September 2004
Have just returned from working in an orchard the Limousin for two and a half weeks. Liz is working as a barmaid in a hotel in Lourdes until the end of the month, when the season finishes. Friends of ours, Mike and Erica have been visiting us for a few days, in between walking in the mountains. As their legs were tired and stiff, we drove to Biarritz, and spent the day playing amongst the waves on the beach.

The other day, Liz collected our new Barbary/Muscovy ducklings. All eight seem to be settling OK. I'm keeping them in the indoor brooder at night with the light on until they get their feathers. During the day they will spend their first couple of weeks in the outdoor brooder, then be allowed out in to the wide open world!

Our little aluminium trailer has finally shown signs of the abuse we have been giving it since moving to France. The axle brackets had cracked and warped the whole thing. I took it to the agricultural mechanics up the road, and the next day collected it, all welded and reinforced and looking good, all for a cheap 50 Euros, we will use them again!

The builders have finished their work on the roof, now it's up to us!! We are in the middle of ordering the wood and tiles, and hoping the weather holds out.

Once our work on the roof gets underway, there won't be any time for days off. So we took the opportunity to have a day out in Spain. San Sebastian (Donostia) is only a couple of hours away from us. The day we were there, it turned out to be a public holiday! All the shops were shut, but all the bars and restaurants were packed with people. Every bar had their counters groaning with plates of pinchos (snacks) which everyone tucked into while having their pre-meal drinks. Later we ate in a small cafe/bar, and being a bit strapped for cash, chose the 10 Euros set meal each. This included three courses and a bottle of wine....Spain is so cheap!

October 2004
Typically, just as the wood and tiles arrived, and we were ready to get cracking, the weather decided to become 'changeable'. This meant that we could only work one day in two due to it raining. At least the good days were nice though. The back of the roof, we found fairly easy, but the dormer window and the two ends have proved to be a little awkward.

Liz got herself a job for the winter, working in a ski resort, and starts in December. Im going to be concentrating on working on the house. I'm going to work like mad, as I hate the thought of spending another winter in the bloody caravan.

I killed a couple of the hens our friends had given us, they had become egg eaters and were 'teaching' the others, so they had to go. Unfortunately I also had to kill one of the male ducklings, as it had been born a little deformed, and as it grew, the deformity got worse, to the point that it couldn't stand, and I found it lying on its back a couple of times, so put it out of its misery. Also, the ducks started to pull the growing wing feathers off each other. This looks horrible, as they bleed, and it is obviously painful for them. Apparently, Barbaries are renowned for this, I seperated males and females, and it seemed to happen less often, although hasn't stopped it.

One of our rabbits had her first litter of babies at the end of October. She gave birth to eight, but two died. The other six are all black with white bellies(father is dark brown, mother is black)

We spent a day walking in the mountains, just before starting on the roof, the trees were really changing into their autumnal colours, but the sun was still pretty warm, even at 2500m. As we parked the car and got ready to walk, we were approached by a herd of Llamas! Not the sort of animal you expect to see roaming around European mountain ranges!!

November 2004
The ducks feather pulling has finally stopped. Not before we killed and ate the main culprit though. He was a little young at nine weeks old, but tastey and tender.

He wasn't the only animal to be killed this month, as the two pigs were slaughtered as well. This happened sooner than we had expected, and weren't quite ready for it. Jean-Jacques, the local farmer had given us the phone number of a chap who slaughters your animals at your farm. This appealed to me as the last thing I wanted was to give the 'girls' a stressful journey to the abbatoir in Pau. Liz phoned him, we had hoped he could do it around the end of December. At first he told us that he was booked up until the end of January, but later, he said he could do it the next day!! Liz said yes, as she was starting work early December. This put us in a mild panic, the pigs would be placed in the old horse trailer before being killed, so that had to be placed in their field, and they would have to get used to going into it. Naturally we wanted to preserve the hams and some of the belly, but I hadn't made a salt chest yet, so we had to buy wood and build one, plus buy the large bags of salt they would be stored in. We got the trailer into the field, then Liz went to Pau, to get the salt and wood, while I coaxed the pigs into the trailer. I had visions of this being a nightmare, but in the end, when I chucked some barley in there, they just wandered in and scoffed the lot. They then took a liking to the matting on the ramp/back door, and vandalised it!

The guys arrived the next day in a van with a winch on a gantry at the back. The pigs were already in the trailer, and we had 120 litres of water on the boil, as instructed by them. I knew they would be killed by having their throats cut, that didn't bother me, but I wanted them to be stunned first. However, in all the excitement and stress of getting everything ready, I never got round to asking. My worst fears were confirmed when they hauled each pig out of the trailer with a metal clasp attached round the upper part of their snout. A rope was attached to the clasp, and the more the pig resisted, the tighter the clasp got. The squeals went on and on, and could be heard for miles around. Positioned next to the van, they were lifted up by a rear leg, then had their throats cut. The squeals still carried on, until dying away into a bloody girgle.

To say it wasn't nice was an understatement. All I wanted to do was put my ear defenders on to drown out the noise. As horrible as it was, when they were dead, I felt strangely better. They were no longer my 'girls', and were now pork. The boiling water was poared into a bath, along with the pigs, and the hair scraped off to reveal very pink skin. No matter what colour your pig is, when it has its hair removed, it is always pink. They then had their stomachs and intestines removed, and were cut in two. Denise, our neighbour had a head, tail and heart, and we had the rest hung up in the house overnight.

Jean-Claude, came back the next day, and cut up the carcasses for us. The French and British butcher their animals in slightly different ways. We wanted them to be 'done' the British way. To show him what the cuts were, we lent him Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls 'Meat' book which details the butchers cuts. He thought this extremely funny, and phoned a friend to say that after 30 years of butchering, he was following a book! We would have loved to make charcuterie and sausages, but living in the caravan it just wasn't possible, so everything, apart from the hams and one whole belly went into the two freezers, along with four rabbits we had killed two days earlier. They are big upright freezers, and were stuffed full.

Naturally we ate roast pork that night. The taste and texture was incomparable with any pork I have ever tasted before. We haven't eaten pork from supermarkets for some time now, but both agreed that there is no way we will ever want to eat intensively farmed pork again. In fact the more I read about both intensive farming and supermarket practices, the more I want to stay clear of the plastic trayed-clingfilm wrapped pap that we are all offered in the supermarket aisles.

