Category Archives: The adventures of living life in the French countryside

Life!

15 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, The adventures of living life in the French countryside

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“Where there is life there is death, and where there is death there is life”.

You have probably guessed that for me everything has a counter balance. Last nightI had a difficult night. Another of our girlies has taken a turn for the worse, and Wiglet, a hunter born and bred, knows it, she smells weakness. Don’t let this butter wouldn’t melt look fool you, she knew that chicken is ill and is weak and so she was driven into a frenzy trying to get in to their enclosure to kill it.

As dusk drew in I called her and gave her the command, and she ignored me, no surprises there! So I went over to get her and shushed her into the house; but as I did so I noticed her rubbing her face. On initial investigation all I could see was blood, and what looked like a split from her mouth to her nose. I panicked and ran round a kitchen looking for something to wash her face, then I got a grip and bathed her face with clean kitchen roll and could see that there was no split, but she could not close her mouth and her teeth appeared to be out of alignment. I checked all her teeth and her tongue and could see nothing and I thought ‘Oh my God she has broken her jaw. At this point she could close her mouth because I had manipulated her jaw but she was still rubbing her face and whining, and she kept going to the water bowl to drink and then walking away. It was clear she could not lap up the water.

I grabbed a syringe and squirted water into her mouth, but most came back out, whilst I frantically searched broken or dislocated jaws in dogs; simultaneously videoing her and sending it to my friend. That was it we were both searching the internet then for anything we could find whilst she ate a chew, the cat food, and chicken and rice! But still she could not drink.

The plan was to take her to the vet first thing, and I took the syringe to bed with me and her and Harley pup, in the hope that I could get some water down her throat. It was pitiful to see when she walked up to the water bowl and stuck her paw in, and walked away.

So I searched a different search and asked ‘why won’t my dog drink?’ Up came various reasons, one of which was that dogs have very deep roofs on their mouths and things can get stuck, thereby preventing the tongue from working as it should and making it impossible to drink. That was it, she sat so quietly whilst I ran my finger along the roof of her mouth and found this embedded in the roof of her mouth width ways right at the edge of her throat.

I promised her I would make it right and I did, I pulled that bastard right out, and Wiglet promptly drank half a bowl of water. We went the the vet today for safekeeping, and her mouth has already healed and the vet confirmed she is one tough little bugger.

So as I sit here this evening, in a slight breeze, and warm evening sunshine, and glass of wine in hand I count my blessings, for all that surrounds me and with the thought that if I had left it through the night she could have choked to death, thank God I listened to that voice in my head, that said ‘Check again.’

And I count my blessings for this

Sadly we think we will have to Re-home the chickens we have, it is driving our princess too mad, I don’t think the sick chicken will make it meaning there will be only two girlies and Claude, but we have to know that they will not go in the pot, we could not just send them away to be killed. I do think our chicken keeping days are numbered.

Where there is good there is bad and where there is bad there is good…

Bonne Soirée

Moisy

And then life runs away with you…..

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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I cannot believe that it has been two weeks since I blogged! Life has just seemed to take over!

My dear friend took all of my stock of ‘handmade with love in our barn in France’ wooden hearts, moons and much more, back to England to promote at an artisan market. I spent two days painting and embellishing this promotional board for her to use, and then sod’s law stepped in and the courier company did not deliver it in time!

But such is life and the stall looked stunning anyway and has generated a lot of visits to our Etsy shop petiteFrenchfancies.We are blessed to have such food friends who help us, and I always count my blessings.

As part of promoting a shop, and raising my media profile, because I WILL get that book published, I have twitter, Instagram, and PinInterest accounts, and spend quite a bit of time posting to these sites, but they do work and so it must be done. It was no surprise to me that the stars of the show at the Artisan Market were the moons because I have a moon board on PinInterest that has just gone berserk averaging up to thirty pins a day!

This has inspired me to develop that particular part of the range and branch out into moons and hares, and I love it…

Also Spring has kicked in and the clematis, and hydrangea needed feeding and rearranging quickly, and our pots needed to be fed and prepped for the summer. I plan to have a blaze of blory in my pots this year.

