Our Life in France

Twas the night before Christmas

Yes folks it is Christmas Eve, always a magical time for me and my sister when we were children, our parents always managed to give us a really good Christmas even though they didn't have much money, we always decorated the tree ( a real one) on Christmas Eve, we didn't have Christmas lights but little candles in holders that were lit, health and safety wouldn't allow it now, there were chocolates to hang on the tree too, I couldn't wait to eat them, the old fashioned decorations were put up, draped all over the ceiling and around the sides until you couldn't see any ceiling, then we put up balloons, these would very often go bang at a later time, frightening the life out of us all.

Christmas morning I was always unable to sleep passed 6am  (I am still like that now as a pensioner) Mum would say we had to have breakfast but we were too excited to think about breakfast when there were so many gifts to unwrap! so she would give in and allow us into the front room ( the best room ) we always had a stocking and yes it is true that we had things like an orange in there, they weren't as plentiful as they are now and it was always lovely to receive one, there were sugar mice too and sugared almonds, Mum would say don't scrunch them but suck them, well I didn't have the inclination or patience to do that and would scrunch them with gusto, probably why I have so many fillings now. :)

There were lots of other goodies such as snakes and ladders games and a Mr potato head, now this was a box of  stuff like ears, lips, eyes eyebrows and noses, you then had to acquire a potato from the pantry to stick them all on and make Mr Potato - we had things like a pretend diamond necklace and pretend earrings and a pretend lipstick - oh yes and a piece of coal for good luck. of course there was always a big present which was anything from a doll with a set of clothes that Mum had sat up all night to finish knitting to a brand new Raleigh bike that I had when I was 10, at least I think it was new! which I remember insisting on riding to my Gran's in the snow and came off grazing my knees.

We were not really allowed to eat any of our sweets but we did of course until after dinner which Dad always cooked, he was the cook in our house (it was his hobby) and he was very good at it, there was always a cake of some sort, maybe why  I am the size I am now :)

Speaking of the Christmas dinner, it was a spectacular event with our Uncle and Auntie and cousins joining us round the table, my Uncle was a farmer and always gave us a turkey of about 30lbs, sometimes Dad would have to cut it up to get it in the oven, there would always be all the trimmings with veg from the garden and cranberry sauce and Sage & onion stuffing (home made of course), we loved our food and never questioned what was on our plates, we wouldn't have dared. we were always ready for seconds. then we would force down the Homemade Christmas Pudding ever hopeful to find the lucky silver sixpence or three-penny bit, then we settled down to playing games, I remember once I got a compendium of card tricks and Dad was so good at card tricks and we would gather round the piano with Dad playing and all of us singing Carols (this was before television). And of course there was always snow, we were in the middle of nowhere so when it snowed we usually got snowed in but we didn't care it was an adventure. Most of all we were happy and contented and have memories that will stay with us forever.

A Very Merry Christmas to my Son's Andrew and Ian and their families and also Happy Memories to my Sister Heather, and of course to my wonderful Husband a very Happy Birthday for Christmas Day, I love you all so much, thank you for being a part of my life and my memories.
A very special Merry Christmas to my blog readers, hope you have a very peaceful Christmas and a Happy 2014.

Is it winter yet where you are?

Our life in France

The weather has really started to change now, we have had a couple of frosts but then it is late November so I guess we should expect it now, still the grass continues to grow, much to John's disgust. and I actually picked some lovely lettuce from the garden yesterday.

We are certainly feeling the benefit of all the insulation John has put in and we really are quite snug, mind you the winter hasn't done it's worst yet.

The colder weather always get's the comfort food going in the kitchen, just put a nice hot and spicy beef curry into the slow cooker and made some cakes, I had made the mixture only to find I didn't have any sultanas so I have improvised with some dried cranberries and powdered almond so a bit like a bakewell flavour which is one of our favourites, It also got me thinking about the various things we can't seem to buy here, I can get sultanas but not currents, Naan bread is nowhere to be found but did find some in Noz which is a shop that buy's up liquidation stock, these will be a one off and probably will never be seen again, I have to say they were the most authentic we had ever tasted, I know some of you will say but of course you can get these things and I am sure you can in the big cities but we are rural...we do have an Asian shop fairly near by and if we wanted to we could ask the nice man and he will get us anything in the spice department but we have to wait until he goes to Paris....are you getting the impression we like spicy food!

Other things I miss is real bacon but our good friends from England bring a nice big pack when they come over, oh and yes the tea bags (we can get them here but they are very expensive) sadly you can't dunk French biscuits, no matter how quick you are they fall back in - never mind the wine makes up for it....

I would love to hear from other expats as to what you miss in the food department please.

Busy morning

The sun is still shining.

