With a trailer full of ‘stuff’ and four cats in a large cage in the back of our Honda CRV we travelled to Marzelle in May. I was going for good. It was not a comfortable journey. The cats howled and howled and howled and then howled some more. We went under the water by Eurostar and stayed the night in a pet friendly bed and breakfast near Hesdin, an hour and a half from the tunnel.  The bed and breakfast were people friendly too and we had a lovely evening meal.

We were invited to put the car in a large barn and with the barn doors firmly closed the cats were allowed to stretch their legs etc. So far so good.

The next morning we made an early start and the howling began again. Molly, the tortie began biting the bars of the cage and I was worried that she might damage her teeth.  About half way between Hesdin and Marzelle a frightful odour permeated its way into the front passenger seats. Oh my. We investigated at the next ‘Aire’ but the offending organic matter was too far into the cage for me to reach and we couldn’t run the risk of opening the cage up and allowing the cats to escape.  Doesn’t bear thinking about does it? So with windows open and a spring breeze blowing our heads about we resumed our journey south.

We were all relieved to reach Marzelle. The cats happily roamed the house but were not allowed out.  We had been advised to keep them indoors for three weeks.  Hmmmm.

By day three they were mad to get out so I set up the travelling cage in the garden.

William, Maisie-Mo, Molly and Jack in the garden

Maisie-Mo

Missy Molly

Jack 'the lad'

Finally one morning I open the door to find three cats waiting to come in. The window in the room they had been in overnight had blown open and they had all escaped!

But William was missing.  William did not come back when called.  William was lost.

For three weeks we looked.  We put flyers into letterboxes of all the houses in the area and beyond.  Posters were pasted up wherever a posted would stick. I put his picture on http://www.chat-perdu.org/ and we walked and drove everywhere looking for him.

I felt terrible.  I had brought this poor animal all the way to France and he was lost.

Then three weeks later on a Sunday evening he came back. Looking very much the worse for wear, thin and very unhappy but back.

Master William, home again safe and sound

A happy ending.

It’s easy to understand why I love being in France. I can sit outside my new kitchen and watch the birds of prey swooping down into the valley. A few days back, this Honey Buzzard in the picture, hung around all evening. Earlier that day as my husband and I were driving up the lane, a deer galloped across the road and we only just missed him. This is not a once in a while occurrence, it happens with some regularity. I would be absolutely traumatised if I hit a deer.  Deer stroll around our garden at their leisure and it gives us much pleasure to see them.  The French, of course, have a different view!

This lunchtime Brendan,  my son-in-law, (actually he isn’t  but he’s as good as) espied a snake outside the dining room.  By the time I was on the scene it had vanished. He quickly googled  a description of the creature and we now know it was a western whip snake. http://www.herpfrance.com/reptile/western_whip_snake_hierophis_viridiflavus.php

Harmless and armless too… sorry! this snake is common in these parts. We are now aware that there are two varieties of poisonous snakes in France and the way to recognise them is by looking at their eyes. I hasten to say looking at their eyes not looking into them like Kaa in Jungle Book!  The round eyed creatures are supposed to be harmless and the venomous ones have a vertical slit pupil. Somehow I can’t see myself getting that close to inspect their eyes.  Suddenly the way I walk in the garden has changed.

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I began this blog. My blogging leaves a lot to be desired but my intentions were honourable. Improvements have been made to Marzelle. Most of the house looks very much as it did this time year but big changes have been made. The floors were taken up and damp proofed.  We have insulation is some of the walls and in the roof. A new shower room downstairs puts the old bathroom upstairs to shame so we are all quick to get to the new facilities first. It is all coming together despite many setbacks, too boring to mention. A new kitchen is almost completed,  we are waiting for the under cupboard lighting and I have yet to choose the wall tiles.

Another change is in the garden. We have a vegetable plot with tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, courgettes and beans.

My biggest joy here is the morning. I open all the doors and shutters and from each I have a wonderful view.  The light streams into the house and it is so beautiful.  All I need now are my cats… but what about the snakes? How can I protect my boys and girls?

