Still, the exercise blew the cobwebs away and the rain washed any remaining strands off. Rors would have been happy to read all day, which is commendable but little boys need exercise.

It’s also Eurovision tonight. Now that’s good and bad. Good, because I love it, and bad because I’ve got into the habit of doing the income tax return on Eurovision day. So, that day has come. Actually, it’s not too much of a hardship. The forms are prérempli – pre filled in – with a few details, such as how many children you have to save you the bother of counting them for yourself every year, and also with the various amounts of interest on bank accounts and whatnot that are tax free. Other than that we don’t have a lot to fill in ourselves. Being an autoentrepreneur, I have to send in a statement of our earnings and the requisite cotisations (social charges) once every three months, so all that side of things is always up to date. It’s working out where to put everything that’s tricky. There’s a fiendish coding system using a number followed by two letters – clearly chosen completely at random so that they have no connection at all with the item they denote – which you have to match in various places. I was stumped today. I was meant to put a total from one form onto another at the point marked 8TA but I can’t find the bugger anywhere and I’ve been through umpty times. They’ll have to put it in themselves, assuming it actually exists, and if anyone’s going to get thrown into jail for not being able to find 8TA it’ll be Chris since he’s head of the household. I’ll visit him and take him cookies, never fear!

Now, lots of people love to hate Eurovision, but as I hinted earlier, I love to love it. People say the music’s crap but it’s not. It might at times be weirdly foreign to non-natives of that particular country or simply not to your taste, but that doesn’t make it rubbish. The performers are oozing with talent, most of them are also stunningly good looking and there are some pretty nifty stage routines too. Surely you remember the French Olympic athletes from last year? It’s a real pro-Europe thing and it’s educational. I mean, when else would you hear Azerbaijani or Icelandic, for example? (Unless of course you live in those countries.)

It’s a fun, energetic, positive, optimistic, brilliant event so just enjoy it! I will.

I’ve ordered nine again – three whites, three blacks and three greys, like last year, as that seemed to be a good combination and has kept us going until this week when the last frozen turkey portion became a pie.

The whites are twice the size of the others.

Here are the whites and greys (bronzes)

I bought two brown chickens too, either for the table if they start crowing, or for laying if they don’t.

The black turkeys are the youngest and smallest

They seem happy enough in their super, duper poultry house. In fact, they look rather lost in it! They were in a state of bewilderment to start with but soon started pottering around and have found the food and water.

Settling in

So once again the stables are full of the strange popping noise that turkeys make and their little whistles. The gobbling won’t start from any males we have for several more months, not till they’re mature.

The chickens are very perky

I still hope to one day get some fancy Ardennes red turkeys since I think they’re splendid birds but these guys will do me nicely for now.

And here’s the smart one of the group – he or she was first to the food bowl!

Here’s her predecessor, Irish Anna.

The French edition of Anna’s Secret Granny – La Mamie de Rêve – is in my hands at last. It was published on Friday May 10 so I only needed to wait a day but if felt like a long time!

I’ve been a published author since 1996 and this is my first full-colour children’s book to be published, as well as my first French one, so it’s quite a celebration.

I am thrilled to bits with the book. I was worried it was a bit too pink when I saw the announcement for it on the Fnac site, and it is pink, but it’s beautiful. Artist Peggy Caramel has provided the loveliest illustrations for the book. I was chuffed to see Anna was a redhead like me! And Granny is fabulous, a real, elegant Mamie (French grandmother).

I hadn’t realised that Anna’s Secret Granny came out way back in 2000. It was pre-Ruadhri, which is confirmed in the dedication (faithfully translated in the French edition) to Benj and Cait and saying how much they wished they had grandparents. My kids were born in 1991 and 1994 and never knew either of their grandparents on Chris’s side who both died far too young, and only knew my mum until June 1995. Dad died in 2000 so they have a few memories of him – mainly of the Pringles he always bought for them when we went to stay and the way his hankies smelt of tobacco!

The story is about Anna who, like my kids, doesn’t have any grandmothers. Her friends are always going on about how their grans take them to the cinema, or the swimming pool, or buy them treats, but of course Anna misses out on all that. So she draws a picture of the Granny she’d like – and next morning that Granny turns up on the doorstep.

