• What a relief it is after the August heatwave throughout Europe. How did you keep cool? I was at my Moulin in France. Although you could barbecue a pigeon on the roof, the river was ice cold. I took a huge tumbler of coke stashed high with cubes down to the end of the millrace. I lay full length across the weir with a rock as my headrest and let the water spill over me down into the river. I really made a splash.
  
• I had a great break. Instead of giving the mill an instant make over we decided to get to know each room by spending the nights in a different one for each visit – then having got the feel of the room, deciding what to do. So this time we moved the bed from the first bedroom to the entrance room, where morning tea was supped propped up against pillows, overlooking a walnut tree and the east side of the river bank.
  
• We started painting and decorating Bedroom One in earnest while a mega bed made its way across the Channel with enough "dressing" ordered from the White Company to complete the entire container load. I was amazed the ferry didn’t sink under the weight. Hooray for P and O! I have still to complete the daunting task of painting the wooden pelmets with water lilies, dragonflies and fairies but its definitely looking dreamy.
  

Next month I attack the salle de bain….

• For those of us who were brave enough to campaign against the war on Iraq it has been a bitter pleasure to have events prove our distrust of our political leaders to be justified. I live in Oxfordshire, quite close to the late Dr Kelly. I hope it is some source of comfort to his family that without his death and the subsequent enquiry, the whole sordid, seedy, despicable web of lies and deceit that calls itself Government would not have been exposed to public scrutiny.
  
• There is no amount of spin you can put on war to make it palatable. Force is never justifiable and is the mother and father of more acts of violence and revenge. Peace and cooperation can only come from dialogue based on respect and a real desire to walk in another person’s shoes, not to nick them and leave them to walk barefoot. Peace making might seem to be a longer route but in fact it is not. In the cycle of war in the Middle East each generation has inherited the rewards from its predecessors actions – and none of us are going anywhere.
  
• Being a Peacemaker is the most challenging thing to do. I so admire truly great statesman like Kofi Anan. However we get the politicians we deserve. Until we rediscover our own power, our own truth, and be prepared to stand up for it, who can blame those political opportunists who rush to fill in the gaps, left empty by unfulfilled lives.