I’ve fallen in love with a little cottage in Duras.  It is so quirky with floors that slope and a window that looks out into the street. From the bathroom I can peer over the beautiful rooftops. We arrived here last Saturday in the dark and I was immediately enchanted by its age.  ‘I hope it’s not haunted’ my other half grumbled.  ‘How can it be?’ I retorted, ‘you don’t believe in that sort of thing.’ ‘Well, it’s still creepy,’ he said.

As I write this it is Monday morning and I am sitting at a wooden table in the kitchen enjoying my morning coffee thinking this would be enough for me, just to be able to amble out of the front door and through a narrow street and into the weekly market. At this time of year there are no tourists or very few and the market reflects the French life that I have come to love, people who live here going about their daily business.

The cottage is of the same era as the Chateau.  It is said that the cave is part of a huge warren linking houses to the chateau, used as an escape route for catholic priests at a time of protestant dominance in this area.

Yesterday we visited Marzelle, my other love. How fickle you may think, my other half certainly does.  He cannot see for the life of him what I see in the dear little cottage. He also had problems understanding why we had to stay somewhere else. Weren’t we spending enough money on our own house?  I had patiently pointed out that there was no water upstairs and although there was technically water downstairs we were sans bathroom facilities and kitchen. Upstairs, the bedroom furniture had been pushed into our bedroom when the carpenter had remedied the sloping floors.

I understood though.  It was sad to come back to France and not be able to stay in our own home.

It was with some excitement (almost of childish proportions) that we approached our house. The neighbour’s house had been sold but we hadn’t expected them to go so quickly. It would have been nice to be able say goodbye and wish them well.  I wondered if they had found somewhere to live in northern France.

The builder had emailed us photographs but we all know how deceiving photos can be. But we needn’t have worried, oh the joy as I walked into the kitchen and opened the shutters. The light flowed through what previously was three dark rooms, the builder had done us proud.

It is now afternoon and I am sitting on a plastic garden chair in the salon. There is no internet in the lovely cottage so I am using my own. I can hear the rain splashing heavily on the terrace slabs outside the door. My poor husband is braving the elements slaying the branches of trees that overhang our neighbour’s garden. She is quite ferocious our neighbour quoting French law at us.  It doesn’t appear to apply to her though. On the other side of her fence she has branches overhanging into her other neighbours garden.  What’s more she isn’t even living there.

This evening we are going to meet with someone who provides kitchens and tomorrow night we are going to Enid and Kevin’s of @Frenchwilson. Keep posted.

Enid @frenchywilson has requested my recipe as she also has an abundance of walnuts.  I thought I would share it with you all. It is incredibly easy to make adapted from a basic cake mix.

175 g (6oz) hard margarine

175 g (6oz) castor sugar (I mostly use less)

3 medium/large eggs beaten

115 g(4oz) chopped walnuts (not too fine)

175 g (6oz) self-raising flour, sieved

Method

Prepare the oven by placing the shelf in the middle and turning it on at electric 180°C Fan 160°C gas Mark 4

Grease and line the base of a 18cm 7-inch cake tin

Beat together the sugar and margarine until light and fluffy

Gradually add the eggs as you continue to mix

Gently fold in the chopped walnuts with a spoon and do the same with the flour

Add the mix to the cake tin

Bake in the oven until golden and springy to touch (I use a skewer to make sure the mix is cooked) Baking time is around 45 minutes.

Leave in the cake tin for a few minutes before turning your cake out on to a wire rack to cool down ready to eat

2009 wasn’t a bad year all in all. I had a wonderful summer in Marzelle and a fabulous holiday touring Vietnam and Cambodia. I have made new friends on Twitter and that doesn’t  make me a saddo now does it? They truely are lovely people so very helpful. I bottled apricots in July which we ate at Christmas accompanied with home made ice cream and I made spicy chutney with the aubergines that bloomed in the sun into beautiful fruit.  The chutney was eaten quickly so there was none left for Christmas. The walnut tree didn’t disappoint and I’ve made walnut cakes and walnut salads with our produce.

