It is I, l'Eclerc!

An abrupt start at 5am! I awoke to a rustling sound towards the front of the tent. Usually this is either Merri or Arthur tossing and turning, but then I heard a chinking of bottles and a rattling of pots.

I unzipped the sleeping bag, unzipped the bedroom and crawled out. Strapping my headtorch on I peered through the gauze at each of the children in turn. All sound asleep.

I bravely unzipped the front door and looked around behind the food locker and near the bottles. Nothing. All quiet. I decided to nip to the loo, seeing as I was up. So off I trotted, unzipping the porch on the way. On my way back from the toilet block (which, incidentally, has Cliff Richard pumped through at piercing volume 24 hours a day in a sort of Magic FM version of the Ipcress File... but they won't break me!) I approach the tent only to see the tent flaps blast open and a tumble of feral cat come rolling and snarling out! Caught in the glare of my headtorch it stared at me from underneath next door's caravan, its eyes burning into me through the night.

Mystery solved! We must make sure that all food is zipped up at night and the rubbish bin emptied to avoid a return visit.

To be honest, I hadn't suspected a cat, but rather thought it might be a 'herrison' or hedgehog. Signs throughout the encampment warn inmates of the hedgehogs' nocturnal patrol - Joan's Shock Troops we call them. Meredith came off the worse for wear when she met one on her way to the loo in the dark. Why, you ask, would Merri be wandering about the camp on her own at night? Well she wasn't. She was with Arthur. We've been sending the youngest out on night manoevres. It's hard on them but, we feel, life affirming. Only the other night, they were 'reccy'ing the far end of the compound when they discovered two ancient Fokkers lying under an old tarp. Fortunately, they'd had a drop too much Le Piat d'Or and were sound asleep, so the kids managed to sneak past them, only to discover two hidden aircraft. An escape might just be viable!

Anyhow, we thought that you might enjoy some pictures of the camp, as we've stayed around for most of the day - there's the playground, the pool, there's Grace using quantum computing to hack into the Echelon satellite network via the Large Hadron Collider at CERN whilst also sending Hotmail, the ping pong table, the gun tower and the bar:

Grace has also been tracking Agent Joe Gash's progress on his covert mission to Africa - details of which can be found here.

What else? Well I broke the fridge this morning by leaning on it and jamming the fan. Joan let me leave the compound for one hour max in order to requisition an alternative asset in Thouars. She told me to look for l'Eclerc... I'd know him when I saw him. Turns out l'Eclerc is actually a provisions depot masquerading as a supermarket. The one in Thouars is also under development, meaning it has no 'l'Eclerc' signage at all and is instead surrounded by scaffolding, barbed wire and masonry. The locale makes Beirut look like Pateley Bridge. Nevertheless, dodging sniper fire I make it inside only to find that the security guard speaks only in a strange foreign dialect. Luckily he grasps my meaning when I shout "FRIDGE! LE PIC-NIC! LE CAMPING!" at him and off I toddled leaving him with the handful of snout given to me by Joan as 'currency'. (Seems this 'snout' is very special and the "paint your own pots" event in the marquee is, in fact a "grow your own pot" session in the hydroponics section!)

Will try to get a message through later on... signal permitting!