Looking back before looking forward..

I have just read back through the previous posts, and it has brought back such memories. One or two of them require an update though I think! 

The gate situation has now been rectified and not at a cost of 1500Euros. We found a company in the UK who ship wooden five barred gates to France and managed to purchase it, complete with posts, metal fittings and two different sized gates - one small to walk through and one large to drive through for less than £500 including delivery! The gates are now in place, have been for a while, and the dogs no longer escape and go walkabout! The gate post installation caused a lot of swearing, sweating, use of a mini digger and buying of a Titan Jackhammer to get through the scree level!!

The beautiful wisteria has had to be removed. I am so very sad about this, but a combination of the damage to the kitchen floor caused by it's roots, the need to get to the wall behind it to do repairs and rendering, and the fact that it was actually dangerous as it was no longer supported safely. I was very nearly injured when one end fell away from the wall but fortunately apart from a couple of bruises I got away lightly. The plan is to replant a new one over the "garage" building once it's renovated to replace it. 

Burassic park was eventually reduced to a combination of compost(the leaves) and ash( the dried stalks which were eventually burnt!). The compost heaps are amazing! I have 3 full ones and one empty. One of the three is plastic sheeted down and hopefully I'll be able to dig it into the garden a little later on in the year. The second one is ready to sheet down and the third one not long behind it. There are a lot less weeds in the potager, and I now have a fruit section, with black and red currants, gooseberries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries in it. We didn't get much fruit last year as they were all new plants in, but this year I'm very hopeful! And we now know what kind of trees we have - apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums and hazelnuts! I promise photos next time!

Anyway that's part 1 of the catch up. Part 2 to include birds and animals of the local area, shopping and maybe even a house update with pictures.

Til next time
KJ xx   

I love my new life!

In the last few months I have had so many new experiences, and my life has changed so much and I really love my new life! I thought I'd share some of these new experiences with you all.

So in the last few months I have...

Become self employed and opened my own business
Shared a bed with a wall lizard - long story!

Painted a bathroom ceiling
Sowed seeds in my first ever greenhouse
Used a full size tractor and log splitter
Bought money on the "markets" - well through a finance company anyway and not a huge amount of money either, but it still counts
Learnt to drive a garden tractor
Finished knitting a jumper I started about 10 years ago
Designed my first ever dress - now to make it up!
Undertaken telephone conversations in French - quite an achievement believe me!
Sanded down and painted with hammerite a small boat anchor
Written for a dressage judge at a competition
Oiled the wood for the bathroom sink unit
Watched a sparrowhawk chase, but not catch, a small bird in our garden
Seen wild boar and coypu in the wild
Used a rotavator for the first time ever
Knitted a baby cardigan for the neighbours new grandson
Drank apero's with the neighbours, more than once!
Bought a swimming pool - okay it's still in the packaging/on the pallet!
Been given a lace bobbin pillow and bobbins from a lovely lady
Donated to a dog charity
Applied for and been granted a bursary towards a degree module
Received the first instalment of my degree course in textile design
Bought water butts from a dutchman
Made no knead bread
Cooked for dinner parties
Not to mention a huge amount of sewing (see list 2 below)

I have made/finished making all of the following

Knitting

3 pairs of fingerless glove
A woolly hat for him indoors
A baby blanket
A baby cardigan
2 chunky cardijackets (cardigans without buttons cos I never fasten them!)
A jumper I started about 10 years ago

Sewing
2 waistcoats
A pair of trousers
A brocade jacket
A pair of shorts
A gold satin 40's dress
Goth collar
6 decorative cushions
4 ladies and 3 mens aprons
A knitting needle roll (replacement for one I made ages ago and never liked)

I'm sure there's more but that will do for now!
TTFN 
KJ x
I really really really love my new life!

So how has it gone so far?

It's gone fast, that's for sure!! I can't believe it's over 6 months since I last wrote on here. So much has happened, good, bad, amazing, tear jerking. I think, on balance, it's been pretty amazing and on the whole a really great experience so far.

Who'd have thought a year ago that I would ever have been found in a village hall in a village in France, listening to a French mayor talking about what has happened in the last year and welcoming all the new babies into the commune. Certainly not me, but that's what we did on Friday night!! We went with some of our neighbours Jacques and Mimi. Jacques speaks patois, or very fast French if he's being good, and Mimi speaks french and no English, but it was still a great evening and hopefully showed the local French that we want to be part of the community.

Who'd have thought we would own a hot tub and a swimming pool, have my own business, have fallen off a horse and broken ribs (okay, maybe that one might have been foreseen by those who know me well!) and be registered in the French systems for just about everything? It's been a rollercoaster but even the scary bits have been amazing. 

Anyway, now things are more on an even keel I'm going to play catch up on here and over the next few posts let you all know what we've been up to..

So keep reading!
KJ xx

8 weeks later....

8 weeks ago today we signed on the dotted line and bought our French house. When we started looking for it, we put everything in a box file, and on the side of the box file it said "Our French Adventure". 8 weeks later does it still feel like an adventure?