Adding to that we are still frantically trying to clear our garden of the trees that were felled in February, just so we can mow our grass and stop any ticks getting to our much loved animals, especially these two…

The grass has got so long around the tree branches that they are literally becoming embedded and that will have to be our focus for the next week in between working and the two bank holidays that are in France!

So bank holidays mean vide grenier’s where the French bring out all their old treasures,and often all their old merde! And sell them. This is the time I am in my element, searching for pretty little French things to stock my shop, only last week I found these beautiful and rare finds…..

I want to keep the shelf, vintage from the 1940’s but hubby has put his foot down and said it has to go into the shop. He is right of course, we have been without a kitchen roof for three years, so we have to focus now that life has sent good people our way.

But now they have been added to my long list of things to do, as they have to be put onto the shop, with photos to be taken, and settings to be made!

Sadly we also lost two of the girlies over the past two weeks, despite adding calcium to their diet, and rubbing their bellies because we thought they were egg bound they passed away. We could not kill them or eat them and we have had to have a funeral pyre for them so we raised a glass one evening this week to say goodbye as we sat by the fire bin they were in. Now Claude only has three girls in his life, where this time last year he had six.

Like I always say, the only constant in life is change….

So speaking of change Tilly did not return. Her bed still lies empty, and there is a big hole in our hearts.

Last weekend a strange thing happened, TIlly had a small toy bird, that when touched, or tossed in the air would tweet, it sounded just like a bird. It was up on her bed, and I had forgotten about it, but last Sunday, on a wet afternoon, it started to tweet, as if something was playing with it. For two hours it drove Wiglet the Welsh to distraction; perhaps it was Tilly’s revenge for all the times she had chased her! And then it stopped. There was a strong sense that our beautiful little cat was with us, in spirit. On the Monday it started again, and I looked up at the bed, with tears in my eyes, and said how much I loved her, and thanked her for coming to say goodbye. The bird stopped tweeting, and for me, she was gone. But not for Rich, he still hoped; and so on Monday of this week, as he was in the kitchen making the tea, I heard him say “Oh my God!” He came running in to get his shoes on, saying Tilly was on the windowsill crying to come in. I flew outside, frantically cslling her, but she was not there. Rich swore he had seen her, I believe he had, she had come to say goodbye, to tell him to let her go.

So yesterday as I was working on PinInterest this picture came up on my feed, it was as if to say Tilly is with Snowy our Westie Dude, and he is looking after her

i have to believe what I tell others, who lose their beloved pets, if Tilly could tell me this is what she would say….

And yes I do have tears in my eyes.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone whatever time it is for you in your timezone, treasure every moment…

Moisy

Processionary caterpillars and my tree of Tao

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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I may have said before but I love this tree.

For me it represents the ebbs and flows of life, in the way it sways in the breeze, and then sways in the howling winds we get on the top of this hill. It never blows about furiously, nothing seems to rile it, it just goes with the flow. When I look out of my bedroom window, from the wonderful vantage point of my bed, this is what I see, waving at me as if to say ‘Go with the flow, girl, and everything will be alright. Look at me, I stand here in the long winter, and just wait patiently for Spring to come.’ All will be what it needs to be in the end, just trust it.

But this winter we noticed a small white pouch hanging off of it’s branches, and thought ‘Oh no!’ It was a sac of processionary caterpillars!! Now these little critters will all decide, one day in Spring, to climb down the tree nose to arse in a procession (hence the name) and go off to find somewhere to bury themselves in our garden and emerge later in the autumn as moths. These moths will then go back to ‘My’ tree and build some more sacs, multiplied many times, and lay more eggs. Only thing is this time the little critters will come out and strip my tree!!

The other problem, which was immediate and very serious, was that said caterpillars would kill my animals. They are extremely toxic and were the animals to touch them, or were we to touch them, then the very least would be a nasty, nasty rash, but for the dogs, especially, it would mean a form of anaphylaxis and they would die.

The sac had to come down, before the caterpillars did!!

Sadly this meant we had to cut the branch from the tree; so our wonderful, knows no fear, lumberjack friend came along on Monday to resolve the problem. Now these little critters are clever, the nest was on a branch over forty foot up the tree. So up went our nearly septuagenerian friend (he would out us all to shame he is so fit!) forty foot up the ladder (hand saw in hand) and then jumps into the tree and climbs another ten feet, all the time with me footing the ladder with my eyes shut!

