NEWSLETTER FOR MARCH 2001

Dear friends,

An eventful month! We enjoyed the visit of Catriona Stuart (widow of Peter Matthews, old college friend of mine) and with her got to revisit several local beauty spots and find another: we got to see the Roman remains at Frejus. On the other side we got burgled twice, not a nice experience. Fortunately nothing valuable was taken either time but Beryl lost her "jewels", and damage was done in the breakins. The second time the intruder came into our bedroom while we were sleeping but woke Beryl up with his torch. So now we close the shutters at night and when we are away for more than a short period, and set the alarm. We hope the idiot has now lost his taste for our house and will try elsewhere!

March has been very springlike with flowering trees everywhere and the plants have not been far behind. We have had quite a display of flowers in the various beds and Beryl has been busy moving them around. The cherry tree was again quite a sight and this year I have plans to spray it carefully to keep the bugs out of the cherries!

Caroline and family arrived on 31st at 5.30 pm after leaving Coventry at 3.30 in the morning and driving straight through. The grandchildren did very well and were quite chirpy when they finally got here. I haven't seen them since September and six months has made a big difference - Julia (18 mo) is quite a little girl instead of a baby, and Anna seems very grown-up at 3 1/2. They plan on staying with us only for a few days before going on to Italy: Florence, and Ferrara, where Francesco is hoping to spend a sabbatical next winter. Then they will return to us for a week's holiday and we hope that the weather will improve for that period!