The roof is coming on, we had a friend come out for a few days to help us, and currently have the waterproof membrane on, nearly all the roof battens fitted, one Velux window in place, and about a third of the back roof tiled. The most important thing, is that the house is now weatherproof. Probably the first time for about twenty years!!

December 2004

We are still labouring away on the roof, working quite fast putting the tiles in place, but seem to slow to a snails pace when doing the fiddley bits, like cutting the tiles to go round the Velux windows etc. We finished the rear and are now on the front. This is much better as it faces south, and as we are experiencing a few frosts at night, this means that the sun quickly thaws the frozen roof battens and our fingers! The occasional 'tourist' passes by, to view our progress! These tend to be locals who I reckon still can't believe that somebody has actually bought the place. We get plenty of 'thumbs up', so we must be doing OK!!

I am saying "we", as Liz is working with me. We decided that her time would be better spent here helping me with the roof. It seems to be taking an age with the two of us, I would dread to think how long it would have taken me by myself!!

The above mentioned work tends to get to you after a while, and the stiff joints and cut fingers cry out for you to take a day off once in a while. This being the case last week, we decided to go to Spain for the day. It doesn't take us long to get to Spain if we go due south, driving through the six mile long Somport tunnel. This time we visited Huesca. It wasn't the prettiest town we had seen in Spain, although it had a lovely cathedral. The Aragon region is very Spanish looking, very arid, with olive, and what looked to us like almond groves everywhere. After having lunch in a restaurant in a small town called Ayerbe, in which the only other couple eating were Brits too, we headed slowly back via a different route. We had been told about a castle not too far away, and went to investigate. The Castillo de Loarre was very impressive, being a typical Spanish hilltop castle, perched on a rocky outcrop. Unfortunately it was closed for lunch when we arrived, but the views across the misty plains, with distant mountains poking their heads through, were fantastic.

(27th Dec) Well christmas has been and gone without us noticing it too much luckily. It's not that we don't like christmas, we do, but it isn't easy to feel festive in a caravan! I worked on the interior walls of the house on christmas day morning, as the weather was too wet and cold to go on the roof, and we had a wonderful meal in the evening at Lily and Arthurs.

The other day I 'acquired' about 25 poplar tree cuttings, and planted them in the edges of the fields that border the road, I hope they take. We also planted out pin parasol and eucalyptus saplings that I had grown from seed. The previous owner seemed to have a passion for cutting down all his trees, and ripping out all his hedges. Why he should want to do this is a mystery to us, and we're doing our best to put them back again!

January 2005

On the animal front, not a lot has changed this month, the hens have started laying, a bit infrequently, but with it being winter and all, I will forgive them! We killed three of the rabbits and put them in the freezer. They won't be staying in there long as they make a nice change to the mountain of pork we seem to be eating.

Leisure-wise we have been snowboarding and Liz has been skiing. I'm finally getting the hang of this snowboard lark, and seem to end each day with less bruises and more smiles. Liz and I also had a unique experience. Spending the afternoon at a thermal resort in the mountains, we sat in a jacuzzi on a roof-top with the snow falling over us. It was lovely and warm in the water, but the 10 meter dash through the snow to get back indoors was a little too refreshing!!

The two outhouses either side of the bread oven are now finished. I plumbed in a provisional shower in the south facing one, and a water heater in the north one. We bought an expensive mixer tap for the shower. The idea being to use it in the house later on. It lasted three days before the below zero temperatures wrecked it. Even though I had lagged the pipes, the water in the tap had frozen and turned the internals into externals. I then bought the cheapest one I could find and plumbed that in. The hot showers are divine, people tend to take things like that for granted, living like this it really makes you appreciate your comforts.

The latest bits of machinery on our little 'ferme' are an old plough and a harrow that we bought from up the road. Liz was about to plough the old pigs field, when Philippe, the mayors son popped round. He asked what we were doing, and we told him. He said he didn't realise that we knew how to plough. We told him we didn't. After he had picked himself up off the floor and dried the tears from his eyes, he said "come on, I'll give you a lesson". This he did, and although the tractor and plough are far from perfect, Liz ended up doing a half decent job. As Philippe said, "it's good enough for grass seed, but you wouldn't get maize to grow there". After this the weather got wet, so we'll harrow and sew it when it dries out a bit.

February 2005

February has been cold cold cold. The temperature one night dropped to an all time low of -9 degrees centigrade in the caravan, that's not nice!! Unfortunately we use butane gas to heat the caravan, and at temperatures as low as that, it won't work. It wasn't too bad tucked up in the double duvet, wearing most of your clothes, although I kept waking up with what felt like a blue nose!

I went back to UK for a week, to see family and friends. Managed to get four flights between Pau and Newcastle for the grand total of £50 including taxes!!

We had been expecting a delivery of an old tatty secondhand Rayburn cooker from the UK a couple of days after I returned. We had heard nothing, so went snowboarding for the day. On arriving back home, not only had it been delivered, but had been placed in the house. I must mention the chap who sold and delivered this extremely heavy wood burning stove. He didn't even ask for payment until he got back to the UK, honest or what! His name is Barry Charman, and his website can be found at Tradcookers. I plumbed in the stove, we filled it full of wood, lit it, and gave the house it's first winter warmth in many many years.

I started building an internal wall using breezeblock, but with the weather being so cold, I figured it wasn't good for the cement, so we decided to cut back and tidy up the two hedges in the big field behind the house. This lob was long overdue, and in total, took us five days to finish the 300 meters of hedge. Each day we lit a huge bonfire to get rid of the rubbish, mainly blackthorn and willow, a lot of it dead, so it burned extremely well. In the evenings Liz would roast potatoes in the hot ashes. You have never tasted potatoes so good!!

The old pigs field has now been harrowed, sewn with a grass and clover mix, and rolled. All we have to do now is wait until the weather gets a bit warmer for it to start growing.

