Last day of August

Hello Dear Readers,

Yes it is the last day of August (Aout) it sort of makes me sad because when I think of September it feels like the summer is over and soon the Autumn will be setting in, I don't mind the Autumn but as you that know me well know I hate the winter, I am like a bear who hibernates, that said, the sun is still shining and we have temperatures of way over 30 degrees most days, in fact we have a canacule (heatwave) and a drought, so it can't be over yet I guess, sadly there are severe water restrictions so we can't water the gardens therefore the flowers are looking sad but we do give every bit of waste water (washing up water etc) for the flowers.

I brought these inside to give them an extra drink, and they have repaid me by looking so beautiful and fresh.

I am feeling so tired from the heat and not sleeping well due to it being too hot so I am taking it easy, John however has decided to sort out the very top roof space, this is a part of the house we haven't renovated and it is literally a roof space but it gets used for all those things we want to store, we haven't used these things for 3 years at least so we really don't want them, Emaus is getting them so someone else can benefit from them,

John making a mess ☺

What are you doing today?

No food waste here

Hello Dear Readers,

I am back with my frugality, I hate waste of any kind especially food (there are so many people going hungry all around the world) it used to be just the poor countries but now it is happening in prosperous countries like the UK, it has become endemic sadly, and yet we are all to blame for it's existence, we have become a throw away society and I have been guilty of it in the past, now we are pensioners we have to watch every penny or should I say centimes (due to brexit we lost over 100 euro's this month Grrr) we can't do anything to change that though but what we can do is make sure we don't waste any food, let's face it food is already very expensive and getting worse so after spending our money on it why would we just throw it into the bin?
Dear John always jokes he dare not leave anything on his plate or it will manifest itself into tomorrow's  dinner, so today I went through the fridge ready for tomorrow's shopping, there were a few mushrooms and a couple of wrinkled peppers plus 3 lemons and here is what I did...

slice mushrooms and open freeze then pop into a freezer bag

chop peppers and do the same

Zest the lemons and open freeze

juice the lemons and freeze in ice cube tray

The mushrooms and peppers are great for stir frys etc: and the lemon juice and zest will enhance so many dinners, I also like to pop a lemon juice ice cube into a glass of water, so refreshing.


Let me know what you do, I love to get your comments x

Until next time x

Hot Hot Hot

Hello Dear Readers,

Here in France the temperature has hit 40 in the garden and no humidity, hope the weather is good wherever you are, it's nice to have the summer but in this heat you can't even sit in the shade outside, thank goodness for the Jacuzzi at least we can get in and cool down plus the bubbles are therapeutic so they tell me, our house is very cool with 3ft thick walls but when you walk outside it hits you like a ton of bricks.

It is also too hot to cook much but there are only so many bbq's and salads you can eat and today we really fancied, no craved a cooked meal, you know proper stodge and gravy, after a short discussion we decided on Shepherds pie, carrots and peas, might even have gravy too..

It was delicious and well worth getting hot in the kitchen for.


Today can I ask you all to light a candle for all those who lost their lives in Italy x

God bless you all and stay safe x

New talent

Hello dear readers.

We went on a jolly the other day to purchase a halogen oven from a very nice lady in brece, about an hours drive, we were made very welcome and had our first cup of tea & coffee with goats milk, and after a nice chat we came away with some lovely goats cheese with apricots and 2 litres of very fresh goats milk, well once I realised how easy it was to make goats cheese (which I love) I thought I would give it a go, we now have these two pots, one with apricots and one with garlic and herbs.

And here they are, don't they just look delicious, think I might get them out later when friends are going to be popping round with some nice crackers and a cuppa, I will let you know what it was like.

Our French life is good

Hello dear readers,

The temperature reached just over epic yesterday so we found beautiful coolness in the tub (sorry no pics of that) 😊 then had a Barbie, luckily our bbq is in shade, we made kebabs and I have to say they were delicious, we sat outside with a bottle of obligatory wine until 10h30 and only came in then because the little flying biters were out.
The hot weather is set to continue so we are indoors at the moment keeping cool and taking the time to have a little read, I am only skimming through (I don't read whole books) The country diary of an Edwardian lady and this is the first page of August (aout) . Thought I would show you.

So let's pray for really good weather on 24th August I think.

Also, at last, the rabbit hutch has gone, to a very good home with children which I am so glad about, our French neighbour told us that it had been stood there for 40 years or more, let's hope it is happy now as it will have rabbit's.

Now we must decide what to put there, should we gravel and put plant pots on it or extend the border? What would you do?




My quote for the day:

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.  ~Author Unknown

until next tibab xXx

August is here

Happy Monday morning to you all,

It is the 1st of August, or as the French call it Aout, pronounced oot, I cannot believe it is already this late in the summer, it seems like only yesterday we were looking forward to the summer, I guess it wasn't a good start to the year.
It's  all or nothing here, either too cold or too hot or too wet, we had a wonderful visit from our dear friend Joy, but as the saying goes, "time flies when you are enjoying yourself" and indeed it did fly, no sooner she was here and she was gone again but we had a fantastic time and can't wait for her next visit.
We are missing our friend Fernando who is in America and not sure when he will visit but we live in hope.

Always time for ice cream

The snakes are about too

But I am digressing, August is the month when everything stops here in France, it is of course school holidays and everyone goes on holiday, the crazy thing is whole business's will close for the month and if you need anything sorted at maybe the prefecture you have no chance, i needed to make a medical appointment but found a message to say they would not be back until 17th August, crazy.
Our friends Neil & Carol are over for their holidays in their home in the village and we are spending lots of good time on the decking with them.

Please excuse the wrong dates on the pics, I am re-using them.

Are you on holiday this month?, let me know in the comments below.

Disappointed

Hello dear reader's

I am writing today about something of which I am very disappointed (in myself)
There is one thing I said when we first came to France and continue to say I would definitely do and still haven't  managed - have you guessed what it is yet ?
Yes, LEARN FRENCH.
Before we came we both had lessons and I certainly thought as you do that I was doing ok but once we got here permanently it became very apparent that I was not doing well at all, I have loads of French words in my head but they are all jumbled up and I need to unjumble them, of course I can make myself understood but I struggle to understand when they reply, sadly there are no French speakers here who speak text book french, they all have their own dialect.
The other mistake we have made is we have kept ourselves to ourselves and haven't joined any clubs etc; we have been happy in our own little world, most of our friends speak English (another mistake)
I am happy to tell you that we intend to change that this year, we are taking up french lessons in September and in the meantime we are going to revise at home and get out and about where we have to speak la francaise.

You see I am happy with this man's company and a stay at home gal.

What is your worst disappointment in life? Let me know

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?