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:

Link to my blog

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Browsing Archive: October, 2016

I struggle with French grammar; we are in animal farm; meet manic Monique; and discover a Trou Normand

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, October 30, 2016,
It has been a relatively quiet week as we recover from the double repas weekend. I say relatively as nothing seems quiet or normal here in rural France. But today has been gorgeous and we have had a totally blue sky and warm autumn sunshine. I have spent most of the afternoon strolling round our grounds and doing very little except to enjoy the sunshine and watch butterflies out flying at the end of October. And birds making the most of clearing up where the fields have been harvested. I saw ...

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Bread and circuses (and a tiger); the repas season starts; the autumn surplus dilemma and French traffic

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, October 23, 2016,
One of our regular jobs in France is to do the shopping at our local French supermarket. It is always fun at least as it gives an opportunity to visit the wine aisle. Well in France of course the wine aisle is vast with huge numbers of bottles of wine. Mostly reds of course and a large number of rose but usually very few whites. Enough of course for a good selection both in types of wine and in price. What you won’t find is much in the way of wine that is not French. One or two varieties of...

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Henry meets the mayor; Bob Dylan, a simple twist of fate; I bake a cake; and we discover that only the French could protest by having a banquet

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, October 16, 2016,
So it is a wet Sunday and we have had to retreat indoors. Mrs. Parish has disappeared to her sewing room and is busy making things for Christmas presents. I have been doing some rainy day jobs and clearing up heaps of stuff that have been left in the “to do, sometime” pile. It gave me a chance to reflect on yet another interesting week here in France.

The week started with some excitement. On Monday I was expecting a visit from an old school friend, Clive Garrish (known to us as ‘Enry). ...

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Autumn in France a tale of countryside change, the maize goes missing, hawks a hunting, ghostly fliers, cool cats and of course tractors

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, October 9, 2016,
Autumn has now really set in and here in rural France it is a time of changing weather and changing scenery in the surrounding countryside. The local farmers are out working from dawn until late into the night to get the maize crop harvested. This involves massive harvesting machines with very big teeth and the ability to throw the cut maize into the trailers that are pulled along beside them. The maize is for winter feed for the cattle and is taken back to the farms and stored under vast pla...

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Autumn arrives but Tom Cruise doesn’t; Corbynista chickens; cat’s contract; hornet horror; and farewell to the Foire aux vins

Posted by Graham Parish on Sunday, October 2, 2016,
September has gone by, where did it go? One minute we were enjoying the summer sun of August. You turn your back for a moment and here we are in Autumnal October. Shorts have been consigned to the back of the cupboard and we start on the job of tidying up the garden. Although the weather is still quite warm and we are still having sunny days. One of the joys of autumn is that robins come back into the garden. There is something enchanting about sitting in the autumn sun and listening to robin...

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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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