Advertisements

Tag Archives: being grateful

Motivation during the French winter

08 Tuesday Jan 2019

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have written many times about winter in rural France. I have said how people dread it, how it can be very grey (although that is one of my favourite colours!), and how work can be scarce to the point of non existence; add that to what can be one of the most expensive times of the year with fuel to find, and it can be hard.

A new year – a time of reflection

So this year we are approaching winter with a different approach, in fact this year we are approaching a lot of things differently, but more of that to come over the year!

Firstly we have wood, in our garden, our own wood. So we spend at least one afternoon a week chopping the wood (don’t get me started on the log splitter!). I enjoy it, I enjoy working with my husband, with the puppies running around us, and I find it rewarding.

Secondly we have decided to focus on what we can do, instead of what we can’t do. I believe if you keep going what you need will come, so since the new year we have done the following:

We went for our New Year day walk around the medieval city of forgeres

I said we are going to enjoy the winter in my previous posts, and I hope by doing this I will inspire others to just embrace each and every day.

Rich has decided to use his time, and has painted our toilet, and hung the radiator on the wall. We have decided that this is the year that we will take control and this is one way to do it. To decorate the house, with the paint we already have, and to do it well and how we want it. This house will be unrecognisable.

He has also re-arranged our living room, so that we take more advantage of the log burner with a ‘snug area by the tv and fire. I love it, it has gone from this……

To this..(dog leg not included!)

He has opened up the seating area at the other side of the room, and we have decided not to have a table. We never use it! So it’s going up for sale and we now have a huge amount of space. From this….

To this

We have a long list of jobs that we want to achieve this winter, pulling all the logs from the overgrown dead grass around them, decorate the hall, paint our living room and kitchen ceiling white (the leaking roof has been fixed, properly this time without any odious little people in sight!) and decorate both rooms. I am sure in-between all this work will come Rich’s way.

And last, but never least I will continue to cherish the scenes around me, because they keep me here. So here are some winter sunrises and sunsets from 2019.

Sunrise Ambrières-les-Vallées January 2019

Let’s be positive, and honest with ourselves this year.

Moisy

Sunset Ambrières-les-Vallées January 8th 2019

Advertisements

Counting My Blessings: Day 10

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, People, Reflections, Simple things, The continuing adventure

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So here I am on my final post of the ten day series Counting My Blessings and I am going to cheat, I am counting three in this post, and will put it under the heading ‘My Family’.

First let’s talk about my son Tom. I chose this picture carefully because he is on top of a peak in the Lake District in England, with the sun behind him, and for me it symbolises how he can do anything he wants, he is young, and his life is in front of him with every opportunity available should he wish to take it.

I am proud of him: how he has coped with mum and dad moving to France, has pursued his dream of working in the gaming industry and has never given that up. I don’t think he realises just how much strength you need to pursue your dream, and exactly how much strength he actually has.

He is full of fun, empathetic and learnt his lesson to walk in others shoes and is loved by so many people. I am proud of him.

Now my second blessing, my sister. She will kill me for putting this photo on, but she has to be in this, not least for the support she has given Tom over the past four years. The second photo is of Tom and I, with Tom getting ready to walk her down the aisle.

We have had our ups and downs, as sisters do! She thinks she’s always right ( and annoyingly more often than not she is!) But she is always there, she cares, and Tom would not have his dream job without her tenacity and love.

Now last but never least:

My husband Richard.

If any of you have read my serialisation of my soon to be published book (it will happen this year whatever) https://makingthisbetter.com you will know how Rich I and sailed The Ocean of Despair for a long time, to get to where we are today.

This man fought tooth and nail to keep me; he evolved because he wanted to, not because I asked him to; because I never did! After what happened he had to keep up with me, I wasn’t going to wait for him!

And every minute of every hour of every day he did.

I once had someone say to me that they ‘had never had a man look at them in the way Rich looks at me’ and that was true, I know I am truly blessed to have that in my life.

He is a kind and gentle giant, who enabled me to trust him enough to come on this adventure. He makes me laugh every day, literally every day, with his dry sense of humour, and silliness.

Everyone he meets loves him, because he just sees the funny side of life. Look at him in this picture, he is so naughty he has led them all astray.

I am blessed to have this man in my life, he is sensitive and loving; strong when I need him. I could not be on this adventure without him. We are blessed to be as strong as we are now, and we both count that blessing every day, and NEVER take it for granted.