They did not come easy and the branch got stuck, so we had to cut another three branches from the tree, and still they would not drop! So there was our friend jumping up and down on the other branches to jolt the cut branches out of the tree, with me shouting at him to ‘be careful’ all the time. I think the adrenaline rush is what keeps him young in body and mind!

The bonfire was built, because you have to burn these suckers, it is the only way, and they were promptly dispatched to caterpillar heaven.

All part of living in the countryside!

I felt so guilty for my wonderful tree of Tao, but I knew that it had to be done, to save it’s life. Now it still waves at me, only this time it is saying ‘Thank you’.

Moisy

 

My mornings go like this – life in the French countryside……

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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…..With five cats, two without teeth!! And two mad Welshies…….

Monday: Get woken up by Wiglet the Welshie barking at the neighbours car that she hears every morning, but, for some reason thinks that they are going to kill us so she has to warn us all and wake us up!!

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With no central heating it is essential I pull on socks and slippers, put on fleecy dressing gown and put the heater on in the bedroom. Off I go to make our first cup of tea in the morning. As I enter the living room I ensure that I put the light on, we have shutters so our room is pitch black, and our cats seem to take great delight in murdering as many mice as they can in one night; and there is normally a disemboweled mouse on the floor. I make my way around the dead bodies and into the kitchen to a choir of meowing cats all wanting breakfast – sod the poor mice they are dead after all!!

I put the kettle on first!! Feed the caterwauling cats and then go back in to the late departed mice with my grabber to throw them in the ditch – I am sure something will want to eat them.

I go back into the kitchen to a cacophony of cats calling out for milk and cream. I let the dogs in and feed four of the cats milk and cream (imagine an Iles Flottant) and then have to give it to the Welshies as well.

Peace – all is well with the world, lots of lapping, silence, and I get to have my tea.

Tuesday: Wiglet the alarm clock goes off and I get up – see above for slippers, and attire; I make my way down the stairs, cannot get to the door at the bottom because I have two Welshies, and a black and white fluffy cat standing in the way. I give up and go to the loo instead, where the cat proceeds to scratch at the door and shout at me to get out – sometimes I feel like Gerald Durrel, and his mad family in Corfu!

I come out of the loo open the door, put the light on and think eureka no mice!!! Then I tread on something hard that turns out to be a mouses nose!!! Seriously are they not a delicacy?

Said routine in kitchen goes ahead only this time it is joined by Harley deciding that he wants to eat the cat food, and Wiglet deciding that she wants to growl at him!!

I calm everyone down with the Iles Flottant of milk and cream – aaaaaa peace. I light the gas fire, call the snoring husband and have my first cup of tea. I have been up over half an hour now!!

Wednesday: Wiglet is snoring and does not hear the neighbour – hooray!! But she does hear the cats banging about downstairs about five minutes later than normal and proceeds to hare down the stairs with Harley in hot pursuit. I know that the cats just do it to wind her up for all the times she tries to eat them because they know she will get shouted at!!

Harley then realises that the door is shut as always and comes back to bed. That dog is Bag Puss!!

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I get up, put on said attire, lift the blind and say Oh! It is raining how surprising!! Then off I go down the stairs to be greeted by two Welshie arses (and trust me there is nothing better than a Welshie Arse)

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And yes! She is on the table, the dog thinks she is a mountain goat!!

I open the door and follow the normal routine of putting the light on and searching the floor. There are no mice, no noses, no entrails, no tails. Eureka!! I go into kitchen put the kettle on feed the caterwalers

It is like a military operation, the one we adopted with no teeth fights with the others (go figure she has no teeth, but she wants to take tham all on!) so I have to  pick her up, another wants to eats everyone’s treats that are on top so I run round the kitchen moving the dishes, another is so old, bless her, that she is starting to get dementia and shouts at  me even though her food is in front of her, one runs out of the front door with the Welshies, and one is on top of the fridge because one of the Welshies wants  to eat her (guess which Welshie!!!)

