Who said you can’t teach old dogs new tricks? Roger has taken to tiling like a duck to water. To be fair, he has learned it all himself, largely with the aid of YouTube, which is proving extremely useful to help us learn new skills. Here he is in action in one of the bedrooms…

He started in the ‘low risk’ areas, so the downstairs loo, wash basin and under the stairs cupboard are now complete…

Meanwhile, my painting duties continue. After trying several french paints (and seeing some of the prices!), I have to confess to having ordered 90 litres from a UK company that specialises in shipping paint to Brits in France – and have saved several hundred Euros into the bargain. I can’t really work out a) why French paint is so expensive and b) why it is so rubbish. They may be good at many things, but paint is certainly not a french forte! Anyway, I’ve taken a break from the walls and ceilings to tackle the shutters…

Can’t wait to get back to the walls and ceilings! The only worry for the coming week is that winter is finally going to arrive. Sub-zero temperatures are not ideal for painting or tiling….

We had a big pile of manure delivered today by a local farmer – the chickens have been in total heaven,  scratting around in the poo…

Wonder what the eggs will taste like?

Boudie, of course, didn’t want to be left out of the party and emerged with a very grubby beard. Unfortunately we had to go to the vets this afternoon for some routine vaccinations. I was quick to explain that the whiff of manure was coming from the dog, lest she thought it was me!

Like most people, gardening (of the vegetable variety) takes a bit of a back seat at this time of year. The garden certainly isn’t looking at its best! Nonetheless, it is still pretty productive. Unlike the locals, we tend to keep most things in the ground over winter. The potatoes were picked, bagged and stored many months ago, as were the onions, but our carrots, beetroot etc seem to do just as well in the ground than stored elsewhere. Here’s the selection I picked this afternoon…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we have overeaten a little over recent weeks with Christmas, visitors and all that, so Roger is going to be subjected to a diet of vegetable soups and stews over coming weeks. Given the large quantity of Jerusalem artichokes we have and knowing the adverse gaseous effects they produce, it may be worth steering clear of La Belardiere for a little while! Speaking of the artichokes, the bowl at the top of the picture contains just one root – reckon we’ve got about 50!!

On the subject of eating, we are finally getting the hang of when dinner is served around here. We were out at the local carp fishing society dinner last night (!) with some friends, which was a ‘choucroute’ evening. Having been last year we knew we wouldn’t be fed early and so had a good snack before leaving home. We were kindly invited by friends to an ‘apero’ beforehand, and again took advantage of a  little ‘casse croute’. Good job too – dinner was served at 11.pm, cheese around 1am and the pud made an appearance just before 2! We certainly weren’t peckish by the time we eventually got to bed…

What is going on with the weather this year? We ate outside in mid-December, my winter cycling top had its first outing of the winter only today…and there’s a daffodil in the neighbours’ garden…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the talk in gardening circles is the very poor year ahead if we don’t get a bit of a cold snap soon. We did have a couple of chilly days, but just not enough to kill off all the bugs and give the plants a winter break. The big worry is that the blossom will come early, then we’ll have a late frost and we can say goodbye to our fruit crop for the year. Let’s hope not!

At least I’ve managed to put a stop to the rain. On our cycle rides the talk is often about gardens and the amount of rain that has fallen (and who said it was the Brits who are obsessed by the weather!). I always feel a bit sorry for Roger, because we don’t have a rain gauge and he can’t join in with his ‘well we had 11 mms! So I bought him one for Christmas and 2 weeks since it was installed…still not a drop recorded!

The mild weather has, however, been great for our new grass – and now the terrace is finished too it is starting to look something like somewhere to sit out and enjoy a balmy summers evening. Now there’s something to look forward to…

 

 

National stereotypes are a funny thing. We all think that the French eat lots of pongy cheese, smell of garlic, wear stripey tops and emerge from the pharmacy with bags of suppositories… Hmm – maybe not too far from the truth then? It would seem, though that the French have some very strange ideas about us, or at least some aspects of life in Britain. For a start, they are convinced that it is always foggy. Many of them learned English a little while ago and the pictures in their books obviously showed London in the smog…and that’s still how they perceive it. No wonder they never go to the UK on holiday! The other thing that keeps cropping up in conversations is the notion that people in Britain aren’t allowed to own houses – because ultimately the queen owns them all. There are various takes on it, but after a certain time we have to turn our homes over to her majesty! And according to the theory that is why we all turn to the french property market so we can own somewhere we can call home. I’d love to know who dreamed that one up…any ideas?

Greeting people in France takes a bit of time. We have to arrive at our dance class a bit early as there are usually around 50 people there and all have to be kissed – at least twice! At this time of year it takes even longer as in addition to the kissing, everyone had to be wished ‘Bonne Annee’, ‘Bonne Sante’ and ‘Meilleur Voeux’. All 3 seem to be required on each occasion! The other thing that comes around at this time of year is the old Galette des Rois, that we wrote about last year: http://kathandroger.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/galette-des-rois/. We only got back from Blighty on Thursday morning so have yet to experience our first of the year…but it won’t be long!

