No pictures – live with it.

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward – or something to that effect. Well we’re not facing the valley of death so on this particular damp and drizzly morning as we discuss the potential jobs there will be no charging, my back simply won’t stand for it.

So where did yesterday leave us, besides with back ache and a displaced pelvis. The polytunnel arrived as did the man to fix Arni and the fire continued to be fed from the waste in the field.

And so it was that as we surveyed the field from the viewing deck of HMS Broadbent-Clarke we saw a little more expanse without the hills of purgatory – and it was good, we then scurried back inside and that is where I pen these thoughts now.

A second hook of doom has been authorised, the roofer paid in full but no multicoloured cock on our roof which seems a shame but in our defence this option was not made clear.

The sound of chewing goes on and Mr Cedric has retired for second snoozes.

Oh yes the bloody AGA has stopped working, got to stop pithy twitter note coming on.

It’s a slow one.

A very slow day, one of those where even lifting your eyelid seems like a little too much effort and yet we’ve got lots done,

Gautier, re the drive belt on Arni the vegitator – check
Déchèterie, to get rid of recyclable rubbish only (the workforce went through each bag separating it and telling me where to put things and yes it did get a little obsessive.- check.

Le Clercs,  we needed veggies etc – check.

The Mairie, where we talked sanitation ditches (everybody does), fence permits (don’t need one), and waste metal (we have an ancient Peugeot parked under the tree at the bottom of the garden, have had for years ( no comments please) – check, check and check.

The post man delivered the required certificate of conformity for the car so now we can man up for the trip to the prefecture in Bordeaux to organise number plates – good news ( note to self: take every certificate you have, in French and in triplicate. Although I don’t know what they will do with my 25m swimming certificate from the 70’s I’ll bet it will be required).

Discussed the resitting of the yet to arrive or be built polytunnel and shed 4

Run Mr Cedric up and down a large hill in the village and hand in knife found in public gardens.

As I said it’s a very slow day and we’ve decided that 40 winks are in order so I really don’t know why I’m writing this instead of winking..

Ttfn

Oh and more FIRE 🔥 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

As a prelude can I just say that anyone who suggests that the French don’t know how to queue is mistaken. Photographic evidence is available of the queue of tractors and loaded trailers outside the local wine cooperative for this disbelievers.

Right, Agriculture.

Having finished the building of Shedopolis yesterday and informed the brother in law using the standard ‘broadsword calling dannyboy’ signal (Dave was instrumental in the building of shed 1 and is a star breeder of squash and pumpkin) we have this morning bitten the bullet and found the cheapest polytunnel available in France and ordered, agriculture can therefore no longer be avoided as a topic of conversation.

Well let’s start by admitting that what we will be doing will not count as agriculture. There will be no early morning with the lambs however ‘sweet’ you think this is, nor will there be cows or people with their arms up them whilst commenting in husky tones on wether calves are to be expected, the price of hog futures etc etc. This is because I know when enough is enough and starting down that road at my age is simply not going to happen.

So what we will be doing is ‘agriculture light’ as they say these days, or if definition is your bag – we will be looking at just the one leg of the true definition (Wikipedia) to wit veg. As for everything else, that will fall under the banner of gardening.

Today we will be starting with – FIRE 🔥

I had thought that today I would get down to some more informational stuff. The garden, the field what the plans, half- plans and random thoughts are, but as seems to always be the case the inconsequential fights it’s way to the fore and demands attention.

It is a fact that if you have a dog like Mr Cedric you are going to have to excercise it and by pure logic get excercise yourself, but the feast of ways available to record what your doing is staggering.

As Cedric ( he’s a Lagotto by the way) gets older we go further, which means we can be more varied with route and terrain. We get home at the moment looking like some returning expedition to locate the source of a mythical river, but we always know where we’ve been thanks to my GPS watch, we know the distance (km or miles) we now the number of steps – ever increasing, we know wether we’ve set records, achieved goals we know – everything!

And to help us in our understanding the creators of all these gadgets have provided us with a useful array of sounds and vibrations. A language for fitness as it were.

And that’s how it’s been this morning an unspecific claxon mated with a vibration, a ‘claxation’ indicates you’re half way to the target your gizmo has set you even if you were unaware of the fact, and then as you approach home, maybe you can see it in the distance a radiant light emminating, the greatest sound of all – ‘tiddlypong’.

Congratulations you have achieved the target.

I’ve started to notice something about the local architecture, and that is : turrets.

This is a major problem for me as our house does not have any and looking about me I’m noticing that any self respecting house holder of merit should have at least a small turret on the property. Two is obviously better – equally spaced.

The range of turrets however seems to be inexhaustible, I noted one today that appeared not to be attached to the house ( ok château) at all, it looked to erupt from the grounds like a missile from a silo or less threateningly like a French minerete, something that could be used to call in the estate workers.
Even the dove cotes are little individual turrets set out in a field!

Anyway I’ve not got one and I’m suffering ‘turret envy’.

Well, my envy could be satiated by buying a house with turrets but frankly we can’t afford it, not even one with a small turret feature and we rather like where we are ha you very much. So there’s nothing for it but to build. This has its own problems the most important being I’ve never built a turret before and manuals seem a bit thin on the ground – ‘ Turret building for dumies ‘ and the like.
So far the best advice I’ve had is to start by making a small wall – this seems a little perfunctory after all I’m looking to make a statement, establish a position, build a bloody great tower. That said starting with elimentary bricklaying might be the sensible way forward but who amongst us likes sensible argument.