I used to say when I did workshops with kids at schools and libraries, and wannabe authors, that this book is based on an incredibly simple idea: a picture comes to life. Yet, although I say so myself, it works beautifully. It’s a fun story but with a real message at its heart. Grandparents are so important. When we were little Nan and Grandad were always there for me and my brother and sister and played a huge role of our lives. I so wish my children had had – and still had – a full complement of grandparents.

Anyway, here are some spreads from the two books for comparison’s sake. Do bear in mind Anna was produced by a relatively small Irish press and was intentionally a low budget book, although its euro price was €5,07 and Mamie, thirteen years later, is a very reasonable, and numerically coincidental, €5,70. Mamie has a lusher feel to her, is a lovely compact size and the colours are to die for. 

Annie drawing Gran

Anna gets the goodies Gran bought her

Les achats de mamie

The story has been changed very little. I was delighted to see that the names of mine and Chris’s mothers for Anna’s two dead grandmothers were kept – Eileen and Kate (although she was Kathleen in the original). The only change is the fictional Australian Aunt Matilda becomes grande-tante Eulalie. The cod’s liver oil becomes a carton of fish soup. What am I talking about? You’ll have to read the book for yourself!

And a huge thank you to Rageot Editeur, the publishers; Peggy Caramel the illustrator, and Ariane Bataille the translator. And of course to O’Brien Press who published me in the first place.

We were sure our menagerie would increase by at least one lamb but no, Spotty Sheep is still hanging on for dear life. And Rosie continues to incubate her babies and snooze. Caiti will be heading back to Bordeaux in a few days and she’ll be heartbroken if she misses the new arrivals.

I’d planned a visit to the donkey fair at Magny near La Chatre but on rechecking the details this morning I saw that it was a donkey and horse market, rather than a fair with stalls and the odd one or two donkeys for decoration. There was a real risk that if we went to a donkey market we’d come home from it with one that we felt sorry for on the back seat. So we busied ourselves with bike rides, gardening and various jobs instead.

Caiti and Rors got busy in the kitchen. First they brewed some nettle tea. We went from this …

to this …

Nettle tea and honey was interesting, shall we say. This was quickly followed by mint tea and dandelion tea but fortunately Rors lost interest in plant-based brews! Caiti rustled up cookies and lemon cake this afternoon which won’t last long.

Staying on a food theme, I’ve planted out some cucumbers in the ex-pig patch and lettuces and cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. Chris’s okra and butternut squash will be next into the potager. Now all we need is a bit more sunshine …

We’ve got two public holidays in a row, which is a first in the seven years we’ve been here. We have VE day on Wednesday 8 May and Ascension on 9 May. I’m guessing it doesn’t happen too often. Needless to say all schools and many businesses will be ‘making the bridge’ (faire le pont i.e. extending the weekend) and staying closed on Friday too. And Friday is already going to be a good day because my first book in French, La Mamie de Reve, is published! Plus we have to fit in a belated birthday party for Caitlin somewhere too – our traditional pizza-pringles-cake-and-ice-cream fest. And who knows, maybe our long awaited lamb/s and piglets will decide to arrive this week too!

There are plenty of fetes going on this week. If there’s a special occasion like two jours feriés in the same week, then you can be sure the French will celebrate it. They do love to let their hair down at any excuse.

Nature’s celebrating at the moment too. Finally it really seems to be spring. The trees are bursting into leaf and there are flowers everywhere. The bluebells are in full force and so are these lovely orchids. They’re orchis mascula, the early purple orchid. I think they’re beautiful.

The cicadas have started their chirping, our nightjar is back and in fine voice and there are skylarks hovering over the fields.

Yeah, spring rocks!

So the health authorities are urging property owners to try and prevent the build up of stagnant water on their land which will provide ideal breeding grounds.

And what has our commune done but had another enthusiastic ditch digging campaign that has left us with vast tracts of stagnant water where our drive meets the road – not our land so we can’t do much about it except point out the mosquito-attractiveness of these completely pointless ditches to our maire.

