Episode 1
Last year when we closed the (rental) house up for winter I carefully emptied the hot water tank, turned off the electricity, closed the valves on the gas tanks etc so that we were confident that the house could be ignored for a few months. I also left all the taps open so that [...]

Note: this entry is inspired by the ‘weekend of patrimony’ in France (this weekend) when many of the great buildings are opened free to the public.
Our daughter has just started her second year at lycée and one of her subjects is history. Turns out her history teacher is in training to be an architect, so [...]

I’m a long way from home travelling around Burgundy at the moment, which presents me with a challenge – whenever I go away, Mrs B and the girls complain that I don’t think of them at all. This is based on the fact I that I never buy them presents from whereever I’ve been.
Earlier in the [...]

Those of you who need to keep in touch with your office or access your emails while you travel probably keep an eye out for hotels that have wifi (internet) access when you are planning your trip.  Note to hotel owners in France: for me, and many others, this internet access is actually quite important.
I’ve [...]

First we had crop circles littering the countryside as careless aliens parked their spaceships in the most improbable places.
Then we had Andy Goldsworthy sprinkling giant snowballs across the streets of London in the middle of summer.
Now a new and greater mystery has arrived, a phenomenon that is undeniable, inexplicable, and several other big words as [...]

It’s always interesting to look back on a year of change, so here is our personal summary – a Queen’s Speech from France if you like, but without the Queen. Or the speech.
The year has been hectic for us – and as it turned out pretty hectic for most expats in France, along with the rest of [...]

1. Had ten steres (cubic metres) of wood delivered this morning, ready chopped and ready split for use in the wood-burning stove this year. We are now ready for a Siberian winter, without being held hostage to oil prices.
Of course my opinion of a Siberian winter might be different to others – someone who stayed in [...]

Let’s try and keep our spirits up. Petrol prices mean that everyone needs to stay at home, petrol shortages mean that we can’t go anywhere anyway…and I’ve hired a car starting this evening so I can go and do research on the Nimes region.
So either I won’t be able to set off, or I’ll set [...]

I wake up early in the morning – usually between 5am and 6am, and long before anybody else. No idea why, I’ve been the same since I was young. But it does leave me with a challenge. What should someone do for two-three quiet hours every morning?
Typically I drink too much coffee, answer lots [...]

It’s only about two weeks until we open our doors to the first of this years visitors (we are ‘closed’ October to April) so we are busy making sure everything is looking good in the house and garden.
This becomes less of a chore each year, but there are always things to do in a house [...]

Our house is on a small hill, overlooking our field below, down to the road about 150 metres away at the bottom of the field. It is a quiet road – a few cars, an occasional tractor, a school bus and so on. Very tranquil.
This morning, in a terrible stroke of bad luck, a car [...]

We went, we saw, we came back glad we don’t live there.
The last couple of days of our UK visit were spent in Glasgow, in the worst possible weather – cold, snow, sleet and wind. Pretty much the reason why we left Edinburgh many years ago. Edinburgh has the redeeming feature of being very beautiful, [...]

In 1978, in London, a Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was murdered by a poison dart containing ricin fired from the tip of an umbrella. I thought that would be the last time we’d hear about dangerous umbrellas.
Harrogate shopping centre, 30 years later, and a big sign UMBRELLAS ARE DANGEROUS! Free plastic bags were provided [...]

Valentine’s day came along yesterday and, what can I say, I didn’t receive any anonymous cards in the post from secret admirers. Same old story for the last 30 years but I still live in hope.
Mrs B and the girls didn’t receive any either, or none that they chose to admit to, so we all [...]

I have failed miserably to keep my New Years resolution to write more regularly, oops. This is partly because one of my winter time duties each year is to return the gites to their former glory in readiness for the next season – replace dripping washers, mend toilet seats and shower heads, repaint where necessary [...]