Woody's sleepless night

The pretty spring primroses and violets on our daily walk through the woods.


The darling baby lambs in the field across the road from our house.

DD's wobbly tooth. At long last it fell out today, leaving a long thread of gummy skin -eugh! She asked me to put this up here for you all to see. Vain or what?


Now, onto the subject of this post. Ask me why the poor dog is lying knackered at my feet! Is it because of that cursed hour they put on the clock Saturday night? No. It's because of my homemade yoghurt experiment. How? Glad you asked me that, I was going to tell you anyway.

To make the yoghurt, we had to add a pot of fresh yoghurt to fresh milk and put it into the six little glass cups, (provided and complete with lids), then leave them in the machine, which then heated them gently so that the milk fermented and made yoghurt. This process takes 7 hours. We started around 5pm and left the milk/yoghurt mixture gently heating in the kitchen, where we completely forgot about it. What I didn't realise was that when the 7 hours was up, an alarm sounded to warn you to unplug the machine. You don't get an automatic cut-out for €12 it seems. Poor Woody had had to listen to this alarm (like a high pitched whistle) from midnight (we go to bed early on school nights) until I got up at 6 am this morning (which of course felt like 5am)! No wonder he's knackered!

Were we able to enjoy freshly made yoghurt for our breakfast this morning? No! The instructions were obviously in French, and we made a mistake between "dessous" (below) and "dessus (above) 20 degrees (the temperature the mixture had to be before you put it in the machine). Therefore the mixture was too cold, therefore we woke up not only to this peculiar whistling sound like a referee was loose in the kitchen, but to milky yoghurt, or yoghurty milk, depending on your point of view. You have to laugh!

The Flying Dutchman just flew off!

I guess that was only to be expected. Apparently, Barclays won't lend him the money. Any cash buyers out there?

Moving swiftly on, I bought a yoghurt making machine yesterday (€12) so we're waiting for the milk to go sour as we speak so that we can have lovely, yummy, homemade yoghurts for breakfast tomorrow - I'll let you know how I get on. Unexpectedly, there's also a recipe for home made soy sauce in the recipe book they give you - now there's a thought. I never knew soy sauce was fermented soya beans. Pity they don't sell them here.

I'll come back later with my lovely Spring piccies.

Whoops!

I was reading an article on saving money in my Femme Actuel last week (a very popular French magazine that I subscribe to) - www.femmeactuelle.fr- which said, roughly translated, that many people wasted money on cleaning products, when good old Savon de Marseilles - savondemarseille.com - was all they needed. This is a much-vaunted soap which, not surprisingly, is made in Marseilles. I saw two enormous bars for 70 centimes in my local cheap supermarket, Leader Price last week, so I bought it. I'm always looking to economise on my shopping, especially in the current financial climate. I pondered for a couple of days or so on the best way to get this enormous bar of soap into a manageable form for putting in the washing machine, before I hit upon the idea of grating it with the cheese grater, which I did. I was delighted that the clothes came out clean, smelling wonderful and feeling softer than after my normal cheap all-temperature liquid wash. What with one thing and another, I didn't have time to wash the cheese grater, so I shoved it in the dishwasher as it's not used that often anyway, and we have another one. Are you ahead of me yet? Read on ...

Dear Son (15) has his girlfriend here for the weekend and they decided to make a little snack they like which involves cutting a croissant in half (the crumbs, the crumbs!) and loading it with ham and GRATED CHEESE before putting it into a hot oven and letting the cheese melt. Of course, they got the grater out of the dishwasher, without washing it, doubtless thinking that the little flakes of soap still attached to it were bits of cheese - well, you would, wouldn't you? They didn't notice anything unusual about the flavour, but I'm just waiting with bated breath for the result! I daren't tell them, of course! Ha, ha, almost a form of revenge for being a complete stranger in my own house all weekend, since the kids all speak French to each other and I haven't a clue what they're saying. This is not the "King's French" you understand (or at least doesn't resemble anything I've ever been taught) it's all delivered in slang and with a dreadful Charentais accent. I'll find out what they've been talking about from Dear Daughter (10) after the weekend is over.

Must go, I've got some more soap to grate!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing

Trouble is, it's bloody freezing! There's a strong wind blowing straight from Siberia today and there isn't much between us and there, apart from the Alps and they don't exactly help matters!

The cleaner came and cleaned today. I bought her a lovely new bottle of floor cleaner which smelt of lavender. So why has she mopped my beautiful shiny tiled floor with bleach? It stinks here just like a swimming pool. I've opened the windows and sprayed air freshener, but you can't shift it. Oh, hap, hap happy day!