I go into the living room light the fire, call husband and notice that one of the cats is now prowling around the sofa. ‘Oh no’ I think, please don’t tell me we have a live mouse. I let the Welshie’s in, sit down with my tea and mayhem ensues. There is a live mouse under the sofa, and now two cats and both of the Weshies are going mad trying to get it. Harley is crying, Wiglet is trying to rip open the back of the sofa, both nearly get electrocuted because they keep knocking a three way extension we have in our plug (French electrics! Don’t get me started!!) The lamp gets knocked off the table, the cat scratches the Welshie who then tries to eat the cat, the chair gets knocked over – another peaceful morning! The cats think fuck it! I am bored now! But,no, not the murderer known as Wiglet the piglet she will not leave it.

So I get dispatched upstairs with a second cup of tea and the two hounds whilst poor husband chases the mouse around the living room, catches it and the mouse lives to see another day. Hooray!!! Trust me we do this  often!!

Thursday: I decide to go back to bed to have my tea, with the Welshies in tow. All is well until I get the chews out, then they begin arguing and barking. After calming them down Sophie the Sofa Loaf (the mad one with no teeth- see the cast- ) who is totally away with the fairies comes up the stairs meowing. God knows why, she knows we have two Welshies, she knows that Harley wants to kill her, but no, up she comes meowing to let them know she is on her way. Off the bed they jump in hot pursuit of the cat, my tea gets spilt, and husband goes back downstairs to make another.

Friday: Dog barks – check – socks on – check – Welshie arses at the bottom of the stairs – check – dead mouse in the living room – check – mouses nose in living room – check. All is well with the world!!

Dogs chase mad cat with no teeth – check – mad cat with no teeth still insists on sitting in front of the fire with the Welshies!! Why?!

Saturday: Check, check check, check!! Oh hold on, we appear to have something under the log burner because diddymandod the cat (don’t ask she is female!!) is peering underneath it as if to say come out little thing I won’t hurt you. She then gets bored and the murderess starts. We are in bed having tea but can hear her banging and crashing around, knocking over the coal bucket, all of the fireside tools, and barking as if that will make it come out!! Harley is bored he has come back to bed with us.

Then we hear the snarl and all is quiet. Rich turns to me ‘She got it then!’ Up she comes and goes to sleep in her bed. When Rich goes down for the second cup of tea there is the poor thing, soaking wet from her spit and dead with a broken neck. At least it didn’t suffer!

Sunday: Lets have tea in bed again, and lets shut the door so that the mad cat cannot get in! Let’s just relax. Bang!!! The guns from the hunters go off and the Wiglet is off barking……….

Seriously though do the mice not realise that we have five cats and two Welshies?!!!

Who doesn’t know that when we go to bed the cats get the cards, brandy and cigars out and play poker; and the silly mice are the aperitif!!

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And, yes, we are mad, we love animals so much we try to save the mice as well!!! Imagine… I have only told you about the mornings!!!

Moisy

iPad and other inconveniences – and then the good part came

04 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by in People, Reflections, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The background story, The continuing adventure

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Over the past few weeks I have been without my iPad. I had dropped it many moons ago and, despite it being in a case, it had a wobble for a couple of days and then righted itself. But it is old and two weeks ago it was ooompah loompah’rd by the Barnes Wallace of the house also known as Wiglet (She has so much coat, and such a fat arse that she looks like a bouncing bomb!!)

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She jumped onto my poor pad and that was it, the screen would no longer respond.

I was lost, more than I thought I would be; because I do all our admin, emails, my Etsy shop, this blog, Instagram to promote our shop, Facebook on the iPad.  I don’t have a smartphone and, to be honest, i don’t need one and don’t miss being bombarded by social media all through the day. Just using my iPad kept me measured. But now I was lost.

As you know then ‘The Beast from the East’ arrived and our water froze so things were tres difficile.

But now I am back, a lovley man in Mayenne replaced the screen sensor, the BFTE has departed, our water came back on Thursday and I gave thanks for a lovely hot shower. Since our well ran dry in the summer I have truly respected water!!

A lovely friend of ours called us up and took us for a meal (simple but wholesome) and our logs are slowly being split and stacked. Overnight Spring has sprung, and we are embraced in a balmy twelve degrees!!