But with the happiness came an underlining sadness.  Tommy, my grandson with aspergers, has been very unhappy at school.  The noise of the playground and the boisterous behaviour of the other children disturbs his sensitivity making him anxious. Also he eats very little something to do with the sensation and texture of food plus an inability to feel hunger.  He is a bright little 5 year old with an incredible memory but no one seems to really understand how he feels or able to help. How can I be totally happy when my daughter and grandson have so many problems? They live alone now as Tommy’s father has decided he isn’t into family life, it gets in his way of his running and important work. At least that’s what it looks like to me but then I am (was) his mother in law so I’m bound to see it differently.  It’s still yet  another burden for my darling girl and she really is the sweetest soul.

Whilst I was away being domesticated in France, Chloe my beautiful senior tortie cat went missing in Yorkshire. I phoned home everyday hoping to hear that she had turned up. Her little body was eventually found at the base of a tree in our garden and I feel so guilty that I hadn’t been there for her. Not that she or the other cats had been left alone, far from it but the cats are mine and with that comes the ultimate responsibility.  I was so miserable that she had gone, only nine, to the hunting place in the great beyond.

After returning from our far east tour in late October, Mimi another tortie cat developed a sore on her mouth that wouldn’t heal and progressively got worse.  After two months of treatment the vet took a biopsy to see if it was cancerous. The histology report came back just before Christmas and it was not cancer.  It was a pox virus that she had caught by being bitten by a field or water vole. There is no treatment most cats deal with it as it takes its course. Mimi however, had become immunosuppressed more than likely caused by the steroids given as initial treatment.  The lesions didn’t heal, Mimi lost so much weight.  She would go to her bowl but her mouth must have been so sore that she just couldn’t eat on some days. Even the most tastiest of morsels would not interest her. Her big sister, Molly would groom her and allow her to cuddle up. Cats are not the selfish creatures that we are often led to believe.  Mimi had never been a human’s cat, she preferred the company of cats but now she allowed me to hold her and at the vets would urgently nuzzle me for reassurance. Two weeks ago Mimi was so miserable and cold and sat  huddled as near to the wood burner as she could get.  Her eyes were full of sadness and she became so weak that her cry was barely audible. A week yesterday I allowed her the dignity to join her big sister in the great beyond.

Mimi 2000-2010

Last year at this time I had six cats, not deliberately but that is another story, and now I have four.  It is but a small personal loss compared to that in Haiti and human life is far more valuable than that of an animal even though we love them dearly.  This year I am thinking to take the cats to France for the summer but wonder for whose benefit? The cats or mine?  Perhaps I should wait until we go for good, probably next year?  Until next time……

Photographs have been delivered over the ether from our builders in France.  My computer screen fills with unfamiliar images. Our house is looking so different.  We have a new floor downstairs with damp proofing and new boards upstairs where the floors sloped so much that in the night I sometimes thought I was onboard ship.  The loft has been sorted, all sorts of animal droppings/bedding removed and some modern new fangled insulation nailed down. Should be the end of the bumps in the night or so I’m told.

I came back to Yorkshire at the very end of September. We had a holiday planned for October, a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and the builders had booked to move in on October 1^st, so I had to leave.

September was delightful in the Lot et Garonne.  A friend, Viv, came out for two weeks and it was good to have a companion to go to the many markets that we have in our area. The tomatoes were wonderful.  Lunch every day was mozzi cheese with tomatoes, basil and olive oil, absolutely wonderful.

The Sunday market at Issigeac

The aubergines ripened and I was at a loss as to what to do with the excess. Thanks to the www I followed a recipe for pickle and made good use of them.  The figs ripened but there wasn’t much I could do with them other than eat them and give them away.

I became fitter (I should say a bit fitter) with a daily walk around Savignac De Duras.  I must add, just to give myself some credibility, the route is very hilly, enough to make me breathless and get my heart a beating faster. The views are so lovely. The circuit takes me an hour and I can go clockwise or anti-clockwise and the chateau will always be there in the distance.  I am so very fortunate.

Château de Duras taken on my walk

www.chateau-de-duras.com

Local vache

The pool turned a deep pondy green and all I can say is thank God for Twitter. My Twitter friends in France were there for me with their helpful advice and after a while it was a sparkly blue again.  Mind you the amount of chlore choc I was advised to tip in was scary.  What if it burned a hole in the liner? I brushed these thoughts away, my Twitter experts have pools of their own and know what they are talking about, don’t they? I was warned not to allow anybody in the pool particularly if they had bleached hair as large quantities of chore choc turns hair green. But if this should happen I wasn’t to worry. All I needed to do was massage in tomato ketchup to  turn hair back to normal.  Thanks go to Enid’s husband Kevin and Alex, I’m in your debt. By the way Enid  has just the one husband, it’s the way it reads!

