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 [...]
This blog has somehow managed to stagger through 2007, as I lurched from writer’s block to laziness, and is now ready and eager to welcome in 2008. So prepare yourselves for another year of useful information disguised as trivia. Or perhaps it is trivia disguised as useful information, I forget.
This is about the time that [...]
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently while I modernised the france this way site – I was feeling guilty that it looked a bit 1990’s, and should be more ‘interactive’ with visitors.
While I’m OK on the technical stuff I’m completely rubbish on design, so it’s taken me two years to come [...]
Well I’ve had my four days all alone and tomorrow I drive to Toulouse and get the rest of the family. They will be looking forward to seeing me, I’m sure.
At least I know they are alive and spending – I had a ten second phonecall this afternoon to check up on me. Not very [...]
Mrs B and the girls have gone for a shopping trip to Barcelona for a few days, so I am here on my own. Shopping is not my thing. So what do I do to amuse myself?
To say the least it is quiet here, three houses in 16 acres of countryside and just me and [...]
Yesterday was a typical day for us here in the (now) sunny south-west of France so I thought I’d share it’s pleasures.
First Mrs B and eldest daughter went off to a backstreet tattooist to get their belly buttons pierced. Can’t say I’d fancy it myself, and apparently it wasn’t much fun, but that’s the price [...]
First, for the person who found this blog yesterday having queried on ‘the disadvantages of eating in France’ let me assure you that the ‘disadvantages of NOT eating in France’ are significantly greater. They include, among others, vitamin deficiencies, malnutrition and slow and painful death.
And for the person who queried in google on ‘cheapest [...]
Well, it’s been a good week down here in the countryside.
As part of having websites I receive lots of emails asking for information on all sorts of things – the best theme parks in France; the best way to point a stone wall; the tax position on selling property, etc etc. This is good, I [...]
It’s been a good few days, with Mrs B’s brother and his family staying, and the sun was shining as well. I haven’t done as much hard labour as I should but hey it was Easter.
You might have noticed that yesterdays blog entry was a sponsored post – perhaps I should explain what that means [...]
Cycling is out of the question for the next couple of days, since the summer weather of last week has returned to winter weather – very unfortunate because today our first holidaymakers of 2007 arrived.
They might not have expected tropical sunshine, but rain, hail, and a howling gale straight from the north pole probably wasn’t [...]
The last few days have been a bit manic, what with visits to notaires and estate agents and a couple of other business type issues, but these are all solved (solved as in ‘we know what we are doing’ rather than ‘resolved’, since the outcomes are far from ideal)
We do now have a plan, which [...]
The place where we live is quite close to the Dropt River, a tranquil river that spends eleven months of the year flowing quietly onward, as happy holidaymakers amble along its banks, artists paint pictures of ancient mills, and children play pooh-sticks on the bridges.
But then, each winter for a couple of weeks, everything changes. [...]
With enormous pleasure we have now discarded all the Christmas decorations, lobbed the tree out of the door, and greeted in the New Year. We’ve also chucked all the Christmas cards in the fire, along with the addresses that we will spend half of next December searching for.
2007. Wow, when I was young I thought [...]
Random comments on Christmas in our household:
Unfortunately Mrs B was right – Pere Noel did not pop a plasma widescreen TV down my chimney this year. Bit of a shame really because I wanted to watch High School Musical in super-screen mega-colour but what can you do? I have taken to wandering aimlessly around the [...]
When winter arrives we all tend to shut ourselves up inside for a couple of months. This does mean there is a bit less excitement to report here in the blog. Excitement being a relative term for our rural outpost in southern France, where someone crossing the road without looking both ways first counts as [...]