Tag Archives: sanctuary

The Renovation story: The Beast

24 Sunday Nov 2019

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

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It will come as no surprise to any people who read this blog that I love old furniture, and in France there is an abundance of old furniture.

This is what I have fondly come to call ‘The Beast’! It is a very old dressing table, 1860 to be precise as the date is written on the back of the mirror! It has had woodworm in its lifetime, and shows the life it has lived. It weighs just under quarter of a ton, with its marble top, and mirror. So imagine the look on RD’s face when I said I wanted it in our new bedroom!

This is our wonderful French curved, small stairwell that we had to try and get this piece of furniture up. We moved all the furniture in the living room and opened up the second door to our stairs (essential for moving furniture, it’s going to be hidden behind a mirror!) as we attempted to get ‘The Beast’ from RD’s van to the bedroom.

And we huffed, and we puffed, as I was at the bottom at one point I thought ‘if he lets this go now I am going to die!’ It got stuck on the low ceiling at the bottom of the curve in the stairwell, so we brought it down and sawed of legs that had been added to it at some point. ‘That should do it!’ Said RD. so up we went, huffing and puffing and it got stuck, really stuck. RD lost it, and punched it and it moved and was free! Once in situ RD said ‘when we sell this house this bloody thing is staying here!’

But the beast was not finished with me: I decided there was too many scratches on it so I was going to paint it (who am I kidding? I didn’t like the colour!) I primed the bottom first, and it bled through like a bastard! So I primed it again, and it bled! I painted it with acrylic and it bled! I painted it another two times with an acrylic lacquer and yey! Then I painted it with chalk paint. It only took me fifteen hours all told! The detail on the pillars had to be painted with an artists brush so that I didn’t lose the definition.

The only way to open the heavy draws was with the key, you can see the keyhole in the centre of each drawer. With our clothes in lace it was too heavy, and unpractical so I added crystal handles.

Then on to the mirror: I had learned and this only took three coats, but each coat took me two hours because all of it had to be done with an artists brush, so as to not lose the definition of the pretty flowers and filigree. But it all served as a distraction for me, to stop me being ‘driven’ about my book I have learned my lessons!

it really is a pretty detailed piece. I finally finished it, I started it over a month ago! But I love it, it now has a new lease of life.

It makes my life so easy putting our clothes away, as the beast contains them all, that and the little French armoire beside it.

Perhaps ‘The Beast’ is no longer an appropriate name for something so pretty.

More to come the bedroom is now our sanctuary.

Rosie

The little blue bird

15 Wednesday May 2019

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

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Image result for birds with blue heads in france

Le Mesange Bleue or Blue Tit

As you may know by now we only have one chicken and Claude the cockerel left (by the skin of his teeth I may add, and Wiglet still looks at him longingly through the fence!)  Read here The chicken may be laying but something is clearly coming into the hen enclosure at night and stealing her eggs methinks. So despite no eggs we cannot put the chickens in the pot (it is just not our way) and they are living out there retirement in the enclosure the Rich made for them last year.   You can read about that here

The new home that we had lined up for them, where we thought they would mingle with other chickens, did not go ahead: as it turns out the odious person who was going to have them was in fact going to eat them! Animal lover? I don’t think so! So the chicken & Claude stayed with us. As always life showed us the way.

So every morning they are fed the scraps of food (no cooked meat as we don’t want to encourage les Ratz!) and some grain. Rich is the main feeder of the chickens and over the past couple of months he noticed that a pretty little blue, grey and yellow bird follows him everywhere, singing to him and sometimes shouting at him if he is late feeding the chickens. The little bird is a blue tit.

At first Rich thought he was imagining it until it started to stand on our steps outside our French windows (or are they just windows in France?!) and shout at him through the glass.

It didn’t care that our house is in fact a house full of predators: with four cats and two Welsh Terriers

At the weekend it hopped around furiously on the patio until Rich succumbed and went out to feed the chickens. As Rich starts to walk across the garden it flies ahead of him calling all of it’s friends: the sparrows and they would all swoop down to eat the rice, pasta and soaked bread.

One Saturday as we were gettting ready to go out it landed on the windowsill outside our bedroom window and proceeded to shout at Rich because he was late!

But now the little thing is like part of our family; worryingly it has become so tame that it sat under one of the sun chairs on the patio the other day singing to us, despite there being a cat sunning itself on the chair above!

I know that i have shared recently that we did not know if we would stay here, or whether it was time for change; and I am open to all possibilities. But right now life is showing us the way: Rich’s work has picked up and he has regular clients now. I have registered to provide a service over here mainly, because my blog is going to hit 50,000 views this month and I am going to self publish: I have too many people contacting me asking me where they can buy my book. (Sorry that is why I have been away from this blog so much.) and things are looking up.

So going with the flow of life showing me the way I stand in my garden, full of trees, including the fallen cherry, and I soak it up: I no longer take it for granted.

This garden is truly a haven for the birds, from the owl in the cherry by the barn, to the woodpecker knock knocking on one if the giant oaks; to the blue tit who seems to have become our friend; and I know that  I am  blessed to live here and have this experience.

I stood this morning in the warm spring sunshine watching the little blue tit and all his compadre’s eating last nights chips, despite me standing there, and I thought: this is a memory to keep Moisy.

