Growing

My hair has grown a little longer and I think I prefer it. I am also growing vegetables in the potager, and so I thought I would look up the word grow. I dont think that the French use raised beds, but please correct me if you know otherwise. We made the sides of our raised beds out of the turf, and so they are like grassy banks.

I think a good time to pick your veg is first thing in the morning, the French word is recolte, I prefer it when the bees are not buzzing around me, and its a good time to evict the invading limace(slugs). Here are some of the veg that i have used this year.

We enjoyed the French beans last year and so I have used then again, this year I am trying out the mangetout, and i have been very impressed although for some reason i didnt expect them to grow all over the place,which they have.

Now if you like garden gnomes or Nain then you may like to watch the film Amelie, but even if you are not a garden gnome fan it is the best film ever. Amelie

Fluttering and buzzing

Just like everywhere else there is a worry about the bees or should I say a lack of them! Click on the picture to get a better look at these flutter byes!

But I cant really say if there are more or less bees around?...The French word for bee is abeille and there certainly were lots of bees and butterflies a buzzing and fluttering this morning. The tracks or chemin de terre around the village are like little tunnels because the maize has grown so high. It really does affect the landscape. I think that I prefer the scenery in the springtime! Now it is so dark in places the bees and butterflies all zoom in on a flower where the sun penetrates the canopy above.

Two months back the maize had just started to grow and we still had views.

I think that it is a shame that we mess around with food as much as we do, ie GM and chemicals.

I am told that the maize is mainly used for cattle feed around here. I do remember this recipe from many years back called Hush Puppies .........great name eh. I think sweetcorn was used a lot as a food for poor folks, I love corn on the cob with garlic butter, but you dont see whole corn cobs for sale very often.

Now back to the butterflies........One of my fave tv programmes years ago was Butterflies, I reckon that Wendy Craig was very underated!..I cant embed the video, but just click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdEIWu4gT5g

At the moment I am reading

A book called Winter in Madrid. I have finally started to get into the story around page 100 the word facsist springs to mind. I personally link the word fâchè to facsist. Now if we use the word cross and not angry a French person learning English would get really confused.

It is wet and windy today so I am a bit cross how confusing is that!

So we didnt take a walk this morning and so my dog is bored or maybe a bit miffed!........although this bored look is not unusual!

Just a final note about the French characters in the word fâchè, if you need to use them often without a French keyboard then try http://www.avisoft.co.uk/.

Internet friends and French humour

Is it possible to have Internet friends? Well I think it is possible, I have a friend on Stumble who often sends me links to Internet sites. Sometimes they are musical like this one its great fun. Many thanks to Lovatscout in Inverness for sending me that link, lots of the links he sends to me are very funny. The French use the word drole an awful lot.

I have spent the afternoon with a special friend who I "met" on the Internet on a forum called Brittany Friends, and I noticed before I dashed off earlier that the lovely Woolly Shepherd had made some comments on my blog. In fact I have met the Woolly Shepherd and she knows a thing or two about wool, sheep, and lots of other useful information for people considering smallholding. Woolly also pops onto the forum from time to time when she isnt working or exhausted, or épuisé

Here is a little bit of French humour!

Virée en bus
envoyé par Suzylee1

Taratata.and a right load of old rubbish

Today after a drive to the airport and back (Rennes) I have spent some time reading articles on the online Telegraph.....and I do not like the new format. I then discovered that a music programme which I like to watch actually has a very strange name. I had thought that it was a made up name and not a real French word the program is called Taratata. Neither of the following singers is French, but that proves no problem for the presenter of the show who flips from French to English with such ease it makes me very envious. Actually the right load of old rubbish was in the Telegraph newspaper paying £1,500 for a face cream hilarious!
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Saturday & Canicule

It rained last night so it had cleared the air a little, although it has been hot I wouldnt call it scorching or canicule.

We went to Fougeres later in the morning and I never get tired of seeing the castle. When we arrived I could hear the church bells clanging at the top of the hill. MOH went to take a drink at the Café de Paris and my friend and I walked through the market and onto the Jardin Public.

