Tons of excuses.
I haz dem.
It's been a wild couple of months. I've been living according to following rhythm:
Sleep - get up - be amazing - sleep
Lot's of things have happened over here.
1) We had a digger in the garden to scrape away the paving around the house that was causing wet patches to emerge on the walls. It looks like a nuclear testing site now. They've not finished and they'll have to come back after their holidays.
We've worked out a scheme to remodel the garden. It will get rid of all the stupid things that have been planted by the people who lived here before and will reduce the maintenance work.
When the big digger was working in another part of the garden I heard little squeaky noises. I managed to trace the source: lo and behold: it was a little nest of mice!
They were entangled in a bush that had been removed. I replanted part of the bush and then covered them with some dry moss to shelter them from sun and Mouser.
Kitteh heard it too, but didn't seem to interested.
In the evening I did see mum or dad roaming around. The day after they were gone. This could mean two things: they were moved or they were eaten. The ground didn't look disturbed so I'm hoping for the former.
Anyway, I haven't been doing any weeding, raking or pruning as I thought they would clear away everything a little earlier.
It is now a complete and utter wilderness. It's very depressing.
2) We managed to find some people thought the intertubes that wanted to pay us to have the hideous electric blinds removed.
They needed to go because we're going to re-do the outer walls. So the ugly things have finally gone and we didn't have to do anything.
3) I finished up some exams in June, all went well, passed with flying colours. I'm still working on my paper. I managed to move the deadline forward. I need to take two exams in August/September because I wasn't able to take them the first time due to lack of time.
Work has been keeping Dr Livingstone and myself überbusy. With no time for fun and games.
4) We did manage to sneak away for two days. We visited the abbey of Himmerod in Germany.
I even bumped into a genuine Cistercian monk in the church, who greeted me on his way to prepare everything for mass.
It was a nice weekend full of Hefeweizenbeer, schnitzels and some very lovely abbey beer.
They're not trappists like the Cistercians here in Belgium, but they've got a trout farm, eco vegatables and honey.
5) The wasps nest in the spy hole in the front door had to be removed, alas. It was all hunky-dry when there was only four wasps there, building their little hive, minding their own business.
But then it was pretty warm for some weeks and I could see every hole was filled up with larvae.
Two weeks ago suddenly there were about twelve or more wasps there and every time I opened up the door they swarmed out protectively. But they were getting nervous and aggressive amongst themselves. So we decided to remove them.
6) We've got some gooseberries in the garden! Hurrah! Dr Livingstone: twenty of them in yoghurt would be very tasty. Alas the stalk is only yielding about ten berries at the moment. But still. The garden had brought forth something. Once the front has been cleared, I'm planting a whole row of the things. I want to walk through the garden and pick fruits of everything.
The cherry tree had some cherries on them, but most of them have been eaten by birds or the ones on them are not ripe yet. They do look a delicious kind of bright red already, but they were as sour as a lemon.
7) Mouser had some dealings with a weasel that it had brought in from god knows where. We managed to set it free two times so it could run away and escape. The darn thing didn't do much escaping. It just hid under a nearby bush and stayed put. We kept Mouser indoors for an hour or two, but once out it headed straight for the bush.
8) Our neighbour (the one who believes in UFO's) had been giving us lots of vegetables from his garden. We've been showered with salad, beetroot, fennel, some kind of cabbage, a couple of kilograms of big potatoes and a weekly box of freshly laid eggs.
We don't really know what to give him in return.
There's loads more, but back to work for now!
Are we going to break the record today? Temperatures have been climbing. On Wednesday we had 31,1ºC, yesterday the mercury didn't make it past the 31,3ºC mark. Forecast says we might get 33ºC today. We've even had an ozon-alert. 
I'm indoors, all the windows and doors shut tight, working on my paper.
