Acquired some rubber matting

I guess I'm either lucky in being in the "right place at the right time", or perhaps I'm just an opportunistic scrounger, but with having a holiday home that's 12 hours drive away from me in Brittany means I'm often keeping an eye out for bits I know I need to get hold of and take over to France next time we're over there.

Earlier this year I was working at home for the day (yes really, I was doing some work that day and not skiving off watching the TV) and in the afternoon went to pickup Jack our youngest from school. When I got there I noticed that the school was having their play equipment refurbished and all the rubber matting that was underneath the climbing frames had been removed.

Ahah, the rubber matting looked as if it would be "useful" in France (not quite sure what) so it was time for a scrounge !

The school were happy with me taking away all that I wanted so later on that afternoon Toby and I returned to collect some of the matting in Liz's car.

'Flipping 'eck is all I can say to the experience of carrying large 1metre square sheets of rubber matting. Half of the matting is about 2 inches thick and requires two of you to carry each sheet, and the other half of the pile of acquired matting is about 3 inches thick and is a real struggle to carry for two people, and for one person it's almost impossible to shift.

Three car loads later and we'd got a large pile of rubber mats at home. Unfortunately they've then sat in front of the house for the last two months with Liz getting more cross at me leaving them in the way. It's taken me that long to determine what to do with them ... finally decided that I'll put them round the edge of our Gite swimming pool in France. Now all I have got to do is to get them to France on my own!