There were huge paper petals on the steps of the chuch next to the Jardin and we discovered that the guests for one wedding party were having fun amongst the flowers and camera's were clicking away.

Further around the gardens a wedding car crunched its way along the gravel and out onto the road, seconds later many car horns were tooting. This is the first time that I have seen a car in the jardin public and it was a great sight.

Chambardement, and the prices at the petrol stations

Friday and its time to buy the local paper again. Carte Militaire le grand chambardement, which kind of means turned UP sidedown or a big shake up!. There are going to be huge cutbacks and military bases will be closed.

Renault is to lay off 5000 employees.

People are buying less fuel for their cars (so they must be staying at home).

This week I have seen diesel at various prices from 1.36.7euros today at Carrefour Fougeres
middle price 1.39.9euros at LClerc St Hilaire du Harqouet & 1.44euros at Champion in our local town!!! Its a big concern to many of us.
I do own a 4 x 4 however it hasnt got a big engine, it doesnt run on petrol it runs on diesel it isnt a gas guzzler and I drive it like a pussy cat!

Anyway changing the subject I noticed this morning in my garden that some new flowers had popped up and look here is one of them!

estival and my favorite food

Today has been very varied I wanted to make our friend welcome but also needed to do some chores.

MOH has had toothache ouch! but later on was laying more tiles in the hallway.

Our meal tonight was eaten outdoors the weather was summery but the forecast shows storms are a coming! estival is a nice French word for summery.
Its odd I know since I live in France but my favorite food is Greek, so feta cheese, and dolmades, were part of our salad along with that lovely yoghurt garlic and minty dip Tzatziki.

It was so sunny at times that we needed our big blue sunshade as well as our gazebo.

Surpeuplé & a trip to Mont Saint Michel

We went to visit Mont Saint Michel , I am not that fond of visiting places when they are packed full of people or surpeuplé. En route we called at Pontorson where they have a small market on Wednesday. A view from the top of MSM see all the cars and many people.
There are pretty streets when you get inside the walls but we were squashed, the queue at the top to get inside the church at the top was fairly long too!

Rangement, chante loup, and memories.

Today is Tuesday, Mardi and I went to visit a special friend of mine who has been having a great big clear out or rangement, sometimes you just have to tackle the things that you have been putting off.

My friend has a lovely new puppy and I love to see how she has changed.

On one occasion earlier this year when we went to collect elderflowers from the hedgerows we returned to find her rather pretty chickens very much at home in the kitchen.

On the way to my friends house I always smile when I drive pass the sign Chante Loup, as I understand this means, a wolf that sings, or howls anyway it is so French I love it.

We had a lovely morning drinking coffee and trying out some medlar liquor yummy, the weather was just so summery it was like being on holiday!! My friend had really made headway with the sort out but some things you just have to keep.

Plates painted by the children what special memories.

Fric and a pea in the garden.

Today because it is Monday Lundi the bread shop in our village is closed and I dont think we have enough. Of course the word for bread is pain.

My friend who is staying needs some dosh or dough so we will need to find a bank or cash dispenser. The French slang word for money is Fric, not to be confused with Flic which is slang for the police!

To save a little money we are growing some vegetables in the garden, I wish I had known how tall the mange tout would grow because they have flopped all over the place. The picture is called a pea in the garden, anyone who lives here for any length of time know that many French men do just that!

Chemin

Today my friend arrives from Dorset. The route from here to the airport is via the Rocard North around Rennes. This road is a huge ringroad if you did go wrong I guess you could drive all the way around. The roads around here are usually a real pleasure to drive on although the roads nearer Rennes are of course a lot busier. My word for the day is chemin, it can be used for route, or country road, railroad or a bunch of other things. So in an hour or so my friend will be en route here along the country lanes.

The picture above is a chemin leaving our village.

Best get out the vacuum cleaner and look for cobwebs!!

