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Tag Archives: Contentment

We’re all going on a summer holiday

09 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Friends, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The good life

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No more working for a week or two (or a day or two!)

Fun and laughter on our summer holidays

No more worries for me or you for a week or two ( or a day or two!)

So we have arrived in the Vendee, an area in France where the French holiday. After much driving down dirt tracks, courtesy of the sat nav! Much swearing from my husband and a McDonalds (we’re on holiday! It has to be done when in a road trip, other burgers are available!) we arrived at our pretty little Ibis, with it’s indoor pool, and the sun is shining.

So off we went, without our map, and got lost! So back we came and opened the wine, fed the puppies, ate crisps, painted our toenails (yep Rich has gone for a pale pink!) and are sitting on our terrace.

We are soon to shower and change for a venture into the town, and a lovely fish dinner by the church in the square.

More to come folks…..

Keep reading

Moisy

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Brrrrrrrr – guess what? Gas freezes!! But we are still okay… it’s all about how you look at things!

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Reflections, The continuing adventure, The seasons

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As I explained in my last post we had a wonderful Sunday that has just passed. Since then’Beast from the East’ has bitten here hard and the temperature hit an all time low of minus ten on Monday night!! So needless to say our water pipe has not thawed out and we are getting a bit smelly!!

No seriously we are not! Because it just made us go back to the way we used to wash when we were kids (sorry to say many moons ago!) when I would put the cooker gases on in my dear mum and dad’s kitchen  to keep warm, and have what was called a ‘strip wash’ at the kitchen sink. You washed the essentials that were likely to get smelly, or show dirt! And you left the rest – am I bringing back memories to some? When did it change and we all had to shower everyday – what a luxury that we wall take for granted.

But tonight we might go for it and have a watering can shower, reminiscent of those we had in the summer, only this time we will be washing ourselves bloody fast because it is so cold! We have had ice on our window on the landing – but please folks we don’t have central heating and we are not freezing to death, it is only in the morning; and we have a fan heater that warms our bathroom up toasty.

(A big thank you to all for your suggestions but our temporary water supply is above ground and over 40 meters long so we cannot insulate – we just thought we might have got away with it!)

In fact it has been so cold here that the gas bottles that we purchased yesterday were frozen – I know mad! But as is often the case in France they store their bottles outside whatever the weather, and then still sell them to you even though  they won’t work for at least 24 hours!! When you know it will freeze you would think that you would bring them in!

But never ones to give up we looked up on the t’internet (that was a reference for all our readers from t’North in England, who are saying “Cold! What bloody cold. In my days you wore clogs down t’mine!!) Anyway I digress….. after looking up does Butane gas freeze? And finding that yes, it does! We then looked up how to defrost it and today I sat it in a bowl of boiling water (from our precious water out of bottles that I then re-used to wash our hands) and hey presto, I finally defrosted it!! Good job because we have used up our gas bottle for the cooker hob boiling our  water.

Lesson learned we are going over to Propane!!

The log burner is working overtime and my lovely hubby is working overtime cutting logs for it, and the cats are snuggled in the bedrooms and the blinds are just about to come down early.

But do you know what? We are lucky. As I said to my sister the other night I look at images of children as young as 2 with nobody, living on the streets, or those who have to go down the bin for scraps to eat, or people who have lost the loves of their lives to illness and then I look at my situation with the log burner blazing, food in my oven in my kitchen, warm and snuggled under a throw with my beautiful boy Harley snuggled up to me (for that alone I am blessed) with people who care for me; and my darling husband who loves me, in the kitchen pouring me a glass of wine.What the fuck do I have to complain about?!!!!  The water will thaw, the weather will turn (it is going up to ten degrees by the weekend) and as the world always does it will all turn around again. I no longer have to get up and worry about travelling to a job I hate in the snow, no I don’t have everything but you cannot have it all, and boy do I have a lot. Yes we have work to do but it can be arranged – and has to be sometimes- around the weather. As I said in a previous post I know good things are coming my way, this is the year of change for us.

My sister agreed with me, at most what we don’t have is an inconvenience; and I know (yes know) that when you have bad you have good because everything goes in a circle – if you believe and allow it to.

People say to me how positive I am, because I get it now. In the words of great Lao Tzu

“Bad fortune is what good fortune leans on;

Good fortune is what band fortune hides in,

who knows the ultimate end of the process? ”

And just to make you smile here is a photo of me cuddling a teddy!!

Stay warm everyone. I have to go now my hands are freezing!!!

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Moisy

Winter….. Cold cold winds and a smattering of snow

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

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

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So the cold has us in its grip, my feet are like ice and I cannot warm them up, and I am currently sitting here writing this post with my feet on a hot water bottle. The room is warm but chilly old me, once my extremities get cold then they stay cold!!

The snow did come in a smattering and we have been wondering whether the pipe that is currently carrying water to our house, and above ground is going to freeze; but if we don’t keep thinking about it then we don’t give it credence and there bye  it won’t.

The chickens are loving the sunshine that has arrived with the cold, but not so much the fact that their water had over an inch of ice on it and Rich had to break it up and give them some drinking water in their Chicken Hilton Hotel. (Where there is good there is bad, and where there is bad there is good.)

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I have got loads of washing almost dry (although a tad frozen when I have brought it in) and we have embraced the cold and started to work on the garden; whilst wearing two fleeces and a woolly hat (I look so attractive sometimes, but then I look at Rich and so does he!!! Good jobs we loves each other!)

I have cut back my clematis that were starting to grow and were in a bad need of a hard cut; I also fed the hydrangeas that I bought last year, and went about the garden picking up the many many huge branches that have been blown out of our trees this winter during the wet and windy hooleys.

Add to that the precarious ones that were still blowing (unattached) in the wind…

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It made me realise just how much you are provided for if you just decide to get off your arse and get it!! As many philosophies say, if you just let go and stop looking what you need will be provided for you.

So Rich and I are now ahead of the game where wood is concerned, and will actually have a stock of wood for the next winter, and some still to be seasoned for the winter after. We have a ton of pine that needs cutting and we can intersperse that with other wood and use it safely if we do so.

I never thought I would be walking around my big garden picking up twigs to use to light my fire- but one of the biggest lessons I have learnt out here is waste not, want not; and now we have more wood to add to our pile and  enough kindling for the rest of this season.

As I was doing this I was thinking to myself and wondering if I had more money, would I still do this, would I still not waste things anymore? The answer was I would still do this; in my old life I would come home to my centrally heated home, it had real fires and we used the logs that could be bought already seasoned! Our’s are seasoned, the ones we picked up we had seasoned and, no, they are not pretty but they are real!

So yes, no matter how much money I have in the future I will still break up what my garden provides for us to survive the winter; it sure beats working in an office; and I know that I would rather work for nature than for my last employer!

It is a good feeling to  be ahead of the game for once, and we do finally feel as if we are getting there.

When we eventually came in from the garden, hands and faces stinging, the house was warm and welcomed us. I believe it is warming up every year because it knows we love it, each other, and all our furries; along with the friends and family who have stuck with us and shown us so much support; it knows we love living here; and love all the lessons we have learnt

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And we do.

Moisy