March 2005

I guess living like we have for the last three and a half years, in houses half demolished, dusty, without hot water or showers/toilets on occasions, living in a cramped caravan etc would put a strain on even the best of relationships. Ours has been no exception, and so it is with great sadness that I announce the break up of our marriage. Liz is seeking a divorce, and I'm agreeing to it reluctantly. There had been problems for a while between us, and it seems that in Liz's mind they are irreparable. It is sad, but I guess, for the best in the end. We are still good friends, and the parting is very amicable (we are a good team, not a good couple!) The future of is very uncertain for both of us, and the property. We both want to stay in France, and I would love to keep this place........ to be continued.....

However, the work continues, and we've been busy hammering in fence posts, as well as ploughing and harrowing the vegetable garden. I've managed to sow pea and parsnip seeds, outside, as well as the onion, shallot and garlic sets. The greenhouse has all the chilli and basil seeds coming on. I planted out hundreds of willow and blackthorn cuttings, to try and regrow some of the hedges that were pulled out by the previous owner. I hope they take.

One or two things have changed on the animal front. I was given a male Barbary duck by and English lady. Her grandaughter had named him Donald, and the name has stuck! Donald is extremely friendly and covers the three females regularly. As they have now started laying eggs-a-plenty, I hope they will be fertile, and have placed about ten eggs in the incubator. The other two males had their noses (beaks) well and truly put out, and wouldn't have anything to do with the others. Rather than cover the females, they would run away!! I gave them a good chance, but in the end thay were dispatched to the freezer.

Thumper gave birth to only three rabbits. She doesn't give birth to many the first time each year, but three isn't very good. Maybe she is getting too old. We'll see what she produces with her next two litters, and then she'll possibly go into retirement!

The hens are laying regularly too, and competing with the ducks with regards to egg size! I gave Felix the Faverolles cockerel to Hilary, the lady who gave me Donald. She wants to breed Faverolles, so it seemed fair. As our incubator is full of duck eggs, and she had a new posh incubator with no eggs in, I gave her ten Faverolles eggs to hatch out. We will split the hatch between us.

We've had problems trying to find Gascon Noir pigs this year, even though they are from this region. We have finally found some in the Basque country, and will hopefully pick them up next week sometime.

With all this work outdoors, the house is coming on slowly. The roof is now 100% finished, and so is the internal wall I was building last month. All the wood in what will be the kitchen has been treated against woodworm and termites, and the next job is to knock a hole in the wall to install a window (scary!)

With all the hard work I've put into this property, it would break my heart to sell it, I only hope I don't need to. We shall see.

April 2005

They say that every cloud has a silver lining, and this may well be the case here, as it seems I may be able to keep the property. This alone has made my whole situation much easier, and has left me looking to the future with a much more positive outlook.

Donald the duck is now a father to two little ducklings. I placed ten eggs in the incubator, and to cut a long story short, I ended up carefully helping the chicks out of their eggs over a week after they were supposed to hatch!!

Liz and I went and picked up the young pigs from the Pays Basques. A long and stressful journey for the two boys, but they soon settled in to their new home. I noticed when we got them home that they had rings (actually wire) in their noses to stop them rooting up the ground. I don't like the idea of this as I think it deprives them of, what is after all, their natural instinct. So one afternoon, Liz, Philippe and myself barracaded ourselves into the pig arc along with the boys. The three of us held them down, and Philippe cut the rings off. The squeals could have been heard for miles around, but as far as I was concerned, it was all for their best! Please check out their photos on the animals page.

Unfortunately Hilary's eggs didn't hatch out, which was odd, and I ended up getting Felix back, as he was keeping them awake with his crowing! As I was a bit top heavy with cockerels, he provided us with a very nice couple of meals!!

What will eventually be the kitchen has now been vastly improved by the addition of a new window. I had the scarey job of knocking a hole in the house wall. Bricks are predictable, stones are not! With many sticks propping up the stones above, I managed to get the lintel in place without any collapses. The rest wasn't too difficult, and the end result is plenty of light in what was a very dark room.

The fencing of the land continues, and I now have at least one fully fenced field in which I can put some sheep. All I need to do now is find three or four ewes, preferably with lambs, and maybe a ram, as their aren't many round here to borrow.

May 2005

The May entry in the diary is running a little late due to the workload here at Mauhoum. It's madness at present, as I'm now doing everything here by myself. Renovating the house, looking after the vegetable garden, caring for and feeding the animals, keeping the grass/weeds at bay (failing on that one a bit!) and trying to earn a crust as well. It aint easy I can tell you, I sleep well at night!! Liz is still living here, and is now working days only. She cooks most evenings, does the shopping and washing the cothes etc so at least I don't have to do those chores!

I still haven't got round to getting any sheep yet, and as the tractor was out of action for a couple of weeks, the grass grew considerably. It took me ages to get the fields into some sort of shape when I could finally cut the grass again.

I've lost count of how many ducklings I now have, two of the females are sitting on eggs, one of them I know not where, in a hedge I think. She returns occasionally to have a drink and feed. The pigs continue to grow. Since having their rings taken out, they've turned over most of the turf in their run, like last years 'girls', the 'boys' love nothing more than their backs being scratched.

The house continues to advance slowly due to all the other jobs that occupy my time. Although having said that, it now has the upstairs floor in place, and I'm currently fitting a sink and a couple of units in what will be the kitchen.

The vegetable garden is just about fully planted. So far I've been eating peas, various lettuce, and the first of many courgettes. As for the fruit, I'm currently getting through tons of alpine strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb. The gooseberries and blackcurrents are just starting to ripen, and I ate all five cherries off one of the trees! The other tree seems to be dying for some strange reason.

The three hams I cured are now ready to eat, and the meat from the first has to be as good as any ham I've ever eaten! I'm so pleased that it has been so successful, as if it failed, there would have been a lot of meat wasted. Tonight I ate an omelette made from my eggs, my peas and my ham, eaten with my salad. As you eat it you realise that all that hard work is definitely worth it!!

June and July 2005

Oops! If the May news was late, then the June and July are very late!! Many appologies to all, but things are still pretty hectic here at Mauhoum. There have been some major changes since the last update. First of all Liz has moved out, and is currently living with Philippe and his parents!!! I care not, and only hope that this situation suits them both and that they are both happy. Talking of being happy, I am very happy, thanks to Jan, an English lady who I met via the internet. She had been going through a tough time separating from her husband, and we got chatting via email, we met and got on like a house on fire!! In fact so much so that when her and her future ex sell their house in the Dordogne, she will move down here with me. She isn't used to living in a hovel such as this, and knows nothing about farming and animal husbandry, but she tells me that she is willing to muck-in and learn as she goes along!!

