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We are finally getting over our trip back to UK. Going away requires extra washing and work before you go, two gruelling days of travel, hard work socialising and then washing and cleaning when you get back. Today the rain stayed away and I was able to do the last lot of washing and get it dry on the line.

It's been so long since I blogged that Google has changed its layout. Not sure I like the new one but sure I will eventually work it out.

We arrived back to torrential rain and wind and water seeping over the new garage floor. Lesson to selves: when laying service trenches to a building (especially when the building is at the bottom of a hill) make sure that you lay some drainage and divert the pipe away from the house, or else it will just collect all the water as it runs off the slope and spill it out the end! In this case the end was in the new garage. The solution was to get out the digger and dig lots of trenches.

I will do a seperate post of Gremlin's adventures in London, but just add that he seemed happy to be back and celebrated by running off to look for his girlfriend!

May looks like it is going to be a busy month with  couple of dinner invites, the hunt soiree, and of course plenty of jobs to do.

More later.

Sausages (and other things..)

Oh dear, my blogging has really slowed down since the arrival of Gremlin and the summer months. Its not that I don't have anything to say as I am often thinking about things that I want to write. It's just that everytime I think of them I am either nowhere near the computer, or doing other things, or about to take the dog for a walk. Here's where sausages come in. We took Gremlin to puppy school last weekend at the Bergerac Club Canine. It was reassuring to see that dog people are the same everywhere! The trainers were fierce looking women in leather and even Gremlin was called to order. However, in the end it was a combination of firm handling and a good smell of greasy, stinky, oily frankfuter sausage that had him eating out of my hand better than any other treat we have tried! He was excellent at the agility exercises, new situations and suprisingly good with other dogs, although dominant with them. Recall is a work in progress as even a smelly sausage was not enough to entice him away from the other dogs!

Job number two has been dealing with the abundance of fruit and veg that has appeared in my garden (or from the farmer). Despite a dry summer, poor soil and lack of attention from me I am overwhelmed with tomatoes. I also harvested my pumpkins and now have at least 50kg of pumkin to use.

Pumpkin Harvest

They are currently in the shower in the end bathroom, along with the remains of the onions. The courgettes have just about finished and I still have a few potatoes waiting in the ground. I am quite exited about the prospects for next year and have earmarked two new beds that need cultivating in autumn. In addition  to my produce we have been given figs, melons and strawberries and plums from the local farmer, to the extent that I don't really know what to do with them all. I have always thought it would be hard to starve here!

The other big job that has been looming was laying the concrete base for the garage. This was finally finished yesterday with the assistance of our friendly neighbours. At 8.30 in the morning a large truck arrived and poured 7 cubic metres of ready mixed concrete into the carefully prepared base.

Concrete delivery number 2

This was raked and tamped as a second lorry arrived with another load. Finally after some waiting a third lorry arrived with the final load and fortunately we just had enough to finish.

Concrete Boots!

We now have to wait a month or so before we can build on it and so we are off on a well deserved break for three days next week! We are staying here!

News

Spring continues to approach but is not quite here yet. We have just had a wet spell which has enabled us to test out the drainage system properly, and so far we are pleased to report the cellar and underneath the house has remained bone dry. I am reluctant to cheer too loudly as we have yet to see what happens after a heavy storm, but so far it looks to be working. We have moved inside to work this week and Ian has been concentrating on the wiring. We now have functioning light switches in the kitchen, wired in plug sockets, and are close to being able to close off the dividing wall between the kitchen and the hall. This has the added advantage of using up six sheets of plasterboard that are currently taking up space.

Today we prepared the heap of carcass that was donated to us by the hunt at New Year and learnt our first lesson about game; you should hang it before sticking it in the freezer to drain all the blood away. We also realised that we had been given the piece that suffered the fatal blow; as we removed the lead shot from inbetween the broken ribs! To think I was once a non meat eater! After the carnage the kitchen looked like a scene from a masacre but bambi is now in bits in the slow cooker and will be served tomorrow night when our non vegetarian neighbours come for dinner.