I think my taste for turrets has been further tickled by our visit to stonehouse gardens where they had done just what’s in my mind – started with a wall and just kept going as if there were no tomorrow and what a fabulous outcome.

Pass the cement would you …

and the truffle. Sorry I meant trowel !

There’s always a place for celebration here. Last night it was the tenth anniversary of Monsieur and Madam coming to run the village shop. We guessed that flowers in the French style would not offend and were really happy when we were proved correct by the wall of bouquets at the Maison Communale.
One piece of advice – be on time. There was already a gathering when we arrived and that turned into a crowd, which as the only speech of the night finished was spilling out onto the village street.
Another point – everybody shows up. So, after the conversation with the Mayor’s wife and the Mayor (he’s newly returned from discovering English beer), we spoke or tried to speak to a few of the throng, and that’s another thing – if you’re going to live here then suck it up and learn the language!

It’s the weekend so unlike the U.K. where nothing would stop the show other than the wrong leaves or strange snow, there’s nothing happening on the harvesting front, although that’s not to say there’s nothing happening in the vineyards. It’s hunting season and for those of us with dogs it means careful where you go – not all the woods are for walking in and that tranquil Sunday stroll amid the still to be collected (this week according to the Mayor) red grapes is punctuated by gunfire from all directions and the occasional gun dog zipping through the vines. Mr. Cedric and I met one of the older hunters this morning and I’d like to tell you I understood all of the conversation but, old bloke, Girondin accent and the low mumble that seems common with the older end means that the gist is he hadn’t seen anything when I passed him, although the loud crack of his shot gun a few minutes later says I was his lucky omen. The only way we’ll find out how they all did is at the hunters ball in a month or so – tickets available from the Mairie or Monsieur and Madam at the shop.

We’ve got used to strolling the ‘red route’ with Mr. Cedric. The whole thing is a little over 10 km but there’s a section that goes past our gate around the vineyards to the local winery and back to our gate – we have to make the last section up a bit to get it to a manageable 3.5km, and it sums up in my mind everything that I have learned to date:
• The place is staggeringly beautiful. The view from the Vaure amid the cyclamens – I’ll say no more.
• Animals are looked upon in a totally different way.
• Health and safety does not exist (see my roofer).
• Hugh Infernal-Witterystall could forage forever – walnuts, figs, peaches falling from every other tree and rotting on the floor.
• The growing of grapes and the making of wine in this country will never be understood except by someone from this country – see Michel – although you won’t understand a word.

There are some days that are special, they can be special for all sorts of reasons.

Today has been one of those days. Not because that with the roofers finishing yesterday we could enjoy breakfast without our dose of French europop. Nor because the man arrived to fix the TV aerial, this leading to a little dancing session of excitement in the front garden – hurrah.

Could it be because the washing line got reinstated or maybe that I got a huge amount of shed three completed? Nope!

Just for future reference it’s not because Huddersfield Town are top of the Championship either.

Today was special because it represented the start of autumn and that’s because today was the day the cranes came over us. We are lucky enough to be directly under their flight path and I can tell you anyone who is in the same position is alive to that ‘hooting’ sound and the flying formation that you see. We might get some more tomorrow but that’ll be it for this year.

So there it is – Autumn officially starts today.

ttfn

I know what you’re thinking, is it possible for anything to look so cute! Put simply – no.

But as ever looks can be deceptive this dog has an alter ego, Moriarty is what we should have called him. Every Laurel has his Hardy every Crosby faces upto a Sinatra and here you can see my nemesis – Mr Cedric.

This is my first dog, although I’ve thought about having one for a long time. For reasons too tedious to mention he is a Lagotto and this fact alone is enough to get you a conversation. I think he knows it! In fact I think that he purposely passes some people by knowing he’s going to get you into a conversation you weren’t looking for.

Its easy to tell when Mr C has got something he shouldn’t have. He trots. No shuffling or running, no keeping to the corners. Nope he trots with his tail held high and a jaunty look in his eye. If he could wear a trilby at an angle that’s what he would be doing and that the time to check your ‘stuff’ because I’ll bet you anything you like, you’ll be missing something you thought you had.

This was yesterday as we meandered our way through the woods below the Chais de Vaure. It’s a lovely walk if you’re ever in these parts and I’ll talk you around other parts of it another time but if you do take that red route from the centre of the village, remember keep checking you’re stuff, my little soldier can strike at any time – woof!

today was the day I finally realised we are going to be in France and able to think longer term, not just for holidays. tFrom, like, next month.   A series of events worked together to make us realise we could pay off what we owed (yes, thank you, HMRC) and move our UK possessions lock stock and barrel to a small village in the Gironde, about 15 minutes from St Emilion.

So who are we?  I am Deb – many many years a senior manager in local government and the main man is John, an engineer of many years experience.  More importantly, John is a writer (you will see the quality of this crap increase exponentially when he is the contributor) and I am a cook and gardener. We met and married late in life – just a couple of years ago, here in France.

Here we are