My husband arrived at the end of September to join me on the long journey back to the UK. He was just in time for the vendange.  Not that we would have time for that as we had to clear the downstairs before leaving. We hauled stuff from the downstairs rooms up into one of the bedrooms. I started off well, wrapping things carefully but ended up, on the day before we left, gathering armfuls like a madwoman and tipping them anywhere and everywhere creating a right mess.  Looks awful but what else could I do?  I’ll declutter next year, I really will.  I will. The furniture was despatched to the barn.  It’s all old inherited stuff with little value so I’m not worried.

Duras became a dangerous place during the vendange or so it seemed because of the warning signs placed along the road.

The grapes were picked, some manually and some by the huge machines that rolled up the hill and into the vineyards.

We spent a day shaking the walnuts from our tree and peeling away their fibrous green jackets. My hands were left heavily stained like those of a 30 a day smoker.

We planned a stopover in Rouen en route to Calais. I booked a hotel online that had a restaurant so that we could just eat and drink and flop. It looked really easy to find, situated on the outskirts close by a Carrefour, we would have no problems finding it, or so I thought.

Our first mistake was relying on the satnav. It took us right through the middle of a busy Rouen. Why I did this I don’t know I should have learned a lesson from a few years back when the same satnav unwittingly took us into and out of central Paris. I never learn. To speak in the satnav’s defence it does need an update.

Who would have thought there would be so many Carrefours in Rouen?  We arrived in Rouen in daylight but as the light failed so did we in finding the hotel. Oh we found two Carrefours but neither had this particular hotel in its vicinity.  We seemed to drive in circles and found two more smaller Carrefours.

Tempers were getting frayed. I rummaged in my bag to find the phone number of the hotel. ‘Oui’, the receptionist said, ‘Carrefour’ and gave directions.

We ended up again in the car park of the first Carrefour, it was very dark by now and my other half was getting worried that we’d be sleeping in the car.  As before there was no sign of the hotel. I leaped out of the car and asked a man in the car park. Just my luck, he didn’t know, wasn’t from Rouen.

Although past eight o’clock, this particular Carrefour was still open. I slid through the automatic door.  I think they were about to close as two young ladies stood guard at the door. I asked if either of them knew the hotel we were looking for. No they didn’t but they knew someone who would.

And she did.  Oh how glad I am that I paid attention to my French teacher when she taught right, left and straight on.  You never know when you’ll need to use them. Bravo, we reached the hotel in good time for dinner.

The following morning we made our way to Calais through thick fog giving us a taste of the English weather to come.

Christmas is almost upon us.  In January we plan to travel back to our lovely home in the Lot et Garonne and inspect the newly completed work.  As I look through the photos I am excited, the house is beginning to take shape.

There’s a mouse in our bedroom.  It scratches under the floorboards and wakes my daughter.  I don’t hear it.  Not because I’m such a heavy sleeper or stone deaf but because I swapped rooms when my daughter and her family arrived. My husband is the mouse catcher of the family, he can set the traps with a hairline trigger and has a good success rate. However he is not here at the moment, he has returned to the UK to do some doctoring leaving me and my daughter and two grandchildren here on our own – without a resident mouse catcher.

I have never actually set a mouse trap.  There is an art or should I say skill in setting a trap.  My daughter’s partner hadn’t quite acquired this skill but nevertheless managed to catch at least one mouse before he left. This was the mouse terrorising me in the kitchen!  It was probably his inexperience that helped him to trap the tiny creature.  He loaded the trap with a huge piece of Brie and the tiny mouse must have spent an age munching his way through it until his bodyweight set off the trap. Quite a sad sight, this little mousie, murdered at his dinner, his huge tummy full of Brie.

