HOME ALONE

So off to England he who thinks he should be obeyed went. A list in hand of all the goodies I can't get here in my beloved corner of rural france. Cheddar cheese, bacon, quality street the list is really quite endless. First came the snow, then freezing ice made the roads so dangerous, then the water pump on the van, enough you would think for one simple trip. NO then along comes mister eurotunnel and puts his twopenneth in. Your train is cancelled we have nothing til wednesday, turn up at silly oclock in the morning and hopefully we will be running a service. Oh well the 2 chicken portions I have in the freezer are looking decidely like christmas dinner for me and charleigh, good job I don't have a liking for duck as my miserable barbary duck george would fill my oven nicely. Only joking George you are safe to live out your days with mildred in my wood at the bottom of the garden. Well thats my moan for this year. Merry Christmas Bloggers and A happy new year

A French Day Out

A couple of weeks ago we decided to take part in our villages annual Vide Grenier, to those of you who don't speak french Boot Fair. We loaded at some ungodly hour and made the 2 minute trip to the village square. Thinking to ourselves surely no one will be there at this time, we turned the corner and there were our friends and neighbours already setup and raring to go!! So we took up position in the shade as the weather forecast was SUN, SUN, SUN. After a slow start people began to buy word soon got round that the crazy english couple that took on the old house no one else wanted were selling english china and other across the water goodies. At lunchtime most of the stallholders abandoned their tables and stood in the shade of the makeshift bar. We gave this a miss and in true brit style made a pot of tea(much to their amusement). At 6 in the evening the thunder clouds rolled in and that was our excuse to leave, a brilliant day was had and a few euros in the pot as well

Im Still Here

Hello all my fellow bloggers, I haven't posted for a while my digital camera finally gave in on me and I haven't replaced it yet, waiting for a bargain. I still drop by all your blogs to see what you are all upto and as soon as I can I will update my blog and website with all my renovation news from here in france
love jules xx

It must be my Age

After a brilliant 50th birthday celebrated with friends I decided to get up early get a few things done before my guests awoke. First tread of the stairs and a few swear words later I find myself at the bottom, bruised just about everywhere and a very painful thumb and hand. After several ice packs and just as many cups of tea I am on the mend. If this is what getting old means you can keep it, I am off to buy a bungalow

BIG BIG BIRTHDAY

I am on countdown at the moment to my big day, also my friends from england are paying a flying visit so that will be great. So if you see a huge cloud of smoke above you in a couple of weeks don't worry it will just be all my candles on my cake that I'm sure someone will make for me.

There's a Stranger in Town

There we wer minding our own business driving back from Charleighs horseriding lesson when around the corner were these two guys. We usually play a game and try and guess how many deers or boars we will see on the way home, so imagine our surprise when we spotted these. These sort of animals don't normally roam our countryside, the circus folk were held up in a small village for the week and these two were taking full advantage of their new found freedom!!

Did I say All is Well.....Spoke too soon!!

No this is not my actual kitchen, but wading around in the water is very similar, just when I thought heating and water was sorted, the pipes in the gite kitchen burst due to the freezing weather we have had recently. So there I was with a friend who came to my rescue mop and buckets at the ready. Well I can say the floors are lovely and clean.

New Friends

I have a new friend living in my garden, we have a small piece of forest and he roams around there but at night he has been sleeping on the daybed in our summer kitchen. I know the picture is not the best but you can just see him peeking through the plants, my very own fox.

This week we finally moved into the barn, there is still lots of work to do but we felt enough had been done for us to be comfortable whilst we finish the work around us. WRONG!! Day one hot water packed up, day two ecofire in the kitchen packed up, day three friends arrive and help us move another fire from the gite into the kitchen, we spend allday fitting a new flue for it only to find it doesn't work on day four. Day five we take the godin that was intended for the gite and fix it up on the mezzanine instant new friend, so toasty I love it. Day 6 we finally find a supplier for the part that is broken on the ecofire. Day 7 all is well and more importantly WARM!!