Still no sheep, and to be honest I think I should register the smallholding with the authorities before getting anymore livestock, it seems the decent and honest thing to do. I'm about to start killing the male ducks, as they are now a good size. Some will go in the freezer and the rest will be preserved as 'confit de canard' in kilner jars for the winter.

I'm left with only one rabbit, Arthur went to another home to continue producing baby bunnies, and Liz took Thumper the female with her to Philippe's. Of the two babies she had last time (only two as she has got too old to produce more), one escaped, never to be seen again, and the other is the one I'm left with. She is very small, but very tame, and it will be difficult killing her, I may keep her to breed from if she grows any bigger.

The tractor is giving me a hard time, and is starting to cost me a small fortune, I'd get rid of it if I could afford to buy a better one. The vegetable garden is going great guns, and as per usual I can't keep up with it. Luckily the pigs eat all the gluts, whether it be tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, pumkins, melons etc. they love them all!

The house continues to advance slowly due to the workload outdoors, but I've now finished cementing the floor, that alone was a milestone I can tell you. I'm now concentrating on plasterboarding the kitchen. The kitchen now has a decent table thanks to Jan and I going up to the Limousin to collect most of the furniture from Georgettes. It only needs one more trip and everything will be finally down here.

The weather this year has been so dry it is unbelievable. It is the third year on the trot that we've had a drought. Most of the cuttings I planted this year have died just like last years. I simply can't keep watering them all, it would almost be a fulltime job! I've agreed to a bit of damage limitation, and only water the ones I can get to easily while filling the duck's 'ponds' etc.

I've given up using incubators, as I only got limited success with them. I bought a bantem hen with ten chicks in tow from Mr and Madame Cassou, the farmers I buy my milk from. The idea is to keep the hen and female chicks to sit on the Faverolles eggs next year.

August 2005

August has not only seen some very welcome rain, but also the first signs that autumn isn't too far away. There have been some cool mornings with heavy dew falling, and as it is less hazy, the mountains have been revealing themselves more and more. On still evening walks with Boo I've been treated to wonderful views of them, slate grey silhouettes topped with deep pink skies.

On the house front, I now have two more windows fitted-in upstairs, and I've been plastering the wall in the fireplace. The 'kitchen' now has most of it's units in place, plus worktops, although the doors for the units have yet to be decided upon.

The workload here was made much easier for one week, as I had two girls staying here and helping out with weeding the vegetable garden, tying up the shallots and giving me a hand with some fencing. They were from an organisation called Help Exchange, similar to the WWOOF organisation. Sam and Hattie worked really hard even though the inclement weather curtailed some of the work, and if all the other helpers are as hard working and as easy to get on with as them, then I'll be happy. Jan also came down, and did an admirable job tidying up my kitchen and providing us with some wonderful meals (the girls couldn't stop talking about the food!) Sam and Hattie had such a good time they wrote us both limericks as a thank you. They would die of embarrassment if I reproduced them here, so all I will say is that both Jan and I were genuinely touched by them.

I finally have sheep!! Two seven month old Berrichon lambs, now called Sam and Hattie after the Helpxers! As usual they were very timid at first, but I'm training them to the bucket so they will come to me when I need them to. I'm getting there, as they come up to me each morning. I've managed to touch one of them (Hattie) but the other (Sam) is still quite timid.

All the male ducks are now in the freezer, cut up and ready to make 'confit de canard' with the wings and legs, 'magret de canard' the breasts and 'aiguillettes de canard' the fillets, plus the gizzards, livers and hearts. I'm not going to go hungry this winter!

September 2005

Well September came and went without much progress being made to the house. The reason for this is because I worked for most of it at the local wine cooperative, the Caves de Crouseilles during the vendange (grape harvest) for the Madiran and Pacherenc du Vic Bilh wines. Basically my job was to take samples from all the trailers full of grapes, in order for the grape juice to be analysed for the sugar content, the alcohol content, acidity etc etc. In order for me to do this, I had to be perched about two meters up on some steps, and took the samples with a huge auger that drew up the grapes, kept the juice, and then dumped what remained back into the trailer. This was easy work, a bit too easy, as hours could pass before any trailers arrived. Then, just like London buses, about ten would arrive at once! I worked between 10 and 15 hours a day, six days a week.

When I went for the interview, I was told that I would be dealing with the local farmers, that they would have strong accents and would quite often be wound up and could shout at me from time to time. Well yes some of them had very strong accents, some even spoke in Bearnaise, the local dialect, but all were as friendly and patient as one would wish for. Even when my machine broke down one evening, and as more and more tractors arrived, eventually totalling about 25, nobody complained, they just stood around in groups, happily chatting away until it was sorted. To me that summed up one of the reasons I love the French, and especially the paysans (farmers)

October/November 2005

I finished working at the cave around the middle of October. They had been long days, but interesting ones, and had of course earned me some well needed money. Now that I was 'unemployed' again I set to, working on the house. The kitchen units went in, and the doors put on. At last it was starting to resemble a normal kitchen!

With this done, I set about the daunting job of placing the electrical cables throughout the house. This is much harder than one thinks, first of all I wanted all the cables to be hidden, but most of all you need to know exactly where all the future sockets, lights, water heater, washing machine and radiators are going to go. Sometimes you change your mind about the position of something simple, and maybe a day's work has to be re-done, it can be a real headache. Not only that, but I need to understand fully the French electrical system and all their regulations, as the C.O.N.S.U.E.L. (governing body) need to come round inspect it before I can get a certificate of conformity, in order to have a proper electrical supply (temporary at present)

Every year the shepherds from the mountains bring their flocks of sheep down to the lower pastures for winter (called the transhumance) One of them brings his sheep to our commune (parish) by lorry as it's too far to walk them. I met him and his wife at one of our local fetes and told him that his sheep could graze my land, and two days later I had 624 sheep chomping their way through my fields! Their bells 'bongling' away as they moved. The sound of their bells has always sounded wonderful to me, and it was great to hear them next to my house. My two sheep, Sam and Hattie, didn't know what to make of it, they went beserk, running up and down the other side of the fence! I asked the shepherd if he minded putting one of his rams in with my girls, he said "no problem", but seemed to pick out the smallest, weediest, scruffiest looking one among them, but I guess a ram is a ram ....... as long as he does 'the business'! The shepherds in the Pyrenees always have dogs that live with the sheep. Large white dogs called 'Patous', they were traditionally used to guard the flock against wolves. With the wolves now all gone, I guess they still have a role in protecting young lambs from foxes etc. There were two with this flock, a male and a female. After two days the female was taken away as she had given birth to four pups in my field over night!