Back to the mouse in our bedroom. We set a trap and cautiously laid it beside the hole in the floorboards and went to bed. First night, the mouse scratched and scuttled about as before and the traps remained set with the bait untouched. Second night, my daughter heard terrible mousy screams but in the morning no mouse in the trap. However, the bait was gone and the trap had been triggered. We deduced that the mouse had probably been injured, hence the screams and that would be that.  We smiled confidently assuring each other that the mouse was gone.

Third night, the mouse was back scratching again.  I asked my daughter if she had heard any sounds that resembled an injured leg being dragged about on the wooden floor, but the answer was no.   Fourth night, silence and it has been so ever since.

But the mice will still be there for there is no such thing as a solitary mouse. We thought of poison – I know it’s cruel, but they have to go somewhere to die and the thought of all the rotting bodies in the roof or under the floorboards is even more horrific. 

And the there’s the flies……  the leak in the roof….  but I’m still blissfully happy

Marzelle, we were told by the previous owners that it means on the edge and it certainly is. The views over the valley are spectacular and the main reason why we bought the house.  I have been here in France since the 4th June most of this time alone, well I say alone but the animal life in the loft and the mouse droppings remind me that I am not totally alone. We bought the house last summer and took possession in November. This is the third visit for me and I now have experienced the house in early winter, spring and summer and no matter the state of the house, I am in love.

Marzelle in winter

We came by car and my husband went home by air from Bergerac on the 10th.  So here I was on my own, rattling about in this old farmhouse with mice and goodness knows what else, planning the renovation and getting estimates from various artisans.  June was glorious, lots of sunshine and a couple of magnificent thunderstorms.  I mowed the grass, (whoever would have imagined that?) we have an acre of it, a bit at a time with the mulching mower and I swear I lost weight.  I feel that I have lost weight but I have to admit there really is no visible evidence.  The weather grew hotter and hotter and I watched the farmer on his tractor working in the adjacent field through the sitting room window where I sat in a (fairly) comfortable armchair (left by the previous owners) with a fan (also left by previous owners) whirring towards my face. Those of you familiar with house purchase in France will gather immediately that the previous owners are English.  

hay rolls

A week later, the farmer was back again and neatly joined them up

rolled into one

and then he took them away and brought some cows to keep me company

one of my neighbours

Nothing had prepared me for the amount of fruit on the peach tree which I soon discovered after a visit to E Leclerc was not a peach tree but apricot. I ate some, gave some to Fabienne (a friend) for her family and some to my neighbour.  My neighbour took some more to give the old lady down the lane who lives alone and then I bottled some. I have never bottled anything before.  Actually that’s not quite true.  I have bottled it at certain situations in my life but I had never, until then, bottled fruit. Thanks to ADSL and the marvels of the internet I was able to gather techniques and recipes from wonderful women in all parts of the world where the climate allows apricots. Here they are

Bottled apricots - my pride and joy

My daughter and grandsons arrived on the 7th just in time for the plums and damsons

Grandson, Jorge gathering the last of the apricots

As I write this we are well into July and the house is full of people.  Children’s laughter fills the house and garden and there is always the murmur of adult chatter. My reflections on France will have to wait.

Last night I saw a pulsating star.  Of course I didn’t know that’s what it was in the middle of the night when I’d got out of bed to close the window. One second it was bright and the next it had almost disappeared.  I padded off to the bathroom and looked for it again on my return.  It was still there very bright one moment and less so the next.  I even rubbed my eyes thinking perhaps they were a little bleary, but no, the star continued to glow and diminish just as rhythmically as before.  The next morning I casually told my husband expecting him to say “you must have been dreaming” but no, instead he told me it was a pulsating star. Apparently  a pulsating star increases and decreases in size periodically.  Also the pulsation rates vary and it’s also something to do with gravitational pull and the rate at which the star contracts and expands.

This is one the wonders of being in rural France. There is no pollution here, no sulphor street lights just an amazing sky. Sitting in the garden at night and looking up to the stars somehow puts life in perspective.  I have been meaning to write a blog since I arrived in France at the begining of June.  I have made lots of notes and taken photos but we all know that ‘procrastination is the thief of time’.  This morning I remain full of amazement of what I witnessed from my bedroom window last night.  So much so, it spurred me on to begin my blog.  And so I shall when I have done some housework!