This year I have taken over reponsibility for our self-sufficiency. Doesn’t that sound impressive. What it means is, Mrs B has told me I have to pull my weight in the garden, and she has enough to do maintaining the acres of ‘real’ garden around here without having time to plant vegetables as well. So [...]
Mrs B is a good-hearted soul most of the time, and as part of her urge to do something useful for the community she has become a volunteer worker at the local cinema. Now, before you tell me, I know that most charity workers sell second-hand clothes, or do some of the less pleasant aspects [...]
I’m not usually one to bring a political angle to my blogging, but today I think I will make an exception. Hundreds of thousands of French are on strike today, marching around the city centres, so I will appear either ignorant or stupid if I claim to be reporting about life in France while not [...]
Yesterday was carnival day, which is always entertaining. The carnival is an annual event, largely for the children of the local schools, and involves all the children dressing up in costume and marching around the town centre beating drums and making a lot of noise.
The highlight of the day is Mister Carnival himself, an effigy [...]
Just a general gripe today, I’m in that kind of mood. First of all, a bit of background. At Christmas, we finally succumbed and got a portable telephone for our eldest daughter. Because, of course ‘all my friends have got them’, and because we could never get on the computer, because she was spending hours [...]
When I’m not dealing with the challenges of running French gites, the French language is one of the big challenges for me, and for pretty much anybody who moves to France. There are various stages that need to be passed through - asking simple questions, having a conversation, understanding the television, being able to understand [...]
When I’m not busy looking after guests in our gites or writing this column, and it’s raining outside, I have been known to pass an hour or two surfing on the internet. I’m quite a gullible kind of person, and very often ‘get rich quick’ adverts catch my eye.
Occassionally I take a look, but usually [...]
Those of you who are regular visitors to France will know that shop opening hours are a bit different to those in the UK. That is to say, shops are almost never open in France and always open in the UK.
When we first moved to France this all seemed a bit strange, but we, like [...]
Following my previous excursions on the bike I have been doing a bit of research on the internet to find out how I can improve my performance. There are, it seems, lots of important factors, and getting out on the road cycling is just one of them. In fact that’s the hardest one, so I [...]
Living in the heart of the countryside, we do get quite a lot of animal life paying us a visit. Some of it is very welcome. For example, we get a large variety of birdlife - from blue tits and chaffinches, to the buzzards and kestrels overhead. Sometimes the kestrel likes to sit in [...]
Mrs Boris likes to keep an eye on what we all eat, not too much chocolate, plenty of fruit, all that kind of stuff. All very sensible, but she comes up against a permanent battle from our younger child who considers it her mission in life to eat as much sweets and cake as possible.
Well, [...]
Yesterday we ordered fuel for the central heating, the winter being (as always) longer and colder than we hoped for or anticipated. Although spring now seems to be on its way, we only have about 15 litres of fuel remaining, and frankly that won’t see us through the summer.
Well, we rang to order the fuel, [...]
Once a year something terrible descends on our house. It lasts about four hours, moves around the hose with a terrible fury, making strange and startling noises and destroying everything in its wake.
It is a children’s birthday party.
There is one advantage of childrens parties in rural France. In the UK, birthday parties cost a fortune [...]
I’ve spent today completing stage 4 of my annual clear-out of unwanted items. It always bring me great satisfaction throwing things away, although to be honest they are never actually my things to start with. In fact they belong to Mrs Boris and the children.
Of course they don’t realise that they have ‘unwanted items’ which [...]
A topic that almost never arises in the overcrowded countries of northern Europe, but dominates our every waking moment in rural France, is septic tanks. Happy memories of simply using a toilet, or cleaning a sink, and thinking no more about it are distant memories.
France have introduced new and exciting regulations to help guide us [...]