Speaking of swimming pools, I'm off soon to Dear Daughter's swimming class, where I help stop the younger kids and those who have not yet mastered the art of staying afloat from drowning themselves. You can laugh, I've had more than one come up for the third time before now! I'm going to shock everybody by wearing my leopardskin bikini (not real fur, don't worry!) as I can't find my usual mumsy black number from M&S. I'll let you know what happens. This could be a laugh.

Very quiet evening planned here tonight, both DS's are out, one with girlfriend, one with friends at a school disco and then staying the night with a "mate". Dear Daughter can be an only child for a change. Hope it doesn't spoil her too much. She's got herself an MSN address now, so I'll probably not see much of her either. At least I've got the dog for company, and I don't mean DH!

Didn't hear anything back from the viewing on Wednesday - and the house didn't stay tidy for long either. It was back to looking a shambles by Thursday lunchtime. I would have blamed the kids, but they were out with their friends, there being no school as a result of the general strike. It's beginning to look like we're to blame after all.

Tidying like mad fools!

Today, we had a couple to view the new house for a change. We're used to spending hours and hours tidying up and showing people round the gites, but today we had to get stuck in this side of the road. I still haven't caught up since the kids were off school! DH tackled upstairs and I did the downstairs. I filled two bin bags with rubbish and stashed and dashed the rest! I'll never be able to find anything now. A middle-aged couple from the "north of France" arrived with the agent ten minutes late as is the way of French people. They walked round for an hour, inside and out; it couldn't have looked any nicer since the sun was on it and the garden had been tidied up too, but they didn't give anything away. She was deadpan, and he asked sensible questions, like how long does it take to cut the grass and how much is the heating bill per year.

That's that then. We'll probably not hear another word from them, but at least the house looks tidy for now.

Took Woody for his vaccination afterwards. I had a job to get him into the vet's, he remembers! Luckily for me, there was a little girl who looked just like Dear Daughter (10) who came out to see what was going on, and he followed her back in as I couldn't have forced him in there, he's much too big and heavy for me! €43 up your shirt! Why do vets assume that as you're English, you keep on nipping back and forth across the channel with the dog? I mean, why would you want to do that? If we go anywhere abroad, usually Spain, we put him in kennels, which seems much more logical to me. I had to talk him out of the "pet passport" with rabies injection at an extra €16!

Whilst I was there, I made an appointment for next Wednesday to have the youngest kitten, Shadow, castrated. Might make him less inclined to fight with the other three older, wiser and also castrated cats!

That's it for now, I have to go and get Dear Daughter (10) back from her friend Lucie's house, where she slept last night. It's seemed dreadfully quiet without her. The rest of the family are no company whatsoever - all they ever talk about is rugby! Dear Son (15) is here with his girlfriend cooking some pasta in the kitchen (they'd better not mess it up!) (they will!!) They make a lovely couple, but her mum has remarked that they're seeing a bit too much of DS, so we're taking a turn. It occurred to me that they might as well be wed since they see each other every day at school, text each other constantly and whilst they do their homework, they have MSN with webcams so they can look at each other. It wasn't like that in my day when lads ran the risk of my dad answering the phone if they tried to ring me! No mobiles in those days!

Speaking of mobiles, Dear Son (14) replaced his yesterday, it cost €269 out of his savings for his scooter (that's been put off for a while now), but it does clever things like plays games with dice which move when you shake it. You can even make phone calls on it! I'll give it a week before he loses his stylo!

I'm rambling, must get on, and more importantly, let you get on!

Well, you said you missed me!
XXX

It's been a while!

Wow, I'm sat sitting here all alone, Dear Daughter (10) having gone to her friend's house for a sleepover, and DS's both still at school feeling all, well, alone! Things with Dear Son (15) have at last settled down and the "smoking" incident has been downgraded to "minor misdemeanour" rather than full scale addiction. He made tea last night - spaghetti carbonara which went down a treat. It's definitely a keeper. I'm listening to a presentation on the "Dawah Technique" to see if I want to bid to transcribe it. Trouble is, the speaker keeps lapsing into Egyptian! Here is the link, just click on a CD and you'll get an idea of what I mean. There are over 30 hours of audio, don't think I'll bother, I'd hardly be able to get out of bed in the morning if that was all I had to look forward to.

http://www.hoor-al-ayn.com/lectures/muhammad-al-shareef/

Spring has finally and at last arrived, along with Lesley's birthday (Happy Birthday!!! How old would that be then?) Sorry, went off subject then. We have beautiful blue skies, warm sunshine and flowers in bloom, it makes life worth living! Watch somebody spoil it.