So I thought being as John didn't need me to help him with the bedroom renovations I would take the opportunity to harvest my wonderful crop of tomato's, this year I thought it would be a good idea to make real tomato sauce for pasta as we eat quite a lot of it, also it is good to put in soups or anything you want a bit of flavour in.

I didn't expect it to taste as good as it did though, yummy. and of course I know what went into it unlike it's shop bought cousin.

                                         So first I sterilized the jars and tops 

                           Then dunked the toms into boiling water to skin them

                            Took out the core's and roughly chopped them and 
                         added them to some fried onion, mixed well for a while
                                     then blitzed them with a hand blender

                           I added fresh chopped basil and garlic plus a little dried
                           oregano, we also like a little paprika in ours, oh yes and
                                              two tubes of tomato puree.

                          Pour into the jars leaving about 1/2 inch space at the top.

                               I use the jam funnel to avoid spilling it everywhere. 

                          pop on the lids nice and tight and put the jars into a large 

                      Jam kettle to boil them for 15 minutes to seal the and pressurize

                                    the jars then leave to cool before labeling.

There was a little left over and it wasn't enough for a full jar so I will put it into tonight's chicken stir fry along with the cabbage that was left over from yesterday (don't tell John ) but nothing gets wasted here.

Now I must go and harvest the rhubarb to put into the freezer for John's crumble's - ( not my favourite )

Then it will be time for a cuppa I reckon.

Our neighbour has just said "ça sent le magnifique" I think she like's the smell and now I have to explain the recipe to her in French...wish me luck

Do you make your own pasta sauce if so let me know how you do yours in the comments :)

Take a Peek

Take a peek at this site, it shows some of the things that can go wrong if you take your eye off the ball or don't do enough research.

http://www.overs.co.uk/infographics.html.

I can't believe it is August already.

I am back and this time refreshed.

I know it has been some time since I blogged and to be honest after so many years of constantly sitting at a computer day in day out for work it is so refreshing to be able to spread my retired wings, it has taken a while to get used to the fact that I am not tied to the computer and I can go out freely any day of the week.
I have for a while seemed to be in a strange limbo not knowing what day it was and not being able to concentrate on things, I guess it is because I no longer have a schedule to keep to and now I have to make another schedule to stick to (obviously I need one)
Things keep popping into my mind like OMG I can go to the weekly local market now.
Bottom line is I can really start to enjoy our life in France unencumbered so if you had enjoyed our blog before, hold onto your seats, I will try to tell you in an honest, exiting and down to earth way how it goes from here.

A Bientot.

Roz & John  

Our life in France - Back at last

Where have I been I hear you all say, well as you know a couple of months ago I handed over my lovely little business to very safe hands and finally hung up the telephone and retired, I can tell you it is pretty scary and at first I really didn't know what to do first as there was so much I had threatened to do once I was free to do it but actually doing it is another thing, I think now things have settled down a little and the weather is a bit better, that said we are expecting a bad storm and Haut Pyrenees is under red alert, hopefully it won't batter my little veg garden as it has taken such a long time to get it going.

The other thing of course is we went to England, first time in 4 years and we were hoping to have a wonderful time alas it wasn't completely to be as - you guessed it - The car broke down AGAIN, yes we had to have a new radiator but not only that they didn't do our one anymore so it had to be made specially, outcome car in garage for 4 days, our sat nav didn't like the change of country either and went completely berserk, nevertheless we did get to see all of our lovely family and that was great, I think we will have to do it all again when we pluck up courage so we can do it properly, nothing stopping us now.

Well the garden as I said is coming on ok but it has been very slow to get going, the vertical garden is looking good and we have had lots of strawberries this year instead of 3 at a time, pictures soon I promise, better go and get the candles out in case we get this storm that is promised so see you all next time x

Our French Life - Very un French

Our French Life - Very un French

Today I am blogging about something that would be totally alien to the French, I received an email from some good friends in England which contained pictures of their gardening ventures last weekend, you see they are very rural in England too and being very busy people they keep most of the garden in grass, well one corner of the garden has become a very large rabbit warren and the rabbits are allowed to live in harmony and roam free, you can see why I said very un French, here they would be shot for the pot.

But no our good friends The Turners have made it into their own little Rabbit Sanctuary, Watership Down if you like.

Well it is one thing to let them live there but these guys have gone a step further in making them their own little Stonehenge entrances, here's what I mean.

This is the very large tump










Now say what you like about this but giving rabbit's their own cave door I think is wonderful, it is nice to think that these little bunny's will live in peace without fear of the gun unless of course they stray out of the sanctuary.I believe they are going to plant shrubs on top to make it look better, I suggested that they open the garden to the   
   public as a conservation attraction,who knows it could be the start of something big.
   

Tell me what you think of this idea please, I welcome your comments.

Our French Life - When!!

Our French Life - When!!