After a week the sheep moved on to eat the grass somewhere else, but the ram is still here. He hasn't been doing 'the business', at least not that I've seen, and Sam and Hattie have been giving him quite a hard time..... playing hard to get?!!

December/January 2005/2006

December started off very wet, but Christmas Day was nice (unlike last year) I spent Christmas here with Jan, then we both spent New Year at her place in the Dordogne, I must admit to having had the best festive season in years! Not only that but Jan wanted to whisk me away somewhere special for my birthday which is towards the end of January. We ended up driving to Barcelona for a few days, as it's a wonderful place and only six hours drive from here. The few days were mostly spent eating, drinking and visiting various buildings designed by Gaudi, the once local architect, including the Sagrada Familia, the still unfinished cathederal...... amazing! On the last day it rained solidly all day, and looking at the satellite news on the hotel television we realised that heavy snowfall was predicted over southern France and northern Spain. We had planned to go back via Andorra, but as this was a very mountainous route, and we didn't have snow chains, a different route back was sought. About 50kms west of Barcelona the police turned us back due to the amount of snow ahead, so 'plan C' was to try a pass over the Pyrenees north of Girona. Just short of the border, and after waiting in a queue for an hour we were turned back yet again. This time we drove round to the Mediteranean coast (we couldn't have gone any further East!) and finally got into France around dusk. Our troubles weren't yet over as all the motorways were closed. Realising that there was no way we were going to get home that night, we decided to stay over at Carcassonne. Not three kms from Carcassonne there was an accident in front of us, blocking the road for another hour! We finally found a cheap hotel and got something to eat twelve hours after setting out that morning. The next day we were able to drive back via the motorways, they had all been opened, buy were very slippery, we got home mid afternoon..... what an epic!!

Nothing has changed on the animal front, apart from the hens and ducks are starting to lay like crazy. I'd hate to have a cholesterol check right now! The pigs are due to be killed at the beginning of February, so we've been preparing for that.... not something I'm looking forward to after last year.

I've been busy fencing another field for the sheep, and building the other interior wall in the house. Not only that but Philippe helped me place a large heavy oak beam in the wall, enabling me to enlarge the upstairs floorspace and have a bigger eventual bathroom. So as you can see, we've had a busy exciting last two months!

March to November 2006!

Right first of all I'm terribly sorry to all of you who have been hoping to read my monthly diary, only to find it hidiously out of date. The main reason for this is probably idleness, but I've also been very busy this year between working on the house, land, vegetable garden, and I've also found myself virtually permanent seasonal work, if that doesn't sound too much like a contradiction! Between May and August I worked in various vineyards within the Madiran appelation. Tending to the vines as they grew through the season, up until about a month before the grapes were due to be picked. During the harvest (vendange) I again worked for the Cave de Crouseilles doing the same job as last year. I have also secured work through the winter, between November and March pruning 20 hectares of vines for a chap called Mr Richevaux who lives near Viella in the Gers department. So all in all I have around 9 months work a year, leaving me to renovate the house for the other three, which suits me fine!

Talking of the house, it's coming on, but very very slowly due to the other chores I have to do like shopping, cooking, washing, and not forgetting working 35 hours a week. However it is advancing, and I now have a fully functional kitchen with electric hob, extractor fan, double electric oven, the old Rayburn, and for the first time in my life, a dishwasher! OK there are no tiles on the floor and the walls are far from finished, but all the kitchen units are in place, and it looks like a 'proper' kitchen, unlike when Jan first saw it!

I am currently concentrating on what will eventually be the spare bedroom, and also the bathroom. Laying floors, making walls, fitting plasterboard, doing plumbing and electrics etc. God it will be nice to get this work finished!

Last years pigs were killed at the beginning of February, and on the whole was thankfully much less stressful for both myself and the pigs. This was due to using a different 'tuer' (slaughterman) who dispatched them without any squealing or thrashing about, although he wasn't as good a butcher as the guy the year before.

Sam and Hattie my two sheep, between them gave birth to three lambs, all females. The ram that the shepherd lent me, now called Benny, did his job, and is now a strapping musclebound fine specimen, unlike when I first saw him. He's still here, but will shortly be replaced by another younger chap! I killed the first, biggest lamb in October with the help of Liz and Philippe. It was the first time I had done this, and was quite nervous. In the end though it went OK. I used my captive bolt pistol to stun it, then cut it's throat. There was no stress on the lamb's part, just a few minutes before it had been munching on grass with the others. It was quickly done, but the skinning and gutting took a while longer, not helped by the fact that I pulled a muscle in my back while hoisting the animal up in the air! Two days later I collected it from Michel's cold room, and Jan and I butchered it up and stored it in the freezer.

There are always hens and ducks here, with one or two more becoming dinner for the local foxes. Donald is still alive, and he still has a go at me occasionally. I currently have around 18 chicks dotted about the place, they even end up in the house if I'm not careful!

Boo is a very old girl now, and doesn't do a lot these days, due to the fact that she has cataracts and is quite deaf, plus she's riddled with arthritis. She has an extremely expensive food, only available from the vets, which has an additive to help her joints. With that and some granules that my parents post over to me, she's doing better than she was a few months ago, and certainly seems to be in much less pain.

Ted doesn't change, apart from getting fat in autumn/winter and thinning out in spring! Mind you I'm not surprised he puts on weight, as all he seems to do is sleep both day and night. He eats loads and demands some milk every morning, before going back to sleep, instead of ridding this place of mice, which incidently I kill more of!

Finally, my relationship with Jan is as strong as ever. She was divorced in October, her house has just sold, and she will be moving down here at the end of November. I say "down here", but until I have a fully operational bathroom, she will be renting a friends house in Lembeye a few miles up the road. However it's much better than three hours away in the Dordogne!