There has never been a problem with water on the roads around us so we can’t understand why so much trouble has gone into digging the fosses. All being well, they’ll dry up soon but in the meantime they’re a bit of an eyesore. And an open invitation to passing tigers… 

To catch up – no new animals – still. I can’t believe Spotty Sheep has hung on this long. And Rosie pig is about to burst.

Club Anglais, which I’m running, got underway today at College (not sure how to do accents yet on this new keyboard) and the kids seem to have enjoyed it. The hour certainly flew by. I was told there’d be fewer than ten kids, but I’ve ended up with sixteen! It’s rather a big group and I’ll have to plan things slightly differently for the future. But we got by today. I bought this Union Jack t-shirt especially from eBay. I have to say, I felt a little odd wearing it. I don’t really think of myself as English any more, since I left the country 21 years ago. But it’s a cool top! Oh, and I wasn’t wearing wellies at the school either. We’re a little soggy at the farm at the moment.

And back to the blog title. We all know the saying about never looking a gift horse in the mouth. Here’s another animal related one. Never eat your gift camel, because, unfortunately, a young dromedary presented to President Hollande from the Malian government was eaten by the family who were given it to look after while arrangements were made to get the camel into a zoo in France. The Mali government are very embarrassed by the incident and will apparently replace it with a bigger, better looking one. I think they meant the camel, not our president… !

I would have inserted a dromedary photo but I couldn’t work out how to copy one with good old Windows 8. It’s remarkably stressful!

Here’s a pic I found on the Net of a bike the same as Caiti’s. Not hers though – we never let ours in the house!

Poor Caiti has become a statistic. To be precise her bike has. She went to the locked bike shed on campus (accessible with the same key that the students use to get into their apartment blocks) only to find that the chunky bike lock attaching her bike to the rack had been sawn through and her bike gone.

She was upset, obviously, and it’s incredibly annoying but sadly bike theft is endemic. One bike a second is stolen in France. That’s appalling. It was more of a shock to Caiti who’s grown in relatively crime free rural Ireland and then rural France. Chris and I were townies at times in the past and have both lost bikes and other possessions to thieves.

Caiti went off to report the theft to the gendarmes – it took her all afternoon with a long bus trip in the heat and the dust of Bordeaux – and on Friday I’ll call by the insurance office in Boussac and see if by any miracle they might even cover the loss.

Caiti has also registered the bike theft on voldevelo.com which I’d recommend anyone to do who has their bike nicked in France. This is a site that gathers data on thefts, gives advice on how to keep your bike safe and puts up photos of lost bikes and asks users to keep an eye open for abandoned bikes that may be dumped stolen ones.

Next up I’m checking the sheep at regular intervals. Little April is 10 days old now and she’s still on her own in the kindergarten. I’m worried Spotty Sheep will explode soon if she doesn’t have her lamb/s.

And finally pigs. We’ve got Rosie’s delivery suite and nursery all ready.

Here’s the creep for the piglets so they can get away from mum to snooze under a heat lamp. One of the male guinea pigs who lives wild was investigating it when I took this photo!

But can we get Rosie to relocate? Nope, nuh-uh, no way. The trouble with getting pigs used to electric fences is that they become extremely distrustful of crossing its boundaries. They’re convinced it’s an invisible force field so even when the gate is opened they won’t come past.

We’ve tempted them with buckets of food and dandelions, but none of them will leave the field. Rosie seems the most timid, hanging around at the back.

But we’ll persevere. Hunger/greed will overcome their fears in the end and we’ll get her to her stable. Sooner rather than later I hope as she’s a very tubby pig now and the babies won’t be long in arriving.

There’ll be plenty of photos when they do!

Anyway, we seem to have more mutant dandelions than ever this year. Here a dozen different ones I found during a quick five minute stroll through one of our fields. I’ve since noticed literally hundreds more.

Definitely freaky don’t you think?

And if you find fasciated dandelions as fascinating as I do then check out these other blogs about them.

http://davehubbleecology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/keep-feeling-fasciation.html

http://www.squidoo.com/my-mutant-dandelions