Good Service

Hello dear readers,

I have probably posted about the fantastic service we get here in France before but I find it so lovely that I must give them credit again.

John and I have blood tests every 3 months due to diabetes, yesterday I walked into our local laboratoire without an appointment and got a blood test done within 5 minutes, now that is good service and I will have the results in the post by Wednesday,

 John is slightly different because he has a phobia with needles so he needs to have his done at home so that he can pass out in peace, so yesterday I popped into the nurses office (which is 100mtrs from our house) and booked his for this morning, over the months he is getting much better thanks to the doc giving him a relaxer tablet to take an hour before, appointment booked for Friday to get our repeat prescriptions and we are good to go for another 3 month.

Poor man, it isn't nice but I hope eventually he will overcome it ☺ 

the wine with his tea will help 😉

Please let me know what you think in the comments below.

Here is a blog I am following - so entertaining.

https://moisfrenchadventure.com/2016/07/26/what-is-it-about-you-and-owls/

Rabbit Rabbit

Hello my dear readers, another hot day here in our little part of France.

This time of year it is all about the garden and What we should do with it and over the 7 1/2 years we have been here it has changed quite a bit, the bottom half started off as a veg patch and as we have got older and not so able to do it we changed it to raised beds but by the time you have fertilized and watered it only for the snails to ruin it we found it was cheaper to buy it.
Then we put a patio over it and built a wooden spa to house the hot tub, got to have my bubbles at the end of a hot day.
There is just one area left that is a bit of an eyesore that we want to sort out and it is this.

A rabbit hutch, we inherited it with the house and the reason we haven't  tackled it is because it is made of concrete, luckily it is in separate segments so as soon as we get a cooler day we will start the process.

What job are you putting off?

In the meantime take a look at a blog I am following, A Taste of France
https://francetaste.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/byop/


Until next time...  

Summer

Hello dear readers,

Yes Summer has arrived at last after weeks of thinking will it happen this year, I remember thinking it is July and we are struggling to get up to 20 degrees and jyst when you think it isnt going to happen Bang there it is ....

42 degrees in the garden tonight at 6pm I can't believe it and now it is too hot to go into the garden let alone eat out... How long will it last?

How to dress when in France

Saturday 9th July 

Bonjour Dear readers,

I could be talking about the Paris chic, well you have to admit French ladies know how to dress in more ways than one, but this time I am talking about the dressing that I love to slather on my lettuce (sauce vinaigrette) as the French call it, I have tried over the years many ways of making it but it never seems to taste as good as it does at a restaurant, so today I decided to ask my French neighbour Jossette how she made hers, (they eat a lot of lettuce - salade here) I sometimes wonder if they have it with breakfast 😊
Here is her recipe and method, I include the method because it is very important.

Sauce vinaigrette french style

Ingredients
3 tblsns of good olive oil or oil of your choice
1 good teaspoon of Dijon mustard
Salt and black pepper
1 tblspn balsamic vinegar, or red wine vinegar
Method
In a bowl put the oil then mustard and mix well until the mustard breaks up, this is essential to get the right consistency,  add salt and black pepper, then balsamic vinegar and mix, voila, the best dressing you will ever taste. Sorry no pic but couldn't  wait to scoff it.

Give it a try and let me know below what you think. 

Le Tour

Once a year here in France we have le Tour de France, I believe it is the world's biggest cycle race and is always well attended by people not only from France but they come from all corners of the globe as do the rider's, when we heard it was passing through several villages that were very close to us we seized the chance to go and get a glimpse of our favourites, (Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish)

There were signs up for weeks before telling us that the roads would close at 12.30 until 4 so we knew we would have to be in place for 12.00 we decided to go earlier as we knew places to park would soon be snapped up, there is always a caravan which comes ahead of the race throwing freebies out, this one was 20 kms long with loud music.

They threw some card boards and markers from the Vittel truck and so we wrote on them in readiness for the cyclists coming through

It says go Froome

Sadly we were so excited when the cyclists came we forgot to take a photo, first there were two riders (tete Dr la course) then a good 5 minutes behind was the main body (le peleton), we held our banners high and yelled "come on Froomie" we were lucky enough to be on the side that team Sky were on and they didn't go by too quickly so gave us chance to actually see the individuals.

We were there 5 hours in which time we had a picnic and a nice chat with a French family whose children we gave our sweet gifts from the caravan, some friends were watching in a nearby village and when it was all over we all came back to our house for a BBQ. A long tiring but enjoyable day...what did you do on Monday?

Oh yes, we recorded it on the telly and saw ourselves, fantastic..

Ah Sunday

Hello dear readers. 