More than anything I have finally sent my re_edited book to another publisher, and received an acknowledgement to say that they are considering it! I have already been asked where it can be purchased! All good, all good.

Positive thoughts, always believe.

Have a good Sunday folks.

Moisy

Wood, Wood, and more wood in every sense of the word

11 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The seasons

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Before we moved to France someone we knew, who already lived here, told us that wood would keep us warm in so many ways – they were not kidding!!

So last Sunday we got a delivery of wood, the weather has been freezing and is set to stay that way for another week. It was dropped off outside our barn and we spent an hour stacking it up and it will hopefully take us forward into next winter.

The lovely man who delivers it had a chat with Rich and we agreed that we would have our really large Oak tree and our Sycamore pollarded. This is where elderly trees are cut back.

They had been left way to long – I would say at least fifteen years –  and the Sycamore was hanging over the road and blocking a lot of light from the garden. As you can see it was the huge tree that often features in my pictures of the valley…

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Dillon with ears

And you can see her in her full glory in the background here…. if you can stop looking at the cute teddy Welshies and the naughty puppy Welsh with the Dumbo ears!! (Check out the new blog Dylan’s Welsh Adventure, available on WordPress – I blogged the first post earlier. A big welcome to Karen and the world of blogging.)

The same for the Oak, and last summer it was noticeable that the part of the garden we tend to lounge in (naked!!! – Only joking! We like or neighbours!!) was covered in shade from very early in the afternoon and we missed most of the lovely warm evening sun.

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So we had no choice and we had to do it and the lovely man who provides our wood offered to cut them with Rich’s help.

I love my trees, especially the Oak and it broke my heart to do it, I could never be a farmer!!

In addition the fir trees that had always been a pain because they blocked our view of the valley from our terrace and also blocked light to a large part of our garden also had to go.

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So now the Sycamore looks like this = only a bit tidier, and look at the view!!!

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My beautiful Oak (I hated doing it) looks like this …

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and the where the fir trees once were we now have this an absolutely stunning view.

 

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Those who know me know I love nature, I follow the Tao, but four of the fir trees were dead and all of them were precariously close to the electrical cable that supplies the hamlet so they had to go.  But I am not going to say that I did not share a tear for them, or that I will not be watching my Oak and Sycamore closely and praying that they have not gone into too much shock.

It looked like a tree massacre..

 

There is wood everywhere in my garden, and in two years time we will have more then enough wood to last us for at least two winters;  the fences are dented and boy do we have some work to do moving everything and stacking so that they can season.

Needless to say it has been a busy week!!

More than anything though it is the light that has come into the garden and our house that has shocked me. It is so bright, the living room is full of light and the kitchen has so much more light coming into it. The house has been warmer because even the winter sun has managed to reach her for most of the day when she is out and our bedroom is full of sparkling light from the crystals we have on our bed and as knobs on our cupboards; which brings me to the next part of this blog.

As well as that I have started working on our new range of produce for out Etsy shop and possible other outlets and been busy embellishing our new iridescent range of butterflies, hearts, and stars; all cut by hand and embellished and decorated by me. They are stunning and we have some on our walls and watch them change colour and catch the light all day long.

 

I love everything that catches the light and sparkles so these are close to my heart. You can contact me direct via Messenger if you would like some or check out my Etsy shop petiteFrenchfancies.

More posts to come folks, including another from my husband and the French language – only this time he is teaching the lovely Matt English – You can only imagine, but let me confirm that some of what he taught him I won’t be able to tell you!!!

Moisy

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PetiteFrenchfancies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Winter; it is what it is…….

06 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Reflections, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The seasons

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I have always had a saying in life, never knew where I got it from, and never really fully understood it until now, and that is “It is what it is, and it ain’t what it ain’t!!”

This winter has been the wettest winter in France for over one hundred years!!

Most of the rivers have burst their banks, including the tributary that runs along the bottom of our valley to the Varenne River in Ambrieres Les Vallees; where the weir is now a raging waterfall..

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The volume of rainfall has not helped our moldy walls and, up until this week, the ground is literally sodden. It has only been since the weekend that our terrace has actually been dry for the first time in three months!!

