she rather ruined the effect by commenting that she had only done so as she felt far safer making my tea than having me set fire to the house again. I do admit I had a slight conflagration in the kitchen yesterday but it was not entirely of my doing. I had placed the pot on the range for heating, and was suddenly distracted by the sight of an object hurtling ground wards at speed past the window. This was followed by a thump, a clank and a muffled cry.

I was naturally quite taken aback, frightened that one of the children may have hurt themselves, but need not have feared as it was merely youngest attempting to launch himself sky wards in a home made flying machine, he having been quite taken with chief Patissier’s tales of Elmer Buckets airborne exploits in defense of France. It was constructed, I was not amused to discover, from some of my canvases, one of which bore the nearly completed image of a camel. Luckily he and his aeorplane landed on Loic who was bent over weeding, and this broke his fall nicely. I dread to think what might have happened if he had hit someone else on his descent.


Happily the accident seems to have loosened the rust on Loic’s artificial leg and as a result he was able to unscrew the spade attachment and replace it with the hoe for weeding which I am sure made his job easier. I am certain he will be able to straighten the leg with a little bit of effort on his part and meanwhile that fact that he now walks with a limp is hardly noticeable, bearing in mind his other afflictions.

Assured that Jacques is now out of danger Chief Patissier has returned with a light heart to his task of adapting Captain Buckets Donut machine to biscuit making and installing it in the biscuiterie. Of course if my husband had not been so churlish and allowed me to use his spare German Machine Gun for the my painting in the first place I would not have had to pose Loic and Jacques in the rain at the village Calvary and there is every chance that Jacques might have been taken quite so ill, and he would, no doubt, be already producing his gallettes with alacrity. However I thought it sensible not to mention this to him.

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The illustration above is of a French aeroplane from La Guerre a model of which Elmer bucket has kindly sent to youngest and which undoubtedly formed the model for his own flying apparatus. Of course Youngest’s version was slightly more colourful, having half a camel on one wing and an Arab in full headdress on the other all on a background of a midnight blue sky with myriad stars. It was also, I hope it goes without saying, somewhat smaller as otherwise , of course, Youngest would have been unable to launch it from the parapet single handed.