A Rural Experience

Date set

2007-04-15T12:13:38+01:00

Well it's been a while, again, but I think winter is finally over and there is lot's going on again. It wasn't a great winter, Andy was away for 3 months and I ended up with no electric or telephone for at least a week, after some very heavy snowfall.

Having no electricity meant I couldn't light the fire because of the central heating pump so that meant no heating either. But the snow made it look pretty even if it was freezing! However, France Telecom still feel unable to fix my telephone line properly and prefer to leave it lying under all the trees and tied together with a few knots.

Andy and I have finally set a wedding date, not bad after nearly 10 years together, we would have liked to have had the place up and running before hand but as that seems to be taking longer and longer then we decided to just get it done. So mad preparations are underway as the date is Thursday 23rd August. It won't be your usual kind of ceremony, in fact, I don't think anybody will have seen anything like it before so I hope all my closest friends can make it.

I'm off now to make some alterations to the stable, we have a new arrival coming today, I won't tell you what it is yet as it's a surprise for Andy who is back in the UK again.

Photo's will follow.

The best discovery yet (no not the tank!)

2006-11-11T14:38:52+00:00

Money has been really tight (again) recently but we've now found a fantastic business opportunity that we think is going to see us through. My sister recommended that we join Agel as they were not only a great company but they had a brand new product, which they had, recently begun marketing. As usual, I took my sisters advice and much to my delight, she was right.

Joining Agel has enabled us to set up an international business from home. We can have a team of people from all over the world and we don't need loads of time to do it, as it is mostly done over the internet. So we have our international contacts and the best thing is…. It hasn't even launched in France yet. This means that we already have a head start and the opportunity is about to launch in France any day.

We are so glad we have taken part in this and secured our positions that I would like to invite all of you to take a look. You can't turn something down if you haven't even checked it out; it might really be what you've been looking for. Have a look now at

www.getagelinfo.com and then look at our site www.agelinfrance.com

Please take a look and don't miss this opportunity to get in there first!

Sewerage Search Part 2

2006-10-16T14:13:41+01:00

The hunt continues for the septic tank. The secondary plan was postponed for a few weeks as the suggester of the plan thought the ground would be too wet. But then the day came…….

Our friend Jack said that he had an infrared camera and if we could get the tank hot enough he would be able to see where it was situated. The plan was to get up at 5am and run the hot water until it ran out. Jack would then get here at 7am, when the surrounding ground would still be cool enough, making the warmed up tank area stick out like a sore bum, sorry I mean thumb. So it almost went according to plan. The water was run and the camera was used but alas, no hotspot to be found.

Come on Andy, get your spade.

Sewerage Search

2006-09-26T21:18:01+01:00

It is the hunting season at the moment, but we prefer to leave the wildlife to enjoy this land as we do. The hunts we go on are for much more personal things.

When we first moved here, we had no idea where the septic tank was situated. All we knew was that it had been fitted sometime in the late eighties/early nineties and that it was probably enough to accommodate 4 people. As the main house will be accommodating 8-10 people then we will probably need a bigger tank but in order to confirm this, we must find the existing one.

The hunt was on…

We spoke to our nearest neighbour Gilbert, who seems to have quite a wealth of information about our property. Probably far more than we could ever hope to have. We asked him if he knew where the fosse septique was. He said that he might have a plan of the property with the tank on it. What? The neighbour has a plan of our property and we don’t? Anyway, he couldn’t find it and he called the last owner but one and asked where the tank had been installed. He told Gilbert that it was about 5 or 6 metres in front of the house towards the river. That narrowed it down a bit, so the digging commenced. Bearing in mind the ground is harder than the runway at Stansted Airport, a few hours passed by. Holes that were hacked out by Andy, a pickaxe and a spade, accumulated around the building. Very deep holes, in various areas but generally between 5 or 6 metres away from the building.