But due to this the good thing is that it has not been freezing cold, and in fact has only gone below zero degrees about three times all winter.

Two weeks ago we went for a coffee in Mayenne and parked by the river where the benches that I sat on in the summer were in the river, and half of the car parking facilities had disappeared; and, guess what? It was raining!

 

We met a friend and walked the dogs into the town, had a coffee, walked back to the car and the topic of conversation was the rain and how both Rich and the friend wished it would just stop raining, how the rain was making them feel down, just grey and wet all the time. I didn’t join in the conversation, it was raining nothing I could do nothing about it, so no point in harboring on it.

As we were driving home Rich asked me “Doesn’t the rain get to you? Isn’t it getting on your nerves?” To which I replied “No, it is what it is and it ain’t what it ain’t.”

“How can it not get to you?” Rich asked, and my reply was because I cannot change it; what is the point in stressing about something that I have no control over? I cannot change the weather, I like the colour grey, the weather is not hurting me, it is just wet, and I knew that when the sun shone again (which it has but more of that in a moment) it would just make me appreciate it more. I apply this way of thinking more and more in my life, if I cannot change it (like the cesspit) then why sit and worry about it? It won’t change it but it will stop me having an open mind and letting other things, good things come my way, it will make me miserable.

So this week, for the first time in a long time the sun shone, and it has got really cold; and guess what? I really appreciated it!!! I appreciated the stinging that I felt in my hands and on my face when I came in from the cold. I appreciated being able to peg my washing out (a favourite thing of mine all my life, you cannot beat the smell of line dried washing) I appreciated the warmth of my home when I came in – because it is warmer and gets warmer every day, because we go with the flow and and take life as it comes.

Snow is now predicted this week, and extremely low temperatures.

It is what it is, it ain’t what it ain’t!!!

Moisy

 

 

 

 

 

Wind, snow and a smart car!!

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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Over the past week  we have also been helping ‘Dad’ for a few days, and having a giggle along the way.

But coming home the other night we had the journey from hell… It is normally a two hour drive but we hit traffic at the busy port city of Caen where there had been four accidents, and there were grid locks everywhere.

Picture it ….. I am in a tinky tiny Smart car, following Rich in a huuuuuge van. We only had one sat nav between us (God knows why we did not bring two!) and I have no way of knowing the way home and I don’t have the Sat Nav!! But I had to let people in front of me, such is the etiquette where grid locks are concerned, well for me anyway!

I am sitting in my little car being blown about by the wind and unable to go over sixty kilometers an hour in case the wind picks me up and plonks me down in front of a lorry! There is traffic everywhere and Rich is about ten cars in front of me – I can just about see his tail light – bearing in mind that there are also about another fourty white vans around me I am hoping I am watching ‘his’ tail light!

The wind is blowing, the rain is sheeting down, I have bad eyesight and glaucoma so don’t see well to drive in the dark and add to that I am grizzling because I am lost. How I managed to use my sense and follow the right white van off the motorway I do not know but I did.  Bless Rich he stopped on the slip road (really dangerous) because he was so worried, someone was looking after us that night because how I did not get hit up the arse when I slammed my breaks on is beyond me!

But it did not end there…. we then had to drive through numerous villages and towns and down remote windy roads with lorries up our arse!! And then it started to snow! Add to that the lightening that then started to light up the sky and it was a joy. I did say to myself ‘you are ‘aving a f*****g laugh aren’t you?’ (you have to remember I am an Essex girl so this was said in what my international readers would consider a ‘cockney’ accent!) for others think Danny Dyer.

Bless my husband he pulled over and came running back to me because he was so worried about me – I was worried about me!!! But as we made our journey onwards it did not stop me looking at the Christmas lights and nearly crashing my car. Every little town in France has Christmas lights of some sort and it does lift your heart – although not this night when there seemed no end to the journey.

After four hours (the journey normally only takes just over two) we got home, and I made a mental note to use both of our sat navs in future – what a pair of silly arses we were!!!

Whilst I love it here the French people really are, from my experience, some of the worst drivers in the world. They don’t seem to have any spacial awareness, and take over on bends, brows of hills, in the snow, ice you name it they don’t slow down – they just keep driving! I think it is because the roads are not busy they forget that there may be someone else around that corner!