Speaking of spoiling things, the bank in France has lost a cheque we paid in back in January! How is this possible? I just had the bloke on the phone saying they can't find it, as if I could come and help him somehow. We're sat sitting here between Barclays bank and the Credit Agricole in Saujon who between them have £1500 of our money and do they apologise? Oh, no, they just bounce cheques and standing orders and then have the cheek to charge us interest on the negative balance. How do I stay so cheerful?

We have yet more people to see the gites - we're still showing people round until things are definitely signed, sealed and delivered. Be funny if they want it! We've also got some French people coming tomorrow to see the big posh house. We put it up for sale last summer in desperation since the gites weren't moving and then promptly forgot about it, the market being so slow. We could end up selling the lot, then where would we go? That'd be an interesting problem to have....

I'll try to get more into a blogging routine and not leave it so long next time.

Proper Poorly

It seems that the first things to go under whenever I'm busy, stressed or poorly are the ironing and this blog. Well, I've been all three and that's my excuse. I tackled the ironing yesterday, and today I'm having a go at the blog. Which I'm sure I've missed more than you have.

I was busy enough whilst the kids were at school, but now they're on half term and I'm even more busy. It seems that Dear Daughter (10) looks to me (or at least my computer) for at least half of her entertainment value. Also, Dear Son (15) has been in deep trouble, having decided that his life was so boring that he needed to escape reality by taking up a habit that involves smoking something that smells like bonfires. We tackled this (or so we thought) last summer, but he went back to it. Why? Why? The evidence was incontrovertible, so he was well and truly grounded and his mobile phone confiscated. This has meant that we have had to put up with a truly grumpy teenager. It felt more like we were being punished than him. We didn't ban his girlfriend (that would have been too much and she seems like she is a good influence), so she stayed here last night. It's surprising how much difference even one more makes to a household. As if that wasn't enough to adjust to, Dear Son (14) had a "hot date" at the cinema in Royan yesterday. I'm losing them one by one!

All this has inevitably taken a toll on my health and well being and I now have my sore chest and cough back again (that always happens when thing start to spiral out of control). It seems to be a weak spot - I blame my mother, who smoked all the time I was growing up! She's no help, having taken herself off to Mississippi on Sunday for two weeks holiday.

That's about all I can update you on for now, I've missed my blog, it's an outlet, so I'll try and come back soon.

The Dutchman is circling ever closer!

What a title for a post! Those few of you that follow my blog may remember that just before Christmas, we had somebody interested in buying the gites. Much negotiation and to-ing and fro-ing later, we have now signed a piece of paper (actually more like 40 pieces of paper) called a "Compromis de Vente" agreeing to sell Chez Belliveau to him and nobody else. He also has agreed in principle to buy the gites, subject to his loan. If he changes his mind, it costs him serious money. This is a peculiarly French idea to save him from being gazumped. Come on, they're not exactly queueing up around the block to buy our gites! Having said that, we have three people lined up to view them in the next week or so. Typical! We'll still show them round, since it is quite possible that the Dutchman won't get his loan, things being what they are at the moment in the world.

Anyway, we are now one step further along in the nerve wracking process of selling the gites. We're not there yet, and we had at least two false starts with the solicitors before we got to this stage, but this now gives him what he needs to see if Barclays will actually lend him the money they promised in principle last December. As we know, a LOT of water has gone under the bridge since then as far as banks are concerned. It's still a long way off sold, but it's another step down the rocky road.

The experience has not been a positive one (for us or him). Let's put it like this, either he's a very clever con man, or he really, really, really wants to buy Chez Belliveau. Let's hope it's the second one for all our sakes.

I'll keep you posted.

Computer Woes!

The bane of my life - but where would we be without it?

In a rather half-hearted attempt to earn some money, I started transcribing audio files via a job agency on the internet. This led to me buying the domain name of ahem, ahem "English Secretary in France" 'cos that's what I am! Don't bother searching for the site, it doesn't exist yet!

Anyway, I spent all this morning downloading various (free - love that word) software for transcribing audio and even video and telephone calls (!) Is nothing sacred? Turned the computer off and on again as instructed - it crashed! I could not believe it. Anyway, after the usual gut wrenching panic, I did luckily manage to get it back, so now I'm backing up like mad! One big problem was emails, but I've now come across Mozbackup, which will back up all your emails for just such an emergency (I use Thunderbird, love it and highly recommend it).