December 2006 and January 2007

Well Christmas and New Year have been and gone, and I'm writing this towards the end of January. We had a couple of my friends, John and Carol, over for the festive period. It was nice to see them, and they said that they had never eaten so well, what with the French tradition of oysters and other seafood on Christmas Eve, and my own leg of lamb plus my vegetables for lunch the next day, I reckon we fed them well! Jan and I spent the New Year up in the Limousin with some more of my friends, Chris and Lorraine, who were over renovating their house in the Creuse department. We took Boo, who unfortunately wasn't too well due to an upset stomach (let's just say it was pretty windy!!) and also paid a visit to Georgette, my old neighbour, who although having had a couple of falls, is still strong and healthy at 80 years old.

I've been working in the vineyards since the end of November, pruning the vines drastically, ready for the spring's growth. The work isn't particularly hard, but you have to work in all weathers. We had a cold spell before Christmas, since then it has been soooo warm for the time of year, we've been working in T-shirts some days!!

Work on the house seems to be at crawling pace at present. I'm currently doing a couple of hours a night placing plaster in the joints between the plasterboards in the bedroom and bathroom. It's a lot of work, but you hardly see any progress, and that's a bit soul destroying! I have to force myself to do this dreadful job! Still I console myself by saying that it won't be long before I have my first bedroom in the house!!

I have so many chicks at present I don't know what to do with them! Actually I do know what to do with them, and I 'did' a couple of fine cockerels the other week. Jan made a Morroccain dish of chicken with honey from a book I bought on the way back from the Limousin, and it was gorgeous. The second lamb was despatched early November, but I've decided to keep the last lamb to breed from. Benny was due to be replaced, but as yet is still here. Sam was due to lamb mid February, but I've noticed her acting a little odd these last couple of days, and she has full udders, so maybe Benny has been 'active' earlier than I thought.... hmmm, may have to postpone my birthday trip to Bordeaux this following weekend!!

February/March 2007

Unfortunately some you win, and some you lose. I won when the girls gave birth to four lambs, a female and male each. Hattie started to give birth just as I arrived home from work, and let me help her clean her first one. She also let me guide her second to her teats. This was a fantastic experience for me, and wonderful that she never gets stressed by me being so close. That can't be said for Sam, who is way too timid even to let me go anywhere near her. Sadly it was Sam who rejected her female lamb. I didn't notice at first, partly due to me being at work, and partly to do with her having her lambs in the late evening. When I realised I drove around begging and borrowing rubber teats and bottles to feed her. I then bought 10kgs of powdered milk. I fed the lamb in the evening, she seemed strong, but hungry. The next morning I found her dead, I guess I was too late, and perhaps she hadn't had the vital colostrom from Sam that they need first thing. It's not nice, but it happens, you put it down to experience (or inexperience!) prepare yourself, and make yourself more vigilant for next year. The other three luckily are fit, healthy, and as I write, are charging around the field at full speed, annoying the hell out of Benny!!

The bathroom and the first bedroom are well under way. The bedroom has taken sooooo long to finish, due to the amount of plasterboard around the walls and ceiling. All the joints needed to be made smooth, and this takes time. Actually it seems bloody endless, and I've decided that no other room in the house will have this amount of work involved (it will look nice when finished though)

I finished my winter season in the vines on the 16th March, and was looking forward to getting stuck into around 6 weeks work on the house. Towards the end of February though, the Fiesta broke down. Unfortunately it was the timing belt that had snapped, and the engine had sustained a bit of damage. As it was an old car on it's last legs (wheels) I decided that it should see it's days out in the scapyard. It was sad leaving it, as it owed me nothing, being an absolute workhorse since moving to France, I shall have fond memories of it. I'd planned on buying a small van to replace it, but secondhand prices in France are steep, and as luck would have it, my dad was changing cars. He agreed to sell me his four year old Toyota Yaris diesel for a price I couldn't really argue with. OK it's very small, and right-hand drive, but it is incredibly economical, and very reliable. Jan and I flew to UK, spent a week there (way too long!) and drove it back, all 1000kms!

April to July 2007

From spring onwards, 2007 hasn't been a good year for me. First of all, like the rest of Europe, the weather has been particularly wet and cool. So bad that the farmers round here still hadn't sown all their maze by the beginning of July, they're normally finished by mid May! We've not only had rain though, but hail too. A huge storm luckily passed us by, but sadly hit a lot of the vineyards, including where I work. Frederic, my boss told me that they were the size of pigeons eggs, and did an incredible amount of damage. so much so that I'm currently out of work, my contract finishing two months early.

I'm currently on the dole, and working on the house. The bad luck continued though, as probably due to the amount of rain we've had this year, the North facing wall of the barn collapsed one night. Now this wall is 8m wide, and I reckon 9m high. It fell from the ground up, nothing was left standing. Luckily most missed the house, but sadly part did hit the roof. Jan and I were asleep right underneath it. It hit the roof with an almighty crash, making the whole house shudder. I new immediately what had happened. The next morning revealed the damage. All the tiles and woodwork on the corner of the roof had been smashed, the plasterboard ceiling above my head had cracked in two, and the wall had bowed-in due to the weight of the stones hitting it. Worst of all, the insurance said that the house wasn't covered for that sort of damage, as it wasn't one particular storm/wind/flood which had caused the collapse. Sometimes I wonder why I bother having insurance!

On the animal front, I had another lamb born in April. A healthy male which I castrated without any problems. The first male that was born will be killed at the end of July.

