It can only be a bank holiday weekend. We’ve had the fire going all day today and we got completely and utterly soaked when we nipped out for a walk after dinner. We thought it was brightening up but it wasn’t.

wet walk may

Still, the exercise blew the cobwebs away and the rain washed any remaining strands off. Rors would have been happy to read all day, which is commendable but little boys need exercise.

rors elephants

It’s also Eurovision tonight. Now that’s good and bad. Good, because I love it, and bad because I’ve got into the habit of doing the income tax return on Eurovision day. So, that day has come. Actually, it’s not too much of a hardship. The forms are prérempli – pre filled in – with a few details, such as how many children you have to save you the bother of counting them for yourself every year, and also with the various amounts of interest on bank accounts and whatnot that are tax free. Other than that we don’t have a lot to fill in ourselves. Being an autoentrepreneur, I have to send in a statement of our earnings and the requisite cotisations (social charges) once every three months, so all that side of things is always up to date. It’s working out where to put everything that’s tricky. There’s a fiendish coding system using a number followed by two letters – clearly chosen completely at random so that they have no connection at all with the item they denote – which you have to match in various places. I was stumped today. I was meant to put a total from one form onto another at the point marked 8TA but I can’t find the bugger anywhere and I’ve been through umpty times. They’ll have to put it in themselves, assuming it actually exists, and if anyone’s going to get thrown into jail for not being able to find 8TA it’ll be Chris since he’s head of the household. I’ll visit him and take him cookies, never fear!

Now, lots of people love to hate Eurovision, but as I hinted earlier, I love to love it. People say the music’s crap but it’s not. It might at times be weirdly foreign to non-natives of that particular country or simply not to your taste, but that doesn’t make it rubbish. The performers are oozing with talent, most of them are also stunningly good looking and there are some pretty nifty stage routines too. Surely you remember the French Olympic athletes from last year? It’s a real pro-Europe thing and it’s educational. I mean, when else would you hear Azerbaijani or Icelandic, for example? (Unless of course you live in those countries.)

It’s a fun, energetic, positive, optimistic, brilliant event so just enjoy it! I will.