Also, on the advice of a very good friend of mine (you know who you are!) I went out and got an External Hard Disk Drive so everything's on there too now. It's a pity it takes a crash and all the anxiety it causes to make me get organised. I've heard of a company that will automatically back up your computer either daily, weekly or monthly, for a price, I'm off to research it now and I'll let you know how I get on!

EEK!

That got your attention! Dear son (15) has a girlfriend. EEK! This is completely uncharted territory for us. Obviously, she's French and very pretty in a dark haired, brown eyes, perfect skin type of way. (Do you hate her yet?) She weare glasses, which give her a nice "safe" studious look. She's 16 (cradle snatcher) and in his class at school. He stayed the night there last weekend, separate beds I hope, but you can never be sure, so it'll be our turn next (definitely separate beds!) What do you feed teenage French girls? Apparently her mother's a "brilliant cook" - she would be, wouldn't she? She does something exquisite with her tartiflette apparently. Bread and cheese anybody? Or shall we shock her with a red hot beef curry - now you're talking!

The French and Their Dogs

Woody's thinking of ways to get me to take him for a walk!

One of the things I love about my life here is that I am free to take the dog on very early morning walks in the woods. The dawn breaks around 7.24 am here at the moment (ask me how I know that!) As the only English in this "coin" (corner) I'm considered highly eccentric since the French don't bother to walk their dogs, except on hunting days of course, but there's enough material there for a separate post - so that'll have to wait.

I don't pass many houses on my walks, but one that I go by from time to time is fairly typical. There's a tiny house sitting on an enormous plot of land with three massive dogs: a great dane, a rottweiller and an alsatian which never go further than the front garden and the garage where they sleep. These dogs are enraged by our passage and I'm convinced they'll have the fence down one day. I hope they aren't as vicious as they seem; they wag their tales whilst foaming at the mouth and alternately whimper and bark. Part of me (the bit that isn't terrified) feels sorry for them! They aren't alone. Whenever we cut through this little hamlet between the woods and the house, we set up a chain reaction of barking dogs!

Strangely, the nicest people I've met in France were at the dog training class where I took Woody just after we adopted him from the dog rescue home. Follow this link: http://spa.de.saintes.free.fr/

The promised photo, mimosa and OAP's

I just thought I'd share this photo I took in the woods a couple of days ago. It gives me hope that Spring is just around the corner. Having said that, we've woken up to a Winter wonderland this morning, a hard frost came down in the night. Today is the Mimosa Festival on the Ile d'Oléron, just up from La Rochelle, or about an hour north of here. The mimosa is the first to flower in Spring, so they have music and dancing in the streets. Here's a link: http://www.st-trojan-les-bains.fr/

Dear Husband reaches the ripe old age of 65 in May. The DHSS have sent him a pile of forms to fill in so he can claim his old age pension. It took him a whole day to sort it out. They wanted birth certificates for all of us, together with marriage certificates etc. Dear Son (15) enquired as to whether he would be entitled to an increase in his pocket money as a result of this increase in our income. DH remarked that believe it or not, not many pensioners had school aged children, and surely he didn't think that the old age pension was enough to live off! Says it all, really!

Late Mealtimes

Don't know whether it's my Northern roots, but after 14 years of wedded bliss to a Southerner, I still can't get used to eating "supper" at 7 pm (or later). It used to be "teatime" at 5-6 pm followed by supper just before bed. The problem is that around 5 pm I start to get the munchies and if I'm not careful I'll consume my daily calorie allowance (again) in the next hour, BEFORE I get to eat my evening meal. Then of course, when that arrives, I've gone off the idea! You get the picture? The French have a word for this - le creuse (the dip - as in energy, not garlicky!)

Anyway, I've found a little trick that works really well for me - when I get back from the school and bus stop run, around 5 pm, or peak hunger time, I have a small glass of skimmed milk (hot or cold, depending on the weather) and a half a slice of brown bread with marmite. Eat and drink both, then DO NOTHING for 15 minutes (I love that bit - though, in fact, I do read the paper). I even set a timer. In the meantime, my blood sugar levels sort themselves out. No more hunger pangs, irritability (love that word!) and I eat slightly less at mealtimes too. This tip also works well for if you're off out somewhere and don't know when you'll get fed.

The only trouble is that like many things you know to be true, it's difficult to be disciplined enough to do them consistently. Things like early nights, leaving clothes out ready for morning etc, etc. The trick with this is to catch it early enough (ie before I'm attacking the kids' choccie supply!)

Spring has arrived and to prove it I've got a photo of some gorse in flower which I'll post later - always leave them wanting more!