When we got home I have never been so grateful, the house was freezing (so yes, you guessed it we loaded the log burner!) and when I eventually sat down after feeding cats, dogs, putting the heaters on and getting into my jymbies (pyjamas) with my thick thermal socks and my slippers, glass of wine in hand, I thanked God for all my blessings. Not least my mad husband……

I love my home…… moldy walls an all …..

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More posts are on their way – and as always please share.

 

Moisy

 

 

 

Time flies when you are having fun!

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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For quite some time I have been meaning to write a blog about living simply in the countryside and how busy you are just surviving. But guess what? I haven’t had time because I have been busy surviving!!!

But now I have the moment I thought that I would give you an idea of what it would be like for you if you, too, chose to live in a ‘rural idyll’ with not a lot of funds, or realistically if that is another way to put it!

Firstly since my last post to you all I can confirm that our beautiful boy Harley is doing well and back to tormenting his sister with regard to chews and toys!! Chaos really does reign supreme in this house and we are blessed. So this has added to my routine because he has had to have numerous medications administered, kine (physio) three times a day because his back legs get stiff and lot’s of watching because he is a Welsh Terrier who thinks he is invincible – as most of them do!

Would I change any of this – not for the world and when he snuggles up to me at night and I have a Welsh Terrier under my arm (another on my head!) and a glass of wine the world is good……..

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As you may know we have also started up a fledgling business making and selling rustic wooden stars and hearts  via my Etsy Shop so I have been busy, as chief designer and decorator, embellishing them for the people across the world who have bought them. I just hope that they like them….

 

A wonderful way to work though, and I am loving my Etsy shop petiteFrenchfancies, it is doing well for a fledgling and I continue to promote and build on it everyday – thank God for all the computer skills that I have learnt over the years.

But despite all of this when you live a rural life you really do ‘live’ life; especially if you have five cats, two Welshies, and seven chickens!! Let me give you an example:

I got up the other day and as is often the case, there was a half eaten mouse waiting on the mat, one of my cats does not like to eat the noses so she leaves them for us for breakfast – bless her. So  I went into the kitchen, fed the cats, put the kettle on, let the dogs out, cleaned up the mouse, opened the blinds, and let the dogs back in. Wiglet (ever the hunter) even thought butter wouldn’t melt to look at her..

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proceeded to wiggle around the kitchen (remember I have not had a cup of tea yet!) I thought to myself ‘There is a mouse in here’ as I turned around. Then I heart what sounded like a dogs toy and I turned back to find her with a dead (whole) mouse in her mouth! ‘Oh well, I thought, at least it had a quick death!’ (I always try to look at the bright side!) So I cleaned the mouse up and eventually sat down for my first cup of tea.

As I drink my tea I promote petiteFrenchfancies (see link at bottom of page) and put pictures on Instagram, twitter, Facebook.

But work does not end there , our only form of heating is our wood burner so my morning goes like this …..clean out the wood burner, load the wood burner, light the wood burner. Rich cuts logs in the barn and brings them round and we load the log cupboard up with logs – carrying them in in old carrier bags because you have to be able to shut the door behind you or you will just be defeating the object.

Then you load the wood burner again…

Clean the kitchen – living in such a rural area and given the dead mouse every day I wash my kitchen down, every day! Unload the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, make some of my wonderful garlic and parsley mix (which I like to have in the fridge as I add it to so many recipes now!) Put washing in, feed the chickens, feed the dogs, feed the cats (again).

Load the wood burner…..

By now it is mid-day so because electric is cheaper, I run around and put the electric heaters on around the house for two hours.

Then I sit down to paint stars, paint hearts, embellish them.

Load the wood burner…..

Make lunch – I have made up some lovely recipes for soup now so look out for them and made a delicious Tomato soup last week.

Load the wood burner …..

Book postage for items sold on Etsy shop. Pack up items for courier.

Load the wood burner!!!

I think you get the picture! Would I change it? Not in a million years!

I will be blogging all week leading up to Christmas folks – thanks for staying with me there are some good posts to come and some seasonal as well.

