We have now been in France for 6 months and bits of it are beginning to make some sort of sense. I am getting to grips with the language thanks to the weekly classes with Jacqui our French teacher (an English woman who teaches French for the avoidance of doubt). When we came to France I could manage a few essential French words, enough to buy a baguette or order a meal and bottle of wine. However if then asked a question, panic would set in. Constructing a sentence was a real challenge. At ou...

In last week’s blog I introduced Monsieur Propre, the French cleaning fluid which cleans everything. I mentioned the picture of Mr. P on the bottle and his skinhead appearance but with an earring. Was he hard or gay or both! Well I can now reveal in an exclusive report the latest. We discovered an advert in our local weekly publicity magazines for Monsieur Propre which also gave his Spanish name which is Don Limpio!! Well with a name like that he is obviously not hard! In Italy he is Maestr...

The last week has all been about the rain and how much more can possibly come down. Today has been truly miserable and it rained all day. In fact it has been much like this all week. The cats and Mrs. Parish are going stir crazy and driving me to drink, which is no bad thing I suppose.

The kittens have invented a new sport of dangerous domestic duties. Because of the rain they have not been out much which means they have excess energy and race around the house at the same time when the fr...

After the esoteric nature of last week’s blog, I promise no more quantum physics. Life returned to the more mundane with occasional bursts of excitement.

This week I have spent most of my time in the stable with a paint brush or roller in hand. There is over 50 square metres of ceiling and more wall space to cover so I decided to start by painting the new toilet, created in the corner of the stable. Things did not start too well as I was busy painting and of course had removed the door h...