Well, yes I think it does. Some days we could be in any country. Those are the days when we stay at home just the two of us and spend the day in the garden or doing stuff around the house.Other days we go out and mix with a group of ex pat Brits and we could still be in the UK. But at other times it's really clear that we now live in another country. Today was one of those days.

Today we went to a local French market for the first time. Parking was difficult. No different to the UK there then! The food section of the market was in one area and the clothing was in a different area. The food stalls were fascinating to us, and leant towards artisan type food, such speciality French cheeses, and very fresh meat, fish and veg, with the highlight on freshness. The salad stuff looked as if it had only just been picked out the garden. The mussels and clams were still live. 

I have to say that the clothing part of the market was quite disappointing, much like any market in the UK, but it was very quiet with not many shoppers. Only one stand appeared busy and that was the one that sold a multitude of different aprons. Aprons are still very much de rigeur here in France!

And all around us, all we could hear was French people chatting, shouting, talking and sharing. All the ladies carried baskets and everyone had at least one stick of French bread.

So today felt quite French. Hubby doesn't speak hardly any French at all which means that dealing with any thing involving someone French falls on me. Mostly it's okay and one way or another I get there, but the one thing I would say is that communicating in a language that you are far from fluent in is exhausting and frustrating in equal measures.

So my advice for today is....

Practice the language as much as you can before you move, and buy a shopping basket and an apron!

Oh, and did I buy anything? Yes, I bought a sage plant for 2.50 euros!

Birds and wildlife..

It's been a week for wild life again. Our greater spotted woodpecker is still visiting to eat the grubs out of the lawn, and the black redstart was sitting on the ground only about  feet from the window. But we have had two far more interesting sightings this week....

This is a griffon vulture..

Picture courtesy http://www.rondatoday.com/griffon-vulture-of-the-serrania/

 And this is a little owl...

Picture courtesy http://www.markhancoxbirdphotography.co.uk/pages/galleries/owls.php?gall_id=29

One is quite large and one is quite tiny, and we have seen them both this week. The vulture was flying in a crowd of about 14 or 15 vultures, we assume heading to Spain as they appeared to be travelling North to South, and appeared to be loving the hot weather thermals. And yes, they were definitely griffon vultures. Hubby's binoculars came in very handy to identify them. The owl was just sitting on the roof of the semi derelict building next door and then hopped onto our fence before flying off.

Now I have never seen either of these birds in the wild before, only in bird sanctuary type places so was really excited on both occasions. It just goes to show how easy it would be to miss exciting things like this if you don't look up and out from being wrapped up in our day to day existence.

Moving to France has given us the opportunity to take a step back from working to live or living to work, and a chance to start to appreciate the things around us far more than we have ever done before. Today we stood and watched a frog enjoying the heavy down pour of rain, and laughing when it jumped into the drain that runs along the front of our house and got washed away in the torrent - it was quite safe and unharmed I hasten to add, just a little surprised at the force of the water.

Today's thought for the day

 Stop wasting time waiting to arrive somewhere and take the time to enjoy the journey along the way. If you don't you will miss a million things that you may never get chance to see again..

We're no longer virgins!

IKEA virgins that is!

This week we drove to Nantes, almost 2 hours away, to the nearest IKEA to buy some furniture items to make life easier in the house until such time, in the next 10  years or so, that we complete our house renovation.

Why did we drive that far? Because the delivery cost was 179 euros(approx £143 at current exchange rates), which we felt was absolutely extortionate. After we had visited IKEA, we decided that the delivery charge is so high in order to encourage people to go into the shop to buy lots more things that you didn't know you needed. We weren't persuaded by their marketing ploy and came back with exactly what we went for and no more. On the plus side though, we were both impressed with the idea of having a whole floor where you just went and collected your flat pack boxes after you had done the rounds of the shop floor to decide what you wanted. And the prices, if you are careful, are very good for reasonable quality, and the flat pack item go together much better than the old MFI stuff used to!

The other thing that I believe is a must in IKEA is a visit to the restaurant for meatballs. Well we did do the restaurant but passed on the meatballs. The coffee was good and the prices were very reasonable.

So here's the new kitchen - complete with dogs! 

It's been nearly a week since I've posted, but that's because so much has been happening!

Tomorrow an update on the garden, the birdlife we have seen, and other exciting developments.

There's no going back now!

Today we finally received confirmation that the completion on the sale on our UK house had been finalised. So we are no longer UK home owners, and that also means that in a few days we won't have a mortgage either here or in the UK.

 
And that should be, and is, reason to celebrate. But both of us had a little wobble when the phone call came through. I don't really know why and neither does hubby as we are both very happy with our new home and the decisions we have made that has brought us to where we are, but maybe it was just because it was the end of an era and the end of living in a house that has some very happy memories.

So here's to our future, and a very healthy and happy one it's going to be too! 

Today's advice is to take every opportunity that comes your way as the only things you will regret are the things you didn't do when you get to looking back on life