Welcome to the Blog part of the website. This is my attempt to make sense of Kate and I living in France, the lifestyle,the french, my home and animals and anything else that seems amusing to me. Sorry I have a strange sense of humour!! 

The blog is written on a monthly basis with regular  news of my adventures and those of my animals at La Godefrere.  You can now look us up on our new facebook page - La Godefrere.

This website can no longer host my blog so I have changed to using wordpress. This can be accessed through the following link:

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Browsing Archive: April, 2016

“I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it”; Shakespeare week, Archie has his moments, Minou puts her foot in it and Moggie does Macbeth

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, April 24, 2016,
“I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it” (a quote from As You Like It) seems a suitable quote to celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare. I do like my home here in France at La Godefrere and am happy to waste my time here. I could equally have used the quote from King Lear which might be more appropriate to my life here with three cats, moles, stealth cows and ugly sheep, which would be “O, that way madness lies, let me shun that, no more of that”.

Thi...

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Hares and Hoopoes; mole hills and dung hills; cats, cars and calves; thumbs up and bottoms up French style.

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, April 17, 2016,

Spring continues to arrive with some pace now. The days are getting longer and we are seeing the sun more often, in between the rain and some violent thunder storms. But the weather is improving. This has meant that I have had the chance to get out on the tractor to get the grass cut. The swallows continue to arrive and we have some returning pairs beginning to restore their nests in the garage of our next door neighbours. I have also heard the hoopoe. This is a colourful bird with a large cr...

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This week I have mostly been “rustic”: wood working, timber splitting; calf wrangling; fence repairing and poultry preparing.

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, April 10, 2016,
This week at la Godefrere has mostly involved rustic tasks! When I retired and we decided to move to rural France, I never quite imagined what that would mean. I of course had visions of developing my wine cave and eating good food and having lots of cheese to choose from. I looked forward to the responsibilities of mowing the grass on my tractor mower and the being able with a cold beer to survey my grand estate.

What I hadn’t quite grasped about rural France was the rustic way of life and ...

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Archie’s fan club; spring and swallows arrive (and the mimic starling); the nature trail develops; French opening times, and exciting news!

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, April 3, 2016,

It has been a busy week with mixed weather. For most of the week we have had rain and more rain, which has dampened my enthusiasm for working outside. We did get the gite spring cleaned, ready for guests who arrived on 1st April and who brought the good weather back. The guests were a family with two young children who had visited last Easter. They arrived and the two children, Cameron and Isla (5 and 3) leapt out of the car and immediately asked “Where is Archie?” Obligingly Archie immed...

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About Me


Graham Parish Graham Parish is a former UNISON Trade Union official who retired to France with Kate (a previous self employed gardener and now resident gardener here) to start a new life of wine, cheese, french bread and a vegetable garden on a large rural french farm with holiday gite, and associated animals.

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