I know he will cry when he reads this; and that just makes me love him even more.

So my final blessing, my family, but more than that: the pride I have for my son, the hope I have for him too.

The understanding I have of my sister, and the respect too. My book wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for her!

The respect I have for my husband, the love I have for them all. I am truly blessed.

I hope you have enjoyed this series; And I hope it has made people think about the small things, because, trust me, they are the things that keep you going in life. So in this New Year, please take time to stop, and see the small stuff.

Moisy

Counting My Blessings: Day 7

30 Sunday Dec 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is Wiglet, my curly blessing; and I count her as a blessing for many reasons:

Wiglet came into our life three years ago, when she was two years old. She had been bought to show and breed; and she came from high ranking French hunting stock. But the problem was her tail would not behave; it was just too curly, like a piglet’s tail.

Due to this she would not win shows; so in the first year of her life she was operated on twice to straighten her tail! As you can see Wiglet is just a curl, from the top of her head to the tip of her tail, and that wilful little tail would not be straightened!

Wiglet didn’t help herself when she then killed one of her owners chickens, and she was kept in a pound with other bigger dogs who then attacked her (she has issues now around food, so it was at feeding time we believe). In the end she was attacked so badly that she had to have a new home and was shipped off to a chateau just outside Paris, with another male Welshie.

But the aristocratic who had Wiglet did not like her. We believe he wanted to hunt with her and she is afraid of gunshots; add to that the fact that she was now a vulnerable little Welsh Terrier who needed love and she ran away, in the middle of Paris!

So Wiglet was sent back to her previous owner, back to the other dogs who attacked her, and she had to be shut away from the dogs in a small room. This was now home number four for her, because she had been with so many people.

But serendipity stepped in, as she always does, and a friend of ours (the lady who bred Harley) suggested us to her owner, we knew Welshies, and we knew their naughty and extremely loving ways; poor Rich, when I heard of her plight I just called the owner and didn’t even ask him. ‘We can’t afford another dog!’ He said. Wiglet came to live with us two days later.

Do you think she is a daddy’s girl?

She is our blessing because she is so grateful to live with us. She loves her adopted brother Harley, and she is grateful for the love we give her, with her sweet vulnerable little face looking up at us each day.

She gives us so much love, and when she smiles her wonky little smile it makes my heart break for the suffering she had. When I bought her a new bed, her own bed that no other dog had had before her, she got in it and that was that, it was her place; and she lays beside me every night in that bed, snoring.

Every morning she wakes me with a tap of her paw and a smile, waiting for a head rub.

She was sent to us, as much as we were sent to her, and she is a blessing.

Let’s share this series, lets get people counting their small blessings, they help to put things in perspective you know!

Moisy

Counting my blessings: Day 5

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, My home, Reflections, Simple things, The continuing adventure

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is Molly, my beautiful girl. Nineteen years ago, just after Rich and I got married I found a little ginger female kitten behind our shed; even to this day Rich does not believe me, and thinks I actually went and collected her from somewhere! Sadly Pussy Willow, as she became known, died when she was just two years old, but not before she had kittens, who were born in our cupboard; and we kept two of them. One, Milly Kitten, was a reclusive cat, who liked to be outside most of her life. She died at the ripe age of thirteen, after spending a year sleeping indoors every night. We loved her dearly, and Molly missed her

Molly was a different story, she loves the sunshine, but hates the cold, rain or snow. She is now very old, eighteen and a half years, but all the time she eats, and sleeps (pretty much all the time now) we know she is okay. She has had her moments over the past year but she still loves life and she is a blessing that we count every day.

She was the cat who lay beside me, with Snowy our Westie when war had devastated our lives (see my other blog http://makingthisbetter.com) they literally made a sandwich either side with me as the filling and she loves me still.

Molly kitten is my blessing.

Over the years other kittens have been brought into the house starting with this pretty little thing: Diddyman dod. She is part of our story because we gave her a home a year after ‘The War’; she was our band aid baby and only Five weeks old when we got her. Molly adopted her and taught her all she knows; we can’t believe she is ten years old, time has just flown.

Then we got Daisy, we brought her home with the shopping, as you do! Tom had gone to university and she was our ’empty nest’ baby. She is a huge, but incredibly gentle cat, just happy with life, and a bowl of milk and cream.

