August 3

John goes off to do the week's shopping. He always comes back in a bad temper and I really don't blame him.  If it's not ridiculous prices and ridiculous driving, it's all the things that don't work: the card that's offline or the transactions that won't go through.  It is still almost impossible to get cash out of a bank and now things are made more difficult by the government clamping down on Ecocash.

Ellie thought school was starting back today and has been awake since 6am.  Now she finds out that it only starts tomorrow.

We have a Facebook page for our cottage and recently it has received a huge amount of likes.  I get the feeling that we are being promoted on some page somewhere that we have no idea about.  I have not updated the Facebook page for a long time as most of our bookings don't seem to come this way, but maybe I should.

A person contacts me through the page asking what are prices are and if we are free this evening.  I ask him to confirm with me if he is coming or not and he then takes my telephone number and that is it.  Around five o'clock, I receive a phone call from the same man saying he is on his way - he is just down the road.  

Suddenly, it's panic stations.  John and I run around, putting flowers into a vase, sweeping the floor, dusting the furniture.  A car arrives at the gate and John is just going down to let it in when it drives off.  That's it.  No message, no phone call, no apology.

The only thing we can think is that Rolo, who had run to the gate, barking madly as he does when someone arrives, managed to put him off.  Wouldn't it be nice to have just been told?