Blue Peter,bricklaying – and the big freeze

Last night the pipes froze, so it’s back to the good ol’ days and getting water from the spring in a bucket.

Soon to be a newt nursery – but luckily  not yet

You might remember that last summer, several stones fell out of a retaining wall in the garden. Rather belatedly, it’s now fixed. The task was complicated by discovering, when we dug out the earth behind it, that the wall was flimsier than it appeared, a bit like the film-set facade of a Wild West town.  Sections of it were visibly wobbling, and had to be removed and re-cemented.

Before and after:

On this occasion Eric mixed the cement and I was the bricklayer. (Don’t judge me.The top isn’t meant to be straight.)

I’ve also got right into the Blue Peter craft-corner spirit, with some sea-glass mobiles:

 

and a jewellery tree:

It turns out that curly stems of ivy are just right for this sort of project.  The base is slate and granite. I trust Valerie Singleton would be proud of me.

‘The Business’

Our ads are now up to date and we’ve taken two bookings for the summer so far  – one of them from guests based in Germany.  As our prices are quoted in sterling,  they must look like extra good value to mainland Europeans at the moment!

Ripoff America

After the painful experience of ordering some samples of wedding tulle from the USA (cheap goods but exorbitant postage, plus  unexpected and heavy customs charges on delivery)  the Jones establishment has adopted a new purchasing policy.  In case you’re reading this, President Trump – henceforth our approach to international trade will be America Last.

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💚 Nature!

Although it’s fun to close the shutters and stoke up the stove on a cold night, there’s a lot happening outdoors too.  Living here reminds us that nature doesn’t switch off in winter – there’s always something going on.

See what I mean?

Another New Year’s resolution for me: more Winter Watch vigils.  The fallen willow tree in the bog area makes a fairly comfortable seat, and overlooks the stream valley which must be something of a  wildlife superhighway at dawn and dusk.  So far I’ve only seen birds, and one hare, but will keep at it.  Night-vision binoculars may be a useful piece of kit for the future.

A plug for the National Wildflower Centre

A beautiful and massively worthwhile place, that we can’t afford to lose.  It has closed due to funding pressures, but there’s a huge grassroots movement to save it.   There’s a  Facebook group to join at  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1245507392184876/

One of the NWC’s many projects -creating roadside wildflower meadows across Merseyside

Obligatory cat picture:

2017’s must-have accessory.  NB the sausage in Helen’s sandwich is vegetarian, otherwise the novelty lap-tray would be  less accepting of his role.

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January notes

The outlook on New Year’s Day: pretty, if  a bit bracing.  With no central heating in the cottage, for a while we had to close the wooden shutters at night, to keep in the heat from the stove.

Below: Eric returning from a shopping expedition on New Year’s Eve.  As part of our quest for  a sprightly retirement,  we take it in turns to make the daily shopping trip when weather permits: he walks, I cycle.  It’s not far, but fulfils the 20-30 minute recommendation and includes a nice steep hill.  When added to  Eric’s daily log-splitting regime, this probably approximates to a good session on the  cross-trainer.

The highlight of this week was dinner with our lovely neighbours Blandine and Mme. Besnard, featuring amazing food, all of it more or less new to us: Armagnac paté, potimarron soup (Wikipedia translates this as ‘red kuri squash’), seafood blanquette and galette des rois, traditionally eaten at Epiphany.

We follow with admiration Ben and Kay’s Veganuary, and Helen’s Pescatarian January – but continue to be partly carnivorous ourselves, at least for now.

Some tasks scheduled for early 2017: wall mending; replacement of a malfunctioning blind; various craft projects involving sea-glass, overhauling and updating our online ads.

As far as holiday lets go, we are bracing  for the possibility of a disappointing year.  The media tells us that post-referendum, the weakness of the pound against the euro has led to a surge in bookings for Mexico and Argentina at the expense of European destinations.  However .. advert alert …Les Bruyeres is still cheap, fabulous and (compared to Argentina, anyway) close. See Trip Advisor, keywords ‘Les Bruyeres Fougeres’. We’d welcome some  longer bookings this summer, allowing us to trundle  off  to interesting places that are a bit too far to get there and back in a week.  We therefore offer  ‘Mates Rates’  for longer stays – a fortnight or more – enquiries by e-mail or via this  blog.

In the system

The slow process of getting  established within the French system – mostly postponed during Year 1 of The Adventure, just in case things didn’t work out – continues. Although still awaiting our cartes vitales (health insurance cards), we are now registered with a local GP practice.  Our first contact with this was utterly different from  any comparable UK experience.  There were no appointments, no tickets to prove your position in the queue, and no receptionist.  We arrived at an ordinary-looking house in the centre of town and followed the instruction to ring and enter.  We walked into a  Gothic-looking entrance hall – big stone fireplace, chessboard floor tiles, antique wooden furniture and a chandelier- where about six people were already waiting.  The doctor took his time; there was no sense of limited consultation slots, and we were there for about an hour before being called. Once in the surgery, we explained that we wanted to register as new patients, the doctor said he had a full caseload and shouldn’t really take on anyone new  – then signed us up anyway.  Merci, M. le docteur.

The next step is to look into getting top-up health insurance.  The  websites Expatica and AngloInfo explain that in France this isn’t used to get better or faster treatment, but to bridge the gap between the full cost  and what the health service will pay for – typically a gap of 30%.

As for the quality of the service – we have yet to test it, but know of two Brits who had  heart episodes requiring major surgery, and were very impressed with the care they received.

Wildlife update

A large hare sighted in the water-meadow was a first for me. One particular hunter regularly parks his car by the stream and walks along the valley with his gun in search of game – lucky for the hare it was me, not him, on that occasion.