Sadly our last baby: Tinky Tiny Tilly, or Tillybet, was a naughty one, who gave Daisy so much confidence, they were the Black Hand Gang. But Tilly went out one day in March this year and never came home, and my eyes still fill with tears for my baby. You can read all about her in my post Tinky Tiny Tilly.

All of these cats, including sofa loaf, (A story of hardship, serendipity, and love -Sophie The Sofa Loaf) are our blessings, they make us laugh, and I know they will make us cry, just as Tilly has; and Molly will. But if you don’t open your heart to love, even knowing it will cause you pain; then you have not lived. It is all a blessing.

More and more are starting to share their blessings, spread the word let’s take people into the new year on a positive. Please share.

If you want to visit my other blog you can find it here https://makingthisbetter.com

Moisy

Counting my blessings: Day 6

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in My home, Reflections, Simple things, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The blessing that I am counting today is the simple gift of running water. To appreciate water was a lesson that I was taught from this adventure, because when Rich and I moved here we only had access to well water. We had an antiquated old piston pump in our cellar that used to bang away like a demented miner every time we turned the tap on. As most of you know we live hand to mouth (and no I am not ashamed to say that!) so we were dependent on that well. But in a hot spell in the summer of 2017 the well ran dry! You can read all about it in my post…..Une leçon de vie atout votre eau

From that incident I learnt just how precious running water is, especially hot running water. In the post you will read how we managed to shower, but it was not being able to turn on my tap to wash my hands in hot water that got to me the most, especially when I was cooking chicken!

It is something simple, that most of us just take for granted; it is always there when you turn on the tap, and then suddenly it isn’t!

I became aware of how much water we use, and waste; and ever since then I think about my water consumption; not because of the cost, but because I realise what a precious commodity it is – when you don’t have it you would understand that you would choose it over diamonds and gold any day of the week!

We now finally have mains water connected to our home, it was only connected in September of this year; and it was only due to the kindness of our wonderful neighbour and commune leader that we have had water for the last eighteen months (apart for the four days in the winter when the ‘Beast From The East’ came and froze the pipe!)

……..

So today, when I get in my hot shower, and wash my hair, I will count my blessing that I am able to have a hot shower, and I will think of all the people who cannot have that simple pleasure, including those in the Western world where water is readily available but they have no access to that simple dignity of being able to wash. At times it makes me feel ashamed.

So enjoy your hot running water today; if you are able help others to access the same then please do; and count your blessings in that shower, don’t rush it because you have something else to do, or somewhere else to go; just stop for a moment and enjoy that simple pleasure.

More and more people are joining in now, please share this series, let’s get everyone thinking about the blessings that they have, and perhaps the blessings they can give to others.

Moisy

Counting my blessings: Day 4

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in My family and other furry creatures, People, Reflections, Simple things, The continuing adventure

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As most people who read my blog know, one of my greatest pleasures in life is drinking a cup of tea in bed. I like it strong, with a little milk and half a sugar. So this is my blessing for day four:being able to drink tea in bed.

i have chosen this because I am blessed to have ready access to water (more of that later in my ‘counting my blessings’ series). I am also blessed because I have access to tea! And I am blessed because I have a bed, when so many people (even in the Western world) do not. For that I think we should all be ashamed. In England right now homeless people are dying on the streets. If I had the money to give them I would donate to Shelter, the Salvation Army, and Crisis to help them. I was so pleased and proud when my sister told me she had.

We have had a busy few days, so today we are having a day of doing nothing, apart from taking the dogs for a walk. Both of our Welshie pups are re-homes, and in addition I have Sophie the Sofa Loaf, who we rescued when we arrived in France, snuggled amongst the blankets next to me. You can read more of her story here….

A story of hardship, serendipity, and love -Sophie The Sofa Loaf

So I suppose you could say that we are doing what we can, when we can, and for that we are also blessed.

A big thanks to those who have stopped, and thought, and shared their blessings, the small things. But I know there are many more who haven’t, so lets start a trend, let’s share the small things and inspire others, in this world of excess.

If you like these posts please share, I have put links to the previous three days of this series at the bottom of this blog.

And last but not least I am always blessed to have this snuggle bunny in my bed! (He’s going to kill me for that!)

Moisy

Counting my blessings: Day one

Counting my blessings: Day 2

Counting my blessings: Day 3

Counting my blessings: Day 3

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in My home, Simple things, The continuing adventure, The seasons

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today I realised, as I looked at my photos, just how many blessings I have, because I couldn’t decide which photo to choose! That in itself, is a blessing!

