Mike and Violaine pictures.

Mikes and Violaines house

The plan was to take some photographs but by the time Mike had done the deal on the new car it was getting a little dark, but here's some photographs of house and the nursery, I am the last person in the family to see the nursery and felt very bad that I hadn't gone to see it, but although I drive I don't, feel comfortable driving a LHD on the "wrong" side of the road, so avoid driving as much as I can, but why drive when I have a chauffeur. While at the garage looking at Mikes new car i saw a few cheap runabouts, so maybe later in the year I may get my own car.

Mikes new car

Renault Vel Satis

Mikes decided to buy a family car, so he's trading in his Astra 2 litre coupe for a
Vel Satis .

New pictures of me

Just took some photos

"Where's my breakfast"
















Drinking water

















Cold

Fire lighters

Even Colder

I remember the days when we lived in a centrally heated, double glazed, insulated semi in England, minus whatever outside, T-shirts on inside. Still I'm in a T-shirt now, but also a woolly Jumper and my long john's, in the last few days its reached -10c, a bit nippy, yet during the day I'm sitting outside in the sun, still have the jumper on, but very pleasant none the less. My routine is to get out of bed and get dressed very quickly, woolly socks, woolly jumper, Paul's woolly cardi, let the dogs out then put my coat, woolly hat and woolly gloves on. Let the Geese, Ducks and chickens out, then feed them all, the goats come up to the house for there breakfast and I walk round breaking the ice in the water buckets, some of the days I've had to tip the ice out and fetch fresh water as the buckets have frozen solid, the water pressure in the kitchen is poor, the outside taps frozen so takes ages to do, I've still got ice on the grass that I emptied out six days ago, even the sun has failed to melt it. Cook potatoes and pasta for the animals and fetch fresh hay. Fill the Kerosene heaters and get that on, bring in some logs for the fire (I wont light that till after lunch).
Now I can have a cup of tea.

Some photos of Dan and Veroniques new house.

Minus 7c

Chilly this morning, Minus 7 centigrade, been below freezing for a week now, it was only 12 degrees in the house this morning, Paul had to get the wood burner running, 11am still only 16c in the house but we must be getting used to it as I've just turned off one of the heaters. The suns shining though and the cars defrosting but its still minus 2, I had to take some water out from the house to the animals all there buckets are frozen as is the hose pipe out of the well. I will try to get some photographs today.
We went to Dan's for dinner last night, the Gite he's renting is so cold, but he has found a house near Tresbouef and will be moving in February, its a new house lots of heating and a small garden, also its close to work.
I've got a stew on, Lamb stew from our home killed lamb, I started it off on the cooker then left it to simmer on the wood burner, proper winter warming food. A special treat for the chickens, I'm cooking them Pasta and potatoes.

Christmas

One of the differences with living in France to the UK is Christmas holidays, in the UK most industry's closes down for the holidays, usually running from the 24th of December till the 2nd of January, the French prefer to take there holidays when the suns shining, makes sense to me, so Christmas holidays are just the two main days, Christmas day and New Years Day.
I've not been well, I've got a virus, started on my Birthday, I thought I had a cold as Paul and Mike had a had a touch of man flu so didn't bother visiting the Doctors, I just bought some medication from the chemist, but after Christmas came and went I still wasn't well, I had a cough, a sore throat and I was being sick, I didn't eat a lot and no alcohol, NO ALCOHOL, that shows how ill I was.


Christmas day menu;
Aperitifs
Oysters
Salmon and Prawns
Roast Goose (home produced) with sausage stuffing
Carrots, Roast parsnips, roast potatoes
Cheese and Salad
Chocolate Christmas log
Coffee.

Wine;
Cava
Cotes de Provence (1998)
Sauternes (1999)

New Years Eve, our neighbours Franck, Nadette, Mike and Violaine came for dinner, I was able to eat and have a little to drink so I'm on the mend, but still not completely cured.

Menu
Aperitifs
Oysters
Coquel St Jaques
Roast Lamb (home produced) Roast pork.
Carrots, peas and roast potatoes.
Cheese and Salad
La galette des Rois ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake )

Wine
Rose d' Anjou (2007)
Saint Julien de Septime Corbières (2000)
Pol Remy Mousseux

Birthdays

Sorry about the gap, its about time I wrote something. It was my birthday on the 13th of December and Paul's on the 14th, Dan bought us a camcorder but we are having problems burning the videos to disc, we didn't realise they would be so big, a 40 minute video takes over 8GB so I'm trying to take smaller videos and I will post them on Youtube I will post the links when I've got some posted. Anyway birthdays, we bought a meal in, Vietnamese, washed down with a few bottles of wine. Ive managed to post a little bit of video on youtube, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ4PmjFubrI