Pancake Day Blues

One thing that catches me out every year whilst we have been living in France is that they celebrate Shrove Tuesday early! According to me, it's the day before Ash Wednesday - it's even marked Mardi Gras on the calendar, but the school canteens have all served pancakes yesterday and the kids are clamouring for more. Here's the recipe I use. It's from my friend Maralyn, hence the name. I'm off to buy some eggs now, since we don't have no chickens - unlike some that read this blog. You know who you are!

Pancakes à la Marilyn

Ingredients:

150 gr flour

50 gr cornflour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons oil

150 ml water

150 ml milk

4 very fresh eggs

4 tablespoons rum (or other flavouring – vanilla essence, etc)

Mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and a pinch of salt. Make a hollow in the dry ingredients and add the eggs one by one, mixing well as you go. Add the oil and mix well, follow this with the flavouring. Add the milk and water (mixed together). Let the batter rest for at least an hour at room temperature.

Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan. Put enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to cook until the top surface is becoming solid. Flip the pancake over and cook for a few minutes on the other side.

Serve with chopped up banana, chocolate spread, lemon and sugar and anything else that takes your fancy.

Bon Appetit!

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What a week that was!

I'm glad this week is over! I'm glad the month of January is over too, come to that - it's too long, too dark and way too depressing. Roll on Spring! All that nursing of various family members has fair done me in. I'm way behind with absolutely everything - everywhere I look I see something that needs doing. I've come to my blog to escape! At least I've admitted it.

I just got DD (10) back to school on Thursday and the strike happened. The primary school where she goes goes on strike, but her two older brothers were affected. The trouble is, some teachers support it, whilst some work as usual. Said teachers are reluctant to confess in advance whether or not they'll be there, or staying at home in bed (or demonstrating in the streets indeed). In the past, I've sent them to school with varying degrees of success, but this time, we all had a lie in. The excuse was that this time, for the first time ever, the school buses were affected too, so it just seemed too much hassle. They learn very early on about militancy and the power of the unions (syndicats) here. On the day of the last strike, just before Christmas, DS (15) had to climb over the bike sheds to get in for a Maths test (sheer dedication - he gets it from his mother). Half the school were demonstrating outside the gates, but they were given the choice as to whether or not to take the test. If they'd missed the test, it would have shown up on the all important moyen (average marks). What a choice! Could only happen here!

This is France, after all!

I bet you were wondering if we'd been blown away in the storm!

No, nothing quite so exciting. I've been doing my Nurse Nightingale impression, since the whole household has gone down with various versions of the dreaded lurgy. DD was sent home from school with a cough and a temperature. DH has been up all night coughing and with a sore throat, therefore sleeping all day, now the eldest DS is going down fast, but is still at school (for now). It's like living in a TB ward! I'm supposed to be working from home myself, but there's no time for that! Will post again, when all this madness is over.

By the way, apart from a couple of hours without electricity, the storm passed us by this time - the last one - ten years ago - left us without electricity for three weeks!

I could have been rich!

I woke up yesterday morning with a best selling novel in my head. Unfortunately, by the time I'd got the kids to school and done my morning routine, I'd forgotten every last detail! I thought it might pop back into my head again as I was going to sleep last night, but no luck. I can only remember that it was a murder mystery and the detective was called Caroline something Italian. If only I could remember, I could be rich by this time next year!

Stranger in the house

One night last week, we had a visit from a stranger He was a bloke around 60 years old, very scruffy and smelly and just walked into the house, totally confused and incoherent - quite unnerving really. It turned out he was homeless and looking for Emmaüs, the charity who look after homeless people. They're about 5 miles from here. The following morning, I heard on the radio that two homeless people had been found dead in the street from the cold in La Rochelle. Apparently, there's a freephone number that you can ring to get help for these people and they are entitled to a bed for the night and a meal, but many of them refuse to accept help and can't be forced. Makes you grateful (or even slightly ashamed) for your warm, cosy, too big, centrally heated house.

Blogger's been on strike!

I tried to post earlier, but I couldn't get past the log in page.

I heard on the radio that SNCF, (French railway), went on strike overnight on the line from Bordeaux to Paris. Apparently, over a thousand passengers had to either kip on the station, or take a hotel room last night. Some friends of ours went to Disneyland, Paris for the weekend, I bet anything you like they were affected! Poor Katie might not see her friend Lucie today after all!

On top of that, Sarkozy is visiting a primary school in Britanny this afternoon and as a protest against all the reforms he's bringing into the education system, the school is on strike and nobody will be there to meet him. It fair makes you chuckle. You'd think that all the locals would turn up just to get their faces on telly.

That's why when I couldn't get on blogger, thought they must have gone all French on me!

More later, have a nice day!