As always please share; and if you want to take a look at my shop the link is below or just type in petiteFrenchfancies and up she will come. I have just opened a 40% sale so you may find something vintage you like….

 

Moisy

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PetiteFrenchfancies

Bats and flat caps

24 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

≈ 2 Comments

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Last week after a hot day of over thirty four degrees, and a lovely cool evening of twenty eight degreesm we sat in the garden, under our walnut tree, looking across the valley. The sun was just setting and the bats that live in our roof had come out to play with a brilliant display of aerobatics right about our heads.

Rich and I have come to love bats (which is a good job as Rich counted sixty eight coming out of our roof the other evening) and the reason for this was a sad story from last year:

As is necessary in France we do have those horrible sticky things for catching flies hanging in our house, Sadly a necessity when you live in the countryside when the temperature is often reaching over thirty degrees. But last year a poor tiny little bat came down our chimney (this was avant log burner and chimney protector) and it got stuck on the horrible, horrible tape. We could not leave it there to suffer, this tiny little creaturem so I donned my gardening gloves and tried, as gently as I could to remove it from the tape whilst it cried piteously. It broke both of our hearts, this often misunderstood creature was so tiny and so pretty and we could not help it as much as we wanted to. We took it outside after removing it from the sticky tape but I am not sure if it survived. Since then, since coming so up close and personal with these creatures we have realised how beautiful they are.

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So last night we sat watching these beautiful  little creatures with smiles on our faces, and we felt blessed. In we trotted to have our showers and some food, it was so hot we left our windows open,  and as I sat there watching the TV, whilst Rich was in the shower, drinking my red wine (of course!) I felt good. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw something swoop, and there it was a swooping bat in the living room (No that is not a new breed of bat!!) For those new to my blog you may want to read my post from last year “The bat, the cat, the ninja and the welshie.” For those followers who have been with me some time you may remember this post!!)

Now much as I love bats, and much as I know, since holding one in my hand, how tiny they are, when they are swooping about your living room with a wingspan of at least five feet (or so it seems) they can seem pretty daunting!!

“Oh shit!!” I said as I calmly got up, ducked about four times and headed for the door. Then I thought “I need to help it, there is a bloody fly sticky strip up in the living room!” And I turned from ducking woman to woman on a mission. I went into the kitchen and found the bat we use to swat the flies and also Rich’s flat cap (much as I love bats I don’t want one caught up in my hair!)

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In I went into the living room where pandemonium had ensued: The Welshies were jumping all over the furniture trying to catch the bat and barking their heads off, with me shouting “shut up, shut up” which was frightening the poor bat even more.

God knows what the neighbours opposite were thinking! I had all the lights on so they could see in the window and what they could see was a woman in a  flat cap in temperatures of over twenty eight degrees, two dogs jumping all over the sofas barking the woman screaming shut up and ducking every now and again whilst swinging a fly killing bat in her hand!! I am convinced that they look out of their window sometimes and think “Oh! The mad English are at it again!!!” I am sure that they say “Come and look at the English darling, they are having one of their mad turns!

There I was swinging the bat at the bat (there is a pun there somewhere!) trying desperately to stop it flying into the dreaded sticky fly catcher. I had opened our big windows fully …

 

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(Please note this is a before photo, I have not repainted them white!!)

And I proceeded to shush the bat out of the window. But then I got really brave and suddenly thought to myself, “take the hat off you stupid cow, it is only a tiny terrified bat!” So off came the hat, the dogs got chucked out in the garden and I proceeded to say to the bat “Please go out darling, please don’t get stuck on that.” With that Rich came down with a towel round his waste and said “What are you doing?!” The bat answered him as it swooped at his head!! “Oh shit!” he said “Quick I need to get some clothes on!!”

So off he stomped back upstairs, quickly got into some jim jams (pyjames for those from other continents!) and came back to help me rescue the bat. Bless it, it was so tired it kept landing on the beams, and eventually Rich the fearless caught it in a plastic container and let it out, to fly the night skies again. The bat lived to see another day.

As I have said before, all part of living in the country!!

Look out for more to come, and please share and rate this post with the star rating system at the top of the blog, I would really appreciate it.

 

Moisy