But I chose this tin of quality street because for most in my native country, England, this is one of the ‘must haves’ at Christmas time. Quality street is a tin of various chocolate and toffee sweets, and everyone tends to have a favourite: mine being the coconut chocolate toffee, Rich’s is the hazelnut in soft caramel. I think it would be fair to say that over eighty per cent of houses in England would have a tin of quality street in the house at this time of year.

It is a blessing to us now because they are difficult to get in France, and also expensive. But I found this small tin in a Belgian shop on offer. Despite repeated requests I wouldn’t let Rich open it until Christmas Eve, and where in the past we would have just picked out our favourites (from a tin twice the size of this one) and picked at the others, and more often than not left the toffees in the tin for months into the new year; this time we are savouring every one.

It made me realise how much we took for granted and wasted i our life. The tin is now three quarters empty and something tells me there won’t be any in the new year!

I don’t waste anything any more, and that is a blessing. Along with the bottle of champagne someone bought us in the summer! We polished that off yesterday!

Have a good Boxing day folks, it is just a normal day here in France; but we will be celebrating it with some English friends.

I invite you all to join in, share a small thing that you count as a blessing.

Moisy

Me socks ‘r on!!

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by in Change is a coming, My home, Reflections, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The seasons

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

We’ve been blessed with glorious weather this autumn, as you know from previous posts. We haven’t been lighting the fire until the evening, and no need for the other expensive electric heaters. They have a double tax on electric out here in France, they tax you and then tax you on the tax!

But winter is creeping in now, it has crept up the valley and across the fields and under the fence into the garden..

It was freezing yesterday with a bitter Easterly Wind, and flurries if snow. The chooks tucked themselves up in their henhouse (there not moving out now, best they stay with us after last Friday) see my post If I bite my tongue too long and I even gave them a fat ball.

This morning we woke up to a freezing fog and the valley was shrouded.

Living in a stone house is stunning, but they have no foundations and once they get cold they impersonate a fridge! If you don’t warm them up early then you have to put everything on to warm them up later.

I was out today – hence the socks!

But I am grateful for what I’ve got, not least the ability to reflect!

To my American readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving, whatever your circumstances be thankful for the small things.

For those to whom Thanksgiving is not of their ilk for any reason – be grateful.

Have a reflective holiday folks, keep it mellow.

Moisy

Doesn’t matter where you live you just accept things as they are..

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in My home, Reflections, The seasons

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Image result for quotes about being too positive

Here is a blog that I wrote last week, and forgot to share with you – sorry about that folks! I would welcome comments on this one….

Since the chilly temperatures last weekend the weather had now become weirdly very warm, and ever so slightly wet. Last year we had the wettest winter ever recorded in France and it can get very grey, very fast over here, which I know gets some people down.

As I look out of my window from where I write there is drizzle in the air and a feeling of dampness everywhere. The Welshie’s are snuggled and asleep and I have lit the fire early today. (I count that as a blessing as we have enough wood to not worry when we light it – for the first time in three years.)

Grey is my favourite colour, most of my house is painted one shade or another of it, and I often sit up here on the hill alone, whilst Rich and my neighbours are at work. It would be quite easy to feel isolated but I don’t. I am someone who likes her own company, I am busy with my two blogs now, and I am writing for hours every day to hone my book because come hell or high water it will be published – with another month heading to the eight thousand views scenario I would be mad not to believe in it.

I do a lot of reading as part of my research, and today I read a post where it said that it was okay to feel down and it got me thinking (which I am blessed to have time to do whilst living on this French hill) am I too positive?

I have blogged in the past about how someone told me that I was – but then she was a person who never seemed happy in her life, no matter what it gave her, and had often suffered from depression.

So can you be too positive? I know from reading the Tao that where there is good there is bad and where there is bad there is good, and perhaps it is that thought that keeps me going through the bad times, that I know that if I believe eventually good will come my way – in whatever form as long as I believe it. I also know that we continously focus on the negative only negative crap will come our way because we are attracting it. But do I not see the negative shit? Or am I now able (after reading the Tao) to just accept the fact that it is ‘just life’?