Our livestock seem to have flourished in our absence. Thanks to neighbours Steve, Sara, Sophie and Matt the goats are looking well fed and content and the chickens have been on their annual gastronomic holiday with Gilles and Claude in the village. When we went to pick them up Claude invited us round for a new year drink. She apologised for not having had time to prepare much, but as Gilles pulled out wine after wine, Claude emerged from the kitchen with numerous beautifully presented and mouth-wateringly delicious canapes. I strongly suspect the chickens have been enjoying a similar standard of scraps!

Our barn conversion work moves onto a new phase with the arrival of the new year. The construction phase is just about over and it is henceforth all about decorating and flooring. I’m the painter, armed with new rollers and brushes and Roger is the ‘carreleur’ or tiler, ready and waiting for the delivery of hundreds of tiles tomorrow. We are planning to be ready and open for business in May, so as well as the physical work, there’s the website and the marketing to get going…a different and exciting challenge for 2012 to which we’re very much looking forward.

We wish all our blog-followers a very happy, healthy and satisfying 2012!

 

We are still trying to get to grips with the French media. What is considered important in the UK seems to differ to the preference here, but I’m not sure which is the more apposite. A few days ago the news headlines began with a piece about David Beckham and whether he was coming to play footie in the French league, and how his family would love the ambiance of Paris. Who cares? I like footie, but an old boy like Becks and his piggy featured missus hardly merits the headlines in my book, despite all his well earned bucks. But then I’m just an old fart.

And talking of bucks, we had a sad experience the other day. On leaving the house we saw a magnificent  stag, crossing the road next to our house. He had come from the nearby woods and was making his way up the hill over a sticky newly ploughed field, obviously exhausted, and had difficulty in picking his feet up. We hoped he would join our goats in our field. Later that day we were chatting to a farmer neighbour who told us that the hunt had caught it a couple of fields away and it had been slaughtered. I have hunted in the UK, and seen what happens to the fox, but we were both sad to learn of the demise of such a lovely looking animal.

 

Only last week Roger was bragging about how wonderful our weather was. Well that seems to have put the mockers on things – ever since then it has been fairly miserable. Then on Thursday night things turned into a full blown storm. Evylene on the tele had been warning us for several days, but that didn’t prevent us from not closing windows properly (in the new gite – water everywhere!), not closing our shutters (water driven in by the wind through the gaps in the windows) or forgetting about our poor old greenhouse…

In fact this is not the first time the poor old greenhouse has been subjected to a bit of a battering. Here’s the poor thing back in Feb ’10 following the storm Xynthia.

We managed to patch it up with tape then, but I’m afraid it may well have had its day!

On a more positive note, both our barns are looking distinctly house-like. Infact the stairs main came this week and so we are no longer obliged to climb the ladder to get upstairs!

And we’ve been busy bees in the second barn – we’ve put up virtually all the ‘cloisons’ this week – so we’ve got rooms!

The flooring is ordered ready for January and my paint brush is at the ready. The end is in sight… (even if it still seems a little bit in the distance!).

We are going to our dancing club Christmas dinner tomorrow evening. As usual, the food is provided by the members, each asked to produce a dish for a particular course. Kath has been asked to produce a pudding. Now she has a reputation to upkeep. Her legendary bread and butter pudding has been lauded by all and sundry, and is universally known in the club as “le pudding”, with requests for the recipe being widely distributed. But she is not satisfied with singular success, and instead wanted to produce another English classic for the French to salivate over. What better and topical than a plate of fresh mince pies?

She has been busy with various recipes for the mince and has produced a lovely concoction of various fruits. The quantities have proved a little tricky, however, as we have enough to make several hundred pies. The first batch have been well tested by the author, and really are very tasty.

The only problem is that Kath’s little labels denoting “mince pies”, translates into French as “skinny magpies”-it will be interesting to see how much enthusiasm our contribution makes!

We may live in the back of beyond, but there always seems to be something interesting going on – and in the most unexpected places. Yesterday it was the Christmas market at Ferriere Larcon, a pretty little village about half an hour away. The locals go to an enormous amount of trouble to dress up the village and around 60 stallholders set up shop in and around the beautiful church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is perfect for picking up Christmas pressies – and then there is the food of course; foie gras in abundance, local wines, cheese etc etc. And not to forget, a warming glass of vin chaud!

But the reason we actually went was because there was a concert afterwards at the little village theatre. Now this place is something really special…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, it is basically a regular little village house that you enter down the garden path. Inside, there is a little balcony, with about 20 seats and a downstairs seating some 80 people (just!). In fact we were among the last to arrive and the garden chairs were set out just inside the door for us! We had no idea who or what we were going to see – we’d just heard there was a concert. In the event it turned out to be a well known satirical singer songwriter called Marc Havet who has his own little theatre in Paris called Le Magique. Anyway, he was fabulous. Often we foreign types have problems with the clever lyricists, but either our French is improving or he was particularly clear! The Petit Theatre de Balcons has recently been saved from closure (health and safety inspectors descended!), and hopefully will go from strength to strength.

On Saturday we went off to the big city – Tours – for a slightly more glitzy evening. Our dance teacher has a studio in Tours and it was their Christmas bash, so we country bumpkins headed north. The first four hours or so of the evening was a mix of eating and dance demonstrations. The standard it has to be said was a touch above our usual. In fact there were even ‘Champions de France’ who were quite stunning. A great show, but then after midnight it was our turn to take the floor… better keep the lessons going I think!