I was asked today when did my love of France first start, I had to think for a moment but then realised it was easy, 20 years or so ago there was a special offer in one of the National papers - Sail to France for £1 so we looked into it and I think in reality for a car and 4 passengers it was about £19 all told, so we suggested it to a couple of friends who were up for it and booked a long weekend.

I remember telling my Mother who was totally against all things French (no idea why) other than my family name was French, maybe there was some long ago dark secret that I have yet to find out about,who know's but this dislike of all things French had sort of rubbed off on me so my expectations were quite low.

We set sail on an overnight Ferry and found we had a cabin in the bowels of this massive boat which I did not like at all as it was just after the Zebrugge disaster so would have been 1988 ish and I never slept a wink all night, looking constantly to see if the water was coming under the door (I am still a bit like that now). it was a very long night.

We docked at Cherbourg and waited what seemed like ages to get off the boat, then when we did something magical happened, I was walking around in silence, something John was not used to, he asked was I alright several times and eventually I said "something happened to me when I stepped onto French soil - it feels like I have come home" this is where I feel I belong, John thought I had completely lost it but that feeling has never gone away and I knew from that day that France was supposed to be my home and that I had to make it so no matter what,they say your real roots tug at you like a magnet, maybe this is where my roots originated, needless to say my Mother was not amused but slowly I whittled away at the project that was -> how to get to France <- it wasn't until after she passed away that I really set to work on finding our home and by 2001 we had found it and bought it, spending every holiday possible here making it more and more comfortable, moving here full time in 2009, It is the best move we have ever made, it wasn't always plain sailing (Pardon the pun) and if you are thinking of doing the same there will be a lot of planning to get it right but if it is meant to be it will happen, never ever give up on your dream.

For all my Francophile readers out there:Please tell me when and why you fell in love with France and if you haven't already done so why not join this blog, it is just one step closer. :)

Our French Life - Printemps, où es-tu

Our French Life - Printemps, où es-tu

Today is the 8th April and it is officially Spring but it feels more like an autumn day, it was raining first thing here in St Aignan Sur Roe but now the sun shines in between the dark clouds that threaten to wet my washing, through the window all looks well as the sun shines but step outside and you instantly feel the chilly wind.

These pictures are showing our village in both directions from our front door, you can see that the sun is shining but the storm clouds are gathering as if someone somewhere has turned on the angry button.
The local farmers are struggling since all the rain last month, the fields are still very boggy and it is impossible to get a tractor onto them, one farmer has a JCB digging trenches and he seems to be laying pipes for drainage, a lot of them lost their corn crops last year due to it being to soggy. I really feel for them.

I bought a clematis a couple of weeks ago but it has been too cold to put it out so far, trouble is it is growing so quickly indoors I might have to chance it outside as we will be away from Friday for two weeks.

It was just up to the label when I bought it now it is at least a foot higher.
The birds are making a lot of noise outside - they live in next doors big hedge, the sparrow hawk thinks it is his own personal restaurant and sits on our washing line waiting for one to come out and I am sorry to say he has managed to get a couple of them, I haven't been quick enough to get a photo yet.
They are stealing all my ornamental grasses to build their nests so the cold weather won't stop reproduction.

Well we live in hope that there will be a Summer this year. c'est la vie

Let me know what the weather is like where you are please

Our French Life - Where have all the bees gone

Our French Life - The decline of the humble Bumble

I dream of the hazy lazy days of summer when the warmth of the sun on your face is combined with the buzzing of the bees going about their business in the garden, I plant flowers that I know the bees will like so as to attract them, I have no fear of them stinging me, they are not like their very distant cousins the dreaded wasp who is purely on this earth to annoy me and who dance around your face some say to communicate with you, they are the robbers and thieves who will blatantly rob a bees hive killing all the bees in the process.
There is a certain lack of bees at the moment, I would like to think it is because of the cold which I think has a definite bearing on it, I am pretty sure bees go to sleep for the winter and if it is cold they will think it is still winter as we all do sadly at the moment snow still rearing it's ugly head here in Northern France.

I can almost hear this one buzzing

Unfortunately the other reason for the lack of them and it is a chemical one, yes  a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. it is a pesticide that is used by farmers when planting crops especially corn.

The world needs to put pressure on the people who produce these pesticides otherwise the bees will vanish all together then we will be in great danger as we won't be able to get anything pollinated and we all know what happens then.

A very different picture

When seeds are treated with neonics, the pesticides get absorbed by the plant's vascular system and then "expressed" in the pollen and nectar, where they attack the nervous systems of insects.

Please if the powers that be are reading this do something now before it is too late.

Einstein was right when he said that if all the bees died in the world that exactly 4 years later all human will die too?

Everyone must act now and do their bit, we are all part of the same environment.