On a totally different note, my friend who lives in  Christchurch, New Zealand has had her house turned upside down for the second time in a few months with the latest earthquake. Fortunately her family were safe although her husband works just round the corner from one of the buildings that was completely flattened. I spent a great holiday there several years ago, and have some other friends from there that I have not kept in touch with. I am hoping that they are all safe and okay. My friend described it as their 9/11 but they have no one to blame.

About to jump

I have been experimenting with a new layout as I was getting a little bored with the other one. The banner across the top was taken from the terrace in France in the middle of August. There was not a cloud anywhere. The background is from a blogger template but I thought it fitted quite well. The sky and clouds seem to fit quite nicely with my current mood and feelings as it is like I am just about to jump out into space and float away freely to whatever awaits! (Well on some days it feels more like I am going to jump and land flat on my face, but I try not to think about that too much!) I also changed the description slightly as the dreams of llamas and cycling everyday seem a bit of a long way off at the moment!

Ian is on his way back from France after unloading a van load of boxes at our neighbours' house and trying to finish putting in the ceilings in the kitchen. This job took on more of a sense of urgency after he got up to make tea yesterday and realised that it was only 11 degrees in the kitchen! Ceilings and insulation make a big difference! I think my electric Teasmade is going to come in rather handy on the mornings when it is my turn to make the tea!

When he arrived there was no power to the house. We are still on a temporary supply until we have finished all the wiring and had it signed off by the local inspector and it had tripped out at the main switchboard, which happens to be on a pole in our neighbours hedge. Every time he re-set it, it tripped again, until he discovered the black and crispy plug socket in the bedroom! He later discovered that the pole had been hit by lightening a few days before, causing one of our neighbours plugs to fly out of the socket and across the room! Time to get the lightening arrester fitted!

Reviewing the focus

I was beginning to think that I may have to change the description of this blog as being about life, llamas and cycling to omit the cycling bit since I haven't ridden my bike for ages. We have had so many things to do at the weekends that cycling had become a thing of the past. However, this weekend Ian decided that as he is no longer riding to work everyday he would like to go out for a bike ride. Yipee! This is one advantage of  Ian not working in town as he now has some energy! We decided to go along the Cuckoo trail, a fairly flatish disused railway line that we have ridden before. We did about 20 miles all in all and for the last three I thought my legs had dissolved! It brought home to me that if you want to stay fit once you are past 50 you have to put in the hours. We stopped at Wessons cafe in Horam for tea and a bun. The cafe was quiet except for 10 or so bikers. They were very quiet and polite and I joked with the owner that I didn't expect to find all the varieties of herbal tea in a bikers cafe! Today my rear end is suffering!

I also haven't written much about llamas, since our focus has been so much on making progress on the house and making our way there that the llamas have taken a bit of a back seat. I have written more about the problems with my current animals, especially the aged cat Norma who was approaching deaths door a few weeks ago. However, as Fiona (of Two Shelia's and Dog) predicted she has made a miraculous recovery on her medication and now looks like she might be fit enough to get her rabies jab and chip and maybe last a little longer. What I would disagree with however is that the cost is reasonable at a combined cost of £40 per month ! Must have gone up! The other problem is that now Norma is feeling better she is putting up more of a struggle when I come to give her the tablets! I have a technique that involves me pinning her between my legs and thrwing the pill as far down her throat as I can get it. However, she is quite good at preventing it from going down and discretely spitting it out at the food bowl!

Finally, this blog has really been more about building the house in France than all the other things. With that in mind we are off Wednesday for 10 days. We have a full van and a list of jobs longer that we have time to do. Ian is pleased as I agreed that he could start work on garage. There is some logic there as if the garage is done then we can store things in it while we finish off the floor in the house. He is now exitedly planning the concrete slab. We have also applied to have Internet connected, but this is France and so far we have not heard back so we will still have to resort to the neighbour's Wi Fi connection!

More on blogging

Today I have had a good day playing with the Blog! I learnt how to put in a gizmo thing that gives you details of the latest weather, how to count the number of people who visit the site (not very impressive at the moment but then I only put it on today) and how to put a reasonably sized photo on my 'header'. The above photo is of the land in France. It will be the view from the bedroom window.