News Today

Cycling is very popular in France and lots of the locals dress in their lycra on a Sunday and wizz around the roads and the wide forest tracks. Our village is used as a start and finish for several local cycle races.



As ever there are again more problems with some riders participating in the le Tour. It beats me why they imagine that they can get away with it, are they really that stupid?


An article about underage drinking, the French are afraid they with have the English binge drinking problems.

French Markets

The market at Dinan was very busy, and moving around the stalls was a squashed up affair. It is the biggest market that I have seen and the range of goods on offer was excellent. Personally I would prefer to go back when it is a little less busy, however I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There were lots of restaurants around but because we were a little short of time we grabbed a galette .

Galettes can be bought from huge vans in the market where they are cooked and filled on the spot my cheese filled one cost 2.50 euros.

The streets are looking very colourful because there is a medieval fete this coming weekend.

Below is a picture taken at Fougeres market, which is great to look around on a Saturday morning.

Visiting the markets are very sociable affairs for the French locals. It is also a popular day out if you have friends or family come and stay. Our local market is on Saturday mornings.

Fougeres has the biggest medieval castle in Europe

Raining and shopping

Raining this morning and so I decide to give walking the dog a miss. The Internet forecast that I tend to use where you enter in your postal code hadn’t given out rain, but the rain was here and there was continuous drizzle. So after reading my favourite Blogs and checking out the emails I spend the morning doing chores like ironing and cleaning out the shower. I have a friend coming to stay so I try and make an extra special effort, this house is old and dusty and two seconds after you have cleaned it down falls the dust from the floor above.

During lunchtime whilst watching the news on TF1 I decide to drive into Fougeres and look for a birthday present for my friend. Later at the shops I spend ages in a shop called Noz and also take a quick look in Foir Fouille. I needed to put 20 euros of diesel in the car too, the dial wizzes so fast that i dont stop in time 20.01 says the dial.

A day at home and a fight with the PC

Lots of pictures on the television showing the fireworks for yesterdays fete, nothing happened here in our small village. A lovely sunny start which was not forecast, however not long after a walk in the forest the clouds closed in and nothing remained except grey cloud cover.

A day spent cleaning and gardening. I try to reuse as much water as I possibly can, I think that most houses in France are on a water meter, so I try to make it go as far as possible.

Spent some time in the veg garden I am trying to transplant my young broccoli plants. Spent the rest of the afternoon swearing at the PC for various reasons. Managed to locate some software which enables you to type French accents on a letter with a UK keyboard. Normally this isnt an issue but I was trying to edit MOH's CV so that does need to look right. I cursed Flickr because the system appears to be having some kind of breakdown and refuses to load my pictures. PC's eh dont you just love em!

The picture at the top was taken this morning in the forest and the tree had the most enormous spider webs.

Bastille Day

Back from the forest..and have emailed the lady who runs the French/English classes. We are doing a French?english quiz!!

Picture taken down one of my favorite tracks in the forest.

An extra dose of bells

At 7 this morning the church bells rang for a very long time, and then I remembered that it is July 14th.

Today is Bastille Day which is celebrated on the 14th July every year which is another Public holiday here in France.

It commemorates the 1790 Fete de la Federation held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, this was a symbolic day it represents the uprising of the French people. There wont be any festivities in the village it is more of a family day here.

At the moment the parades in Paris are being televised on TF2. It is too sunny to stay in and watch tv, so we are off to the forest for a walk.

A day learning new software

Sunday, the weather was Big clouds like cauliflowers and the sun took almost all of the day to arrive. Must admit spent a lot of time on the Internet learning how to use various software.

12th July Shopping

The shops are closed here on Monday Lundi and so a little extra shopping was needed.

How much can you get for 5.64 euros?

...answer these days not much..The minimum wage by the way have just gone up to 8.71 euros

Walking the dog

If it is not raining a walk in the nearby forest is the usual thing to do before lunch.

No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich. Louis Sabin

A new garden

"Adopt the pace of nature:
Her secret is patience."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My blue bench in my garden, creating a garden from scratch, however the old rhododendron tree has been there for many years.