It is Sunday, I don't know about you but I love Sunday's even now we are retired it is still a special day, the smell of lunch cooking takes me back to when I was a child and I guess to a time that was so much simpler. 

John waiting for his dinner

We were so care free then, living in a small village in Gloucestershire, I would get on my bike and ride for miles with friends, I had one friend who had a pony and so grew my love for riding and anything horsey, if my Mother had known that I was horse riding she would have grounded me for a month, she thought it was far too dangerous. We would play out all day (Mum would say "she will be home when she is hungry") and I was always hungry, I am a grazer so need to eat often, i didnt get to this size by not eating 😊 

Back to Sunday, I think it is a time when family and friends get together to enjoy a roast, I know our house was always full of family and friends and the only time we don't have a roast on a Sunday is when it is too hot, there is no other meal that smells like it, so as I cook our Sunday roast my mind floats away to dare I say, better times. But then i think, we are so lucky to be here in the French countryside and enjoying the same dinner so much, our French neighbour always says it smells so nice.

What takes you back, I would love to hear your stories...x

Dreams can be shattered

Dear readers
We have lived in France for 7 1/2 years now and built a good life here for ourselves, we are not rich (money wise) but we believe we are millionaires when it comes to our life together, our needs are simple, food on the table, good friends to share with and a roof over our heads, all of which we have.

We have a far better life here than we would have in England, we live in the countryside among the farming community in a house that is over 200 years old, we certainly couldn't  afford anything like it in England with the hyped up property prices in fact we would be lucky to afford a garden shed. Needless to say we want to stay here, we have wonderful neighbours and I believe we will live longer by being here.
So let's get to the reason for this particular blog and the worrying situation that we find ourselves in due to the incompetence of the English government, we are about to leave the EU which means for us that we may not be able to stay here, at the moment we get health care via our S1 from DWP, that would probably finish, we both need medication daily, plus they would probably freeze our pensions this along with the pound devaluing means we would not be able to afford to live, yes we could become French citizens but that means we would have to have better French, not so easy when you are in your late 60s as well as all the other hoops the French would have us jump through. I use the word probably because we don't know, no one has given us a second thought or answered any of our questions instead they are going to leave us in limbo for at least 2 years, and so we wait and try to enjoy what we have while we have it, I am hoping sense will prevail and they will listen and act on the petition with over 4 million signatures, so if you haven't yet signed please do unless you are in the leave camp of course and I respect that..if it all comes to fruition then we will all be coming back to Britain and we will all want somewhere to live and we will need benefits so brace yourselves...Until next time.

The Queen's Birthday Party

The Queen's Birthday Party

Or as they say it here in France -  a fête d'anniversaire de la reine.

We celebrated the birthday of our Queen Elizabeth 11 on Sunday at our friends house has they have a bigger garden than us, it rained constantly until it was time for everyone to arrive and then the miracle happened, it stopped for most part of the time, although we had two gazebo's up that were keeping us dry.

there were 25 of us half and half English/French
The man on the left of this picture used to be the Maire of our friends village, the man with his arms round his daughter is our friendly mechanic, so as you can see all useful people to have as friends.

The lady here on the left is our host and whose beautiful garden we invaded

Lady on the right is the community nurse.

A proper English tea party 

The Mechanics daughter Pauline entertaining us with her violin

The chap at the back in green shirt is my Hubby just coming for a beer

 What did you do to celebrate

Our French Life: June in France

Our French Life: June in France: Hello dear readers Yes June! I can't  believe it is June and we still have cloud, lots of cloud, there has been so much rain which of ...

June in France

Hello dear readers

Yes June! I can't  believe it is June and we still have cloud, lots of cloud, there has been so much rain which of course is making the grass and weeds grow at an alarming rate, Paris has flooded streets as does a lot of Northern France, there is a statue under the bridge over the Seine and they say if the water reaches his feet the streets will flood, well it is up to his knees so I guess they are in trouble, I know a little about flooding having experienced it twice in UK,
But this weather is boring and we are still eating cold weather food, Shepherds pie tonight followed by French Strawberry tart made with Strawberries from our garden

Strangely there were just enough Strawberries for this tart,, call it fate.

The Shepherds pie is our favourite recipe courtesy of the Frugal Queen
You can find her blog here and pick up the recipe

John has been busy for me too, as you know he made Le Spa, a 3 x 3 wooden structure to house our hot tub, well he had all these bits of wood so he has made me some planters to go by our back gate and a great job he has done too, we have filled them with our own compost and a bit of peat, just got to fill with plants now

As for the Sun, still we wait but word has it that it will be here next week, until next time dear reader's