"There’s no tank," he said angrily, "I’m not digging anymore." And the tools were tossed aside. I couldn’t even tempt him to recommence by continuing to point out likely areas. Areas that I thought felt softer than others, had a different soil texture than others, areas the moles preferred or didn’t prefer, or areas that seemed to be slightly higher or lower than others.

So the front garden that we are trying to make as welcoming as possible, we all know first impressions count, is currently a bit like a large green Swiss cheese. The dog keeps falling down the holes backwards, no matter how many times he does it and we still can’t find the septic tank.

The next plan begins at the weekend……………..As long as it doesn’t rain!

Moving along

2006-09-17T13:24:43+01:00

Things are really moving along now, at last. In the next two weeks we will be taking delivery of the enormous beam to allow the living room wall to be knocked through making an extra large area. So if there are any strong men out there, looking for some beam lifting experience, then please let us know.

The woodburner is coming and the new staircase will be fitted in the back room, where incidentally, I have been doing some of the best pointing anybody has ever seen

We are hoping to open a few rooms for B&B soon, so I have been working on the garden immediately outside the entrance to house no.1. We have an extraordinary amount of terracotta tiles lying around so these have been used to create raised beds under the windows. They look pretty good if I may say so myself. I’ve planted some of the box cuttings I took last year in them so I’m hoping they will take off.

My friend Deane is coming over soon for a few days. He begged me not to clear out the pond in front of the bread oven house, as he wanted to do it. Good luck to him!

Turtle Rescue 2

2006-07-18T10:15:36+01:00

Tara the terrapin is staying, it’s official. After days of trying to communicate with various different people on the subject of what to do with her, it seems that they either don’t care or can’t be bothered to help her.

Some rescue centres did come back to us, but only to say that they didn’t accept this species. One even said that they get at least 3 calls a day for this type of turtle because so many of them are abandoned. Poor Tara, she is so sweet, I mean she doesn’t give you hugs and kisses but you can see she is much happier now and she has the most beautiful green eyes.

We managed to get a very large aquarium and a basking light from ebay (of course) and bought a filter and thermostatic heater from the pet shop in Limoges. We have made her a ramp out of granite rocks with a large one on the top to bask on. I think her favourite piece of furniture is some driftwood I found by the river one day. She likes to hang onto it with her back foot and snatch at the little flakes of food being pushed around by the filter.

She is fed every 3 days in a separate box and at this time I change her water and clean her filter. She is probably the most demanding animal in her cleaning needs at La Farge petting zoo, but I think she’s worth it. After all she is lucky to be here at all.

My friend told me a few days ago that there is a crocodile in one of the lakes near here that somebody must have let go. Please don’t tell Andy, I can’t see him getting that in the car!!!

Turtle Rescue

2006-06-15T15:01:52+01:00

Andy doesn’t go out and come back with a stray kitten like normal people. Oh no, he has to come back with a turtle!!

On his way back from the shops a couple of days ago, Andy came across what he thought was a tortoise by the side of the road. He thought this was unusual, picked it up and brought it home. I was using my traction unit for my back at the time and he brought it upstairs saying he’d found it by the side of the road and didn’t know what to do. I sat up from my unit so quickly that my neck nearly snapped and came face to face with a reptile. After recognising Andy, I spotted the creature he was holding and it spotted me. We looked on the Internet at tortoise websites and found that France does have native tortoises but not in this area and not looking like this one. On closer inspection of the animal, it dawned on me that it looked very much like a terrapin I had as a child only much bigger. Sure enough, after some more researching, it seems that it is a red-eared terrapin. This type is readily available at pet shops, where lots of people buy them not realising how big they are going to get. The inevitable then happens and the once adored exotic pet turns into a large inconvenience. So this poor turtle had been kicked out and left by the side of the road in 37-degree heat. How can people do that?

So now we are in a tricky position. We have been trying to contact animal and reptile re-homing organisations but so far have had no luck. There has either been no response or the places don’t take ‘that kind’ of turtle. He/she is living in the bath in the spare room, which is nowhere near the ideal situation, especially with my parents arriving on Monday, but it is the best we can do at the moment. He is very shy and the only thing he will eat is strawberries.