I've been getting fed up of eating bantem hens and cockerels, I needed something decent to roast, so I bought a load of chicks from Lembeye market. The French call them Cou Nu's, or Naked Necks. It's obvious to see why, because they do indeed have no feathers on they're necks. They're a lovely roasting bird, huge long legged things which mature very quickly. I may try and breed from some of them to see what happens. I also got some ducklings, six little 'time wasters', as I enjoy watching them playing in the water, instead of working! Talking of ducks, I'm afraid Donald is no longer with us. It's my fault, I hate to say it, but I hit him, defending myself, when he attacked me one day. I hit him harder than I had wanted to, and I think I broke his leg. He could still move, and at the time I hoped that I had only badly bruised it. However the next day he was in the same condition, so I decided, as much as I hated to, to put him out of his misery. We both missed Donald very much, he could be vicious, but as all who met him agreed, he was a great character. However one day, Jan came back from visiting friends in the Dordogne with another male. She had spoken to me about him a couple of days earlier. Turned out this duck made Donald look tame! He had terrorised his owners, Jan's friends, and even their dogs wouldn't go near him! I decided we needed another character, so agreed to take him. We called him Ronnie, I think after other well known dodgy characters, but I can't remember if it was after Ronnie Kray or Biggs!! Anyway he has turned out to be fine with me. He keeps his distance and has never attacked me. However he seems to have a hatred of women! As soon as a woman approaches, even if she doesn't speak, he goes all strange and hisses like a goose, pulls his wing feathers and turns around in circles! He then tries to climb out of the run. If Jan talks to him, he goes beserk, and if she goes in the run, he runs flat out at her!! It was sad losing Donald, but Ronnie has proved to be an equally amusing replacement!

August to November 2007

OK so I didn't have a lot of work this summer, but something good had to come out of what has seemed to be a disastrous year. All this time on my hands was put to good use working on the house and getting out on my road bike. You may or may not know that cycling has been my passion for many years, both mountain bikes and road bikes. Since moving to France, my ability to get out on the bikes has been a bit erratic. What with house renovations, animals and work, there has always been something to slow down or stop me becoming really fit again. This summer I was determined to recapture some decent fitness, and as a goal, I decided to climb some of the passes in the Pyrenees. I've never been what you may call a 'mountain goat', climbing long steep slopes doesn't come naturally to me, so a lot of training was called for! There are plenty of climbs round here, some very steep, some more relaxed. The problem is that they tend to be around 2-3kms long, and Pyreneen passes or 'cols' are rather longer. The Col du Tourmalet being over 22 very steep kms long!! This was clearly out of my reach, at least for this year anyway. Over the next few weeks, and after many kms training, I climbed, first of all, the Col d'Aspin (over 1400m alt) the Col de Somport (over 1600m alt) the Col de Marie-Blanque (steep 1000m) and finally rode up to the Ponte d'Espagne (again over 1400m). Unfortunately, true to form, work came along in the form of the grape harvest for chap called Mr Chaperot, so my run of fitness came to an end for the year. I will try and get out regularly (yeah right!) over the winter though.

All this years lambs have been 'dispatched' apart from the last one. We've been having some wonderful meals over the last few months. Not just lamb, but from the 'Cu Nou' chickens mentioned before. A neighbour asked if I wanted any ducklings to rear for the table as they had too many hatch out all over their farm. I asked how many she had, and the reply was 85! I reckon she would have given me the lot, but I settled on a dozen, what she did with the rest I don't know!

Ronnie the duck has settled in fine, and has never been a problem with me. He even accepted Jan after a while. However, lately he's been returning to his old ways, with Jan at least. If she talks to him he gets so wound up he turns and attacks the nearest bird he can find, pulling feathers out of ducks and hens alike!

The shepherd from the mountains has arrived in our valley again, as he does every year. This year though, Joseph hasn't grazed his huge flock here. Instead he's used my fields as a sort of creche for his sheep with newly born lambs (born out of season for next years 'spring lamb'). Twentysix sheep with around thirty bouncy-bleety lambs tearing around the fields, great time wasters! Benny the ram has finally gone, he has returned to the main flock, but not before getting my girls pregnant. He's been replaced by a young black ram of the Baregeois breed. A breed from the mountains, but meat as opposed to the usual milk breeds, we called him Winston!

The barn wall is still where it fell. Fabian Cassou, a local farmer agreed to take it all away with his trailer, but I just didn't get round to organising the chap with the digger to come round to fill it up. Hopefully over winter.

Summer wasn't just taken up with cycling, the house advanced too. The kitchen now has a fully tiled floor, fully painted walls, and new electrical sockets. I started to work on the lounge, placing the insulated plasterboard around the walls and building a fireplace. Of course a fireplace needs a chimney. I decided to build the chimney outside, as it is probably easier, and safer in the unfortunate event of a chimney fire. As I was cleaning up the old walls prior to glueing on the plasterboard, I came across a pencil drawing of either a man or a very stern woman, drawn directly onto the old plaster. Now this house hasn't been lived in for nearly 100 years, so I found it very interesting. I would love to know who it was, was it the last inhabitent? Was it a self portrait? Either way it was well drawn, so whoever had done it had some talent. Look on the 'House' page to see it.

The bathroom is well on it's way to being completed with the shower now fully operational. This work was halted when a pane of glass, one of the shower walls, broke while we were installing it. When I say 'broke', it actually shattered/exploded into millions of sharp morcels, cutting our arms and feet (I was barefoot!) We had to wait two months for a new glass panel to be delivered. No sooner had the shower showered us in glass, we heard a car pull up outside. It turned out to be my old Norwegian friends, Rolf and Kari, giving us a surprise visit from the Vienne. They were passing through on their way to see the Pyrenees. I normally greet them with a hug, but covered in blood, a handshake was more appealing!

I had mixed success with my vegetables and fruit this year due to the wet and cooler weather. My beans failed, chilis didn't ripen properly, I lost a cherry tree, and the tomatoes, although very tastey, weren't plentyfull like last year. The leeks on the other hand, have been the best ever, the courgettes as abundant as usual, wonderful sweetcorn and the parsnips are looking promising.

December 2007 to March 2008

Spring is well and truly with us, I can tell, as the wind is howling and the rain is hammering on the windows, just as the sun shines! The winter was pretty similar to last year, quite mild and not too wet. We had a very warm and dry February, but March has been horrendous, with rain lasting for days. Still, we need the rain at this time of year, as our summers (not last summer) are dry.

