Blooming Spring

We’ve been even less good at updating the blog than usual. But here’s one that’s trying to catch up on the long time without being too long itself. We know a lot of friends and relatives had a difficult 2016 and we hope everyone of those has a better 2017. Thankfully we’ve not been too badly afflicted ourselves. We have had a few small mishaps along the way, but nothing to bleat about and we have great sympathy for those less fortunate than ourselves.

 

Winter is now well and truly behind us. We had a few weeks of frosts and foggy weather, though a welcome amount of sunshine as well. Frosts meant, of course, that outdoor building work stopped for a while though we still progressed with some work. On the other hand, the sunshine has been wonderful and is firmly settled now as we go through a lovely spring. Our next-door neighbours had two pairs of twin lambs born to their sheep. Our hens continue their idyllic life but Eustace (our cockerel) eventually got into his role rather too aggressively and we couldn’t cope with his attacks any more, after Jeanne suffered several deep pecks and kicks. He made delicious coq-au-vin !

The chickens are producing 4 or 5 delicious eggs each day between the five of them – we currently have three white hens – Sussex or Bourbonnaise here, and two brown ‘farmyard’ hens.  We’ve also been happily distracted from work tasks by lots of social events with friends and family. We feel lucky to have made a few really good friends out here as well in the larger community of great neighbours and other friends and acquaintances.

Rhys has been enjoying the Royal Opera House's season of operas and ballets with some of our friends. The performances are filmed and broadcast live to over a thousand cinemas around the world, including one local to us. All great performances and excellent video and sound productions. The Paris Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, also doing the same thing so we have access to wonderful programmes. Who says there's no cultural events out here.

The vines around us are all pruned now and budding nicely for their new crop. We have lots of veggies planted in our potager, thanks to Jeanne’s efforts. Indoors we eventually have the dining room walls re-plastered by Rhys as we simply couldn’t get a proper plasterer to do it. So not quite as expertly done as we’d like but it will do.

There have been changes in the village too. The boulangerie is expected to reopen very soon but it’s hard to see how it can be financially viable with two other excellent and well-established ones in the adjacent neighbouring villages. The café-bar continues with a lot of support from our expat / immigrant community. The house around the corner from us, across the stream at the back, has new Brit owners. The big chateau-like house by the water mill is also rumoured to have sold, allegedly also to Brits, but we’ve not yet seen any evidence of newcomers there yet. The maire has spent 100,000€ on a new road layout at the mairie and school to make things safer for the children and easier for their parents and people going to the football stadium, but the school buses and big trucks can’t get round it so it may have to be all re-done! We were hoping he’d spend the money on tidying up the village centre. Maybe next year.

We don't get a vote in the upcoming presidential elections here unless we become French citizens, and being more-or-less disenfranchised by our own country we're thinking we might have to do that. The far-right-wingers of the National Front are hoping to repeat the upsets of Brexit and Trump’s presidency and put the French presidency in the hands of Marine Le Pen in the next few weeks, with similar extreme views to the fore.

We’ve just a few bookings for visitors so far this year, so plenty of vacant slots for more. Staying with us is still ‘free’ for family and friends but we are considering putting our apartment on Airbnb later to fill the gaps and earn a little money for the upkeep. However, for now, all friends (as well as family) are welcome and the pool is already warm enough to swim in. Anyway, whatever you do, enjoy the rest of spring and summer, and keep well, everyone.