1st - 14th February 2016. Dogs and seagulls, both in the Port of Roanne and by the River Loire. The Bridge Club of Roanne.

The days are cooler now, and the mountains in the distance are covered by clouds, giving the port of Roanne a ghostly appearance.

I have reknitted the neck of Shannon's sweater, and it seems to have worked! She has not yet repeated her Houdini “escape from my sweater” act!

Our bridge club has its own premises in an apartment, not far from the port. Each room has a king of a different suit, overlooking the play, with all four rooms in use on competition days.

Moving on to the dining room after play today, there are plenty of bugnes (pancakes) for everyone.

A flock of seagulls have moved to our end of the port, and can be extremely noisy. One morning they woke up at 5am and had a long, loud discussion before setting off for the day.

Shannon was fascinated by the cats versus dogs programme on TV.

This afternoon we had planned to walk across these stepping stones and on along beside the River Loire. However, there was just too much water for it to be safe. The stones usually stand up, right out of this tributary.

Yesterday, Mick's two dogs decided to go rabbiting, down the bank towards the river, and were missing for a couple of hours. Luckily, Meg was coming along the path, between rabbits, just as we got there, so she was happy to come to be caught. Billy was a little further on, way down on the river bank, but decided that perhaps he could manage to climb up to join us too. They were even more pleased to see their master, but we did not hear them promise never to do it again!