Let’s look at our roof scenario – it had major damage from a storm in the March of 2016, and then the insurance company refused to pay out. At that time I had lived here a year and yes I was stressed about it. Wondered how we would survive, berated the world for sending crap our way, and it just seemed as if we couldn’t get a break. Then two months later I started to read the philosophy of the Tao (The book was called ‘Change Your thoughts, Change Your Life) and it did change my life. When I first started reading it I wondered what the hell it was talking about, but I perservered and now I get it; but boy did it take time!

In the September a tornado ripped through our garden tearing the silver birch tree in half and finishing off the roof. As you know if you read this blog we had only a tarp that kept us for the elements and we had that tarp for another two years.

But here is the rub: I had learnt that to worry about it was not going to change it. We didn’t have the money to get it done, the water was going to come in but I had to accept that there was nothing I could do until the opportunity arose to fix it. Yes it could have got into the electrics – but it didn’t – yes it could have rotted the rafters – but it didn’t (well not completely) but what was me worrying about it, or being fed up about it going to achieve? Nothing!

I learnt that when the time was right we would get the new roof we needed and we have, we still carried on living here, we did not die! The same as with the water, I learnt from that lesson never to waste water or take it for granted again.

As the years  have gone on I have learnt that worrying and stressing will get me nowhere, and I just have to accept what life dishes out to me, and go with the flow.

Where there is good there is bad and where there is bad there is good. If I don’t know the bad then I won’t know the good.

So am I too positive?

Moisy

Being positive joke

Reminisces – I love the way this life has changed me

29 Monday Oct 2018

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

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We have had a wonderful warm Autumn here in France, it has been recorded as the warmest October on record, but over the last week winters has started to creep in with the wind; and today, as I sit here with Sofa Loaf (the toothless cat we rescued when we moved here) fast asleep beside me it reminds me how much our lives have changed since moving here.

I am sitting in my fleece, with my old computer (with an added keyboard because the keyboard went on it years ago!) and the electric heater on very low. The clocks went back this weekend and the sun is low in the sky because the evening is drawing in already. Summer seems a long way away now.

Rural living is simple living if you don’t have a lot of money; so over the last three years I have learnt that everything counts, including the twigs from the garden – used for kindling – and the small logs from the cob nut trees we coppiced three years ago, now tinder dry and perfect for keeping the fire burning.

Yesterday as I stood in the biting late autumn wind loading the logs to take indoors I remembered how three years ago I was so excited about our first winter in France; about having to survive, it seemed so exciting at the time. But as that winter wore on I begrudged having to go out in the cold to collect the logs, and I wondered if I really was going to enjoy this life. It seemed so hard having come from our old house in England with it’s central heating that could be turned up at the click of a switch and the open fires we would light for atmosphere more than necessity.

As we were collecting logs today to re-stock our log cupboard, and also to try and finally fill the log store we bought (it is like something out of ‘The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe’ no matter how many logs we put in it, we havem’t managed to fill it yet!) I looked at Rich and said ‘I used to hate this, and now I love it!’ I love being out in the cold getting what I need to make our house warm and ‘snuggly’. I love all of the elements that every season brings and I embrace them all.

I am not dreading the many cold, grey, damp drizzly days you can get in this part of France in the winter. Instead I enjoy looking at the grey mists that surrounds us, I love the atmospheric feeling of being in the middle of nowhere snuggled down amongst the mist, feeling safe, and making do with what you have got.

I do, I love the fact that to use something I have to make an effort and get it, gone are the days when I can just have something in the time it takes me to click my fingers, and it made me realise that I love that aspect of our lives now.

When I used to live in England I would sit in my house in just a T.Shirt, I don’t now! Our only form of real heating is the log burner and you will never see me without a fleece, thick cardigan or fluffy warm dressing gown in the late autumn and winter months; and I love that! I love it that I have collected the walnuts (that we let go to waste the first year we were here, we literally left them to rot!), and that this weekend I will make us a walnut pie (bit like pecan only think Walnut!)

We don’t have money to go out, but in all honestly even if we did we wouldn’t, we are happy in our home, with our beautiful Welshies (the perfect dogs for autumn photos) all our cats, our fluffy slippers (well mine anyway!) This and to just walk around our garden, is enough.

I love what this adventure is showing us! Be gratedful for what you have got and just enjoy each day; and if you cannot do that then just enjoy a small thing each day and be grateful for that! I know it is hard sometimes, trust me you only have to read some of my older blogs to know how hard it has been, but live every day is if it were your last, for someone, somewhere it will be.

A good message for the beginning of the week I hope.

Moisy