Have a good week folks.

Moisy

 

Image result for birds with blue heads in france

 

The ‘Mad’ summer has begun…

22 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in Change is a coming, People, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The good life

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It has been a mad week!! Literally our feet have not touched the ground. We have viewed six houses, some weird, some lovely, some overpriced and some in deep rural parts of France, some too deep and rural!! Some viewings have been weird, some have been lovely, some of them have been shocking when it comes to price, and one has been a second viewing, but more of that to come in upcoming posts.

Karen and Dylan hit Ambrieres last Thursday night at 11.30pm. I had cooked a chilli and rice in advance which gave us time to catch up, drink wine and chat before eating at 2am!! The next day we were out house hunting by 10.30am and did not get back until after 5pm, it was a long day with a  lot to take in; and this has pretty much been the pattern for the week, adding to that some shopping, drinking wine in the summer evening sun, and drawing up lists of costs and pro’s and cons with regard to the houses we have viewed.

Because of the house hunting we have found small villages  in neighbouring villages to us that we did not know existed, including a stunning village called Sept Forge which is situated  on the river Mayenne and is truly idyllic. There is a tiny lane that winds down beside the river  with steep steps cut up through the forest that lead into the village square and it’s medievil church. Another two words come to mind when walking down this lane looking for one of the houses we were going to view, and they were tranquility and  sanctuary.

Image result for river at sept forges

The Welshie’s have not disappointed, in fact it is fair to say that they are now a pack, with Dylan being well and truly accepted by our two, with Wiglet as Dylan’s surrogate mummy (she even pulls her along by the back of her neck!). To watch these two together is a delight as they bounce around the garden talking to each other in Welshie, with Dylan virtually permantly attached to Wiglet’s side.

Harley has had his work cut out as the alpha, but has done a good job and Dylan know’s when to behave when Harley tells her – it is what he says that’s it!! He is totally worn out and whilst I was drafting blogs in bed today he stayed firmly attached to my leg asleep, and dreaming.

But the funniest one of all was yesterday when this stubborn little ten month old Welshie finally gave up, half way across the sofa she was climbing, and this is how she fell asleep…

Karen and Dylan finally moved into the house they had rented on Tuesday – simply because we had been too busy, and having too much fun in the garden to check the perimeter and move her in. The house she is renting is beautiful, massive, and really pretty.

But most of all this week we have laughed, we have planned (as much as you can for three people who really try and live each day as the only moment!) We have sat in the dark by candlelight listening to the owl in the tree (I still like to think it was the one whose life we saved two years ago, as it hoots at us) and Karen has screamed as she moved a bag in the kitchen only to find a huge toad hiding under the bag having been chased there by the dogs – This is one of the things we have to look out for as they are poisonous to them. But it made Rich and I laugh whenran off down the kitchen – all part of the adventure my friend, all part of the adventure!!

common-toad-bufo-bufo-crapaud-commun-france

The weather has been mostly sunny, with no real rain, and it is now  finally coming into it’s own with temperatures averaging between twenty three degrees and twenty five degrees. The forecast is for a steady increase and next week it will be up in the 30s again. So we have finally gone mad and a pool has been purchased *after about an hour and a half in the shop trying to work out the size and how big a cover we needed, base we needed and what cleaner we had to buy – Karen and I are writers, mathematicians we ain’t!! Bet you can guess whose job that is going to be tomorrow – and it’s not going to be me or Karen!!! It is so big it should be full by about Tuesday!!

But now I must go folks we have a BBQ at Karen’s house and a sleepover – how weird is that!! I think it is fair to say that we all feel young again, and excited at what life has to hold.

Katch up soon – promise- more blogs to come.

Moisy

A late spring garden in France

30 Wednesday May 2018

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

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I know that people love to see our garden and it has been a busy, and beautifully warm month. We have just under an acre with the part you see often in my blogs, where we also have a terrace and this view…

But we also have a large open part to the side, where the chickens reside in the ‘Chicken Hilton’, and our leaning cherry gives us shade, and a too many cherries to use every year.

We tend to sit on our recliners in this part of the garden, looking out across the hills. In addition we have a chemin (a lane), our very own private lane that we can walk up and access another part of our land behind our barn. It is on this we will set up a glamping summer house, that we will call sanctuary, because that is exactly what it will be for all those who come to stay in it, those who want to get back in touch with nature, with an outside solar shower! We plan to build a bridge across the chemin, and I will shabby chic it to the max, but that will be another story for the future.

We have finally moved the logs and huge branches that were laying in the lawn, mental note: don’t let the grass grow through them again! Piled up the cut logs, and realised we have a lot of work to do before the winter.

I have finally dug out the eighteenth century stone flower beds, and planted them up with trailing flowers so they have gone from this

To this…..

The flowers on my miniature cherries have been and gone, along with the blooms on my ‘snowball’ shrub.

Our clematis are in bloom, and our pot plants are thriving.

The birds are singing, we have magpies nesting in the silver birch that has burst back into life after we cut down the pine trees, and the bees are humming.

We love the new arrangements of our seating areas, and our place for reflection on our vintage bench under our beautiful pine tree.

Life is good, simple, (some may even say basic) and that is what makes it good. I am grateful every day.

Moisy