I have been suggesting to Andy that we should get a big tank and keep him and if we can’t find anywhere else to have him then we may have to. Since we moved to France we have saved an owl and given an unruly abandoned goat a nice home. Is the turtle going to be the latest resident in La Farge Animal Rescue?

River, Andy and Floor Sealing

2006-06-05T13:44:27+01:00

Here’s a photo of the river at the moment. It looks very pretty with all the irises out. Shame they don’t last very long. The whole place is looking incredibly green and bushy now.

Even parts of the vegetable garden. The front garden is also looking good, in a wild meadow sort of way. I don’t know why Monty doesn’t get through more, every time I look at him he’s got his mouth full.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been sealing the kitchen floor. When I started doing it, I was under the impression that it would take about 3 days. Then, splitting the kitchen into 2 separate sections turned into 3, 1 coat of sealant turned into 2 and a 3 day cold turned into week long cold with some bed rest thrown in.

Andy returns this evening after 3 days away in Pau. This time, as well as coverage, he was also doing commentary (in English of course) for the Formula 3 races. Lets hope someone from ITV was there listening and insists that he takes the place of that awful James Allen for all the future Formula 1 races.

Lightning Strikes Twice

2006-05-15T19:05:21+01:00

The thunderstorms are continuing and although we think they are great, they do create some expensive problems. We were woken up at about 7.00am on Saturday morning, with a big one. Thunder storm that is. It was grumbling and raining like it does and then BANG! What was that? And what was that terrible smell of burning?

It was the bloody Skybox that’s what it was. Well that was great, considering the fact that living in a valley, we can only get television here via satellite. So now Andy was in a panic because it was a Grand Prix weekend, not me of course, and as we had continually said that we must get another dish so we could receive French TV, then of to the shop we popped. We returned with a whole new package which is now receiving the free channels from Sky and which we will tune into the French TV stations as soon as we have our digibox replaced. Ebay here we come!

To make things worse, the telephone also refused to work. This meant we had no contact with the outside world at all, as the mobile doesn’t work down here either. I don’t mind having no contact for a short while, in some ways it makes you feel closer to nature and that’s nice. We managed to get hold of France Telecom and they told us it would be fixed within 48 hours. So, just over 72 hours and here we are, back in the world of technology. The lead from the wall socket to the computer modem was all black and burnt and will have to be replaced but luckily the modem still works. The stupid thing is that last year we lost the modem because of a thunderstorm and when we heard one coming this time, we still didn’t run downstairs and unplug everything. We will next time.

Strange goings on in the vegetable garden.

2006-05-12T16:54:26+01:00

I've noticed a few thing happening in the vegetable garden which are a bit bizzare. I planted out lots of seeds yesterday. These included Broad and French beans, sweetcorn, spinach, rocket etc.

I then decided that there was going to be far more vegetables there for me to continue watering with the watering can, so it was time to get the hose-pipes and water pump set up. The pump sits by the river and a pipe with a filter on the end sits in the river. This draws up the water. I then connect the hose-pipes to the other side. Now I know this may sound cruel but I left one of the hose-pipes outside, next to the vegetable garden, all winter. It’s not a particularly good one anyway and I don’t care for it as much as the others. Oh come on, we all have our favourites! Don’t we? Anyway, when I went to get it I noticed that it was not in the same position as I had left it. In fact, it had been dragged half way across the adjoining field. On closer inspection, I saw that it had been chewed in half and there were small teeth marks down either side. All I can imagine is that it must have been a fox thinking it was a rather long and tasty snake. What a sight that must have been!

Another strange thing that happened in the vegetable garden were some hoof prints. Sometimes we get deer prints and sometimes the wild boar come a bit close but on this particular day, they was no escaping the fact that these prints had been made by a horse. Where it came from I’ve no idea, nor do I know where it went. There were no tracks leading to the garden and none leading from it. The horses that live here had not left their field at all. Of course it had also only gone on the beds that I had just planted in. Must have been a unicorn.