What is it with men.....?

We're now in the final throes of our French adventure and with only three weeks left here we have a mountain of things to do for the lovely tenants who are taking over our house.

Rooms to repaint, airing cupboards to make, kitchen worktops to replace and...... oh God, I can't even bear to think about it..... the cellar to sort out. That in itself will take several days, as we have to sift through our impressive collection of 'hors-service' printers, children's schoolwork dating back to the days when we could legally send them down mines, empty boxes, christmas decorations, halloween decorations, duvets, dead mice and other assorted miscellania - or rubbish some less enlightened folk might say.

Every day I'm up at 7.30am, packing boxes, sorting out stuff for charity or dechetterie, or persuading DD that she really doesn't need to take all of her 180 books, of which she claims to be reading 'every single one'!

On top of that we have holiday guests until the day before we leave so pools still need to be cleaned, laundry to be done, guests to be looked after, hells teeth.. .I'm wearing myself out just typing it!

Around 9.30am I kick the CH out of bed (note that I've already been up an at it for 2 hours) whereup he makes a pot of coffee then spends the rest of the day doing the flaming garden!

Now, you have to bear in mind that we've had no significant rainfall since April and the garden already looks like the aftermath of some mad dictator's 'scorched earth' policy or even the Somme without the trenches. There's barely a thing alive. The grass is a fetching shade of yellow, the trees have a certain autumnal hue about them and the garden is ankle deep in dead leaves, dropped walnuts and windfall plums.

What little colour there was has either been dug up by Prudence the golden non-retriever, in her constant search for a cool place to lie, or eaten by the chickens, who are testing my patience to the maximum at the moment. On the promise of rain last night I put all my window pots of geraniums on the lawn to soak up the (as it turned out) non-existent precipitation. By this morning I had an attractive array of stalks. I can also boast dahlia stalks, petunia stalks and verbena stalks if you're interested.

So I ask you, what's the point? It will all grow back in the end.

I know the CH doesn't want to leave France, but he seems to be in total denial and I foresee a mad, crazy panic in three weeks time.......