Sam, Hattie and Hattie's lamb Doris (Jan named her!) all gave birth to two lambs each. All had a male and a female. Unfortunately like last year, Sam rejected one of her lambs. I say 'rejected', but in truth she doesn't, she accepts it but only gives milk to one of them. She has enough milk for two, and both of her teats are in good order, so it's bizarre why she does this. Fortunately for the lamb I was expecting this due to last years mistake. So this spring I have been hand rearing a very demanding little lamb. Starting off chasing her round the field to get her to drink bottled milk, then NOT having to chase her as she chased me looking for the milk! Actually I must mention our friends Bob and Denise. They came round every day for the first week at midday to feed the lamb while I was at work. Later on I weaned her off the milk and fed her on granules designed for young lambs, to supplement the grass she was starting to eat. I'm proud to say that she is a happy and healthy strapping young 'lady' now. Too tame and cute to kill, so she's been named Florence (Jan again!) and I can breed from her as Winston isn't her father. The last of last years lambs I've kept, as he was castrated, and is a good companion for Winston when I separate him from the girls in late spring.

The shepherd took his flock of sheep and lambs and replaced them with 12 rams! He'd already given us one of his cheeses, a full cheese weighing 5kgs. The damned thing was too dry and strong to eat normally, so I cut it into wedges and put it in the freezer to use for cooking. So when he gave me another for looking after his rams, I was a bit sceptical. In fact the second cheese was quite nice, not perfect, but good enough to eat with bread or crackers. The rams stayed in the field until I asked him to remove them in March, as I need to let the grass grow for hay.

The ducklings I was given didn't have a great time. Out of the dozen I got, seven died over a couple of months. Although we didn't have severe cold weather, we did have quite a few sub zero nights, and I think they were too fragile for those temperatures. The remaining five are doing well, and are due for the chop soon. The hens are all well, I was half expecting the old Faverolles to not make it through the winter, but they keep on going. I've already had 10 chicks hatch out this spring. I seem to have lost two of them, probably due to the Red Kite who I see keeps flying low over the hen run.

My winter season in the vines has ended prematurely due to the rain. I'm only missing a couple of days though, and as soon as we get some dry weather we'll be hammering around 800 large posts into a new vineyard.

I bought a new bike in February, a Cannondale (road bike) very light, and will be great when I get the chance to take it into the mountains. It climbs much better than the old heavy Peugeot. Of course that means no excuses, and this year I will have to attack the larger, more difficult cols!!

Jan hasn't been here much this winter, as she needed to work, and found a job teaching English in Spain, or to be more precise, the Basque Country. It isn't too far from here, a good three hour drive, mostly by motorway. However, she doesn't come home each weekend as between fuel and motorway tolls, it costs her about 60 Euros for a return journey. She normally spends one weekend in three here, although she had to go back to UK as well due to the sad death of her father. A much loved man and an absolute fountain of knowledge on all flora and fauna, he will be greatly missed.

April and May 2008

If March was wet, both April and May were wetter!! I seriously hope that this isn't going to be the pattern of spring weather in the future, because it is so depressing. We've hardly had a sunny day since February. It's not cold, just warm and wet, not as bad perhaps as last year, but bad enough.

It has been dry enough to both plough and rotavate the vegetable garden. I have sown various seeds in my little free standing 'greenhouse', but not a lot seems to be happening, we need sun!!! After the veg patch, I ploughed and rotavated a larger section of the field next to it. In this area I've sown wildflower seeds, hopefully later in the year it should be a blaze of colour, and also reintroduce wildflowers into the local area when the wind distributes the seeds.

Two more chicks hatched out, but only one has survived. The other was killed by one of the adult 'Cou Nu' hens. She did it right in front of me and then took off with the poor little thing, to eat it presumably. I was livid, and chased her to the far end of the run, where she dropped the chick. It was definitely dead, and then I realised that it hadn't been the Red Kite who had been killing the chicks, it had been her all along. So revenge was swift and sweet. She was a little on the tough side, maybe I should have boiled her rather than roast her!!

The expense of running two ancient tractors is starting to cripple me. Both have been in for various repairs, and I now realise I can't justify having them both, so at the end of the year one will be up for sale. With the money I get from it I'll buy a ride-on mower to get round all the awkward areas on the farm.

My bad luck doesn't just rest with tractors, oh no, cars too! It's not often I can get away from here due to the animals. However, I managed to get my friend Susie to look after them for a weekend so I could go and visit Jan in the Spanish Basque country. As I was returning home on the Monday morning, I got caught up in the rush hour traffic in the next town on from where Jan lives. Approaching a roundabout, everyone braked fairly sharply except the girl in the car behind me. She slammed into me, pushing me into the car in front. My poor little Yaris was crunched both front and rear! Luckily the girl from the car in front spoke good English, as my Spanish is zero. Nobody was injured, so we swapped details, and after relieving the rear wheels of the seriously crumpled bumper, I was able to continue on my way. I drove back through the mountains, which is a lovely route, but after the crash I didn't enjoy it, I was too pissed off! A few days later the car went into the Toyota garage in Pau to be repaired and is still in there as I write. In the meantime I'm using Jan's sporty Peugeot 206cc, very nice, especially on the odd occasion when the sun shines and I can get the roof down, but very expensive to run, especially when fuel prices are rocketing skywards.

Due to all the the expenses of repairing tractors and buying bikes etc. the work on the house has almost ground to a halt. However, in April the renovation took a great leap forward when we finally got the stairs in!!! It wasn't plain sailing though, but with a lot of help from our friend Bob, we managed to squeeze them into place. A bit of sawing here, a bit of bodging there, straining, swearing, scratching of heads, it's all par for the course! I then tiled the entrance hall with the same tiles as the ones in the kitchen, then marked out what will eventually be the tiny downstairs toilet, underneath the stairs. I'm happy now that the stairs are finally in place, what with the new front door, the toilet, the fully functional shower and kitchen, it's become a 'proper' house. People take all these things for granted, but it's not until you've lived like me for the length of time I have, both here and in the Limousin, that you fully appreciate these simple necessities that make a comfortable modern home. I still long to be able to crash out of an evening, in a lounge, on a sofa, in front of the telly. This is something I've missed for around 8 years believe it or not!!

I started back in the vines at the beginning of May. All is fine, we have a nice little team this year and everyone is getting on OK. As I said, weather could be better but could have been much worse. The hailstorms returned this year, damaging hundreds of hectares of vines just like last year. Frederic's vines weren't hit, so far we've been lucky, but it's not over yet, as every day they seem to be forecasting thunderstorms, fingers crossed!!!

June to September2008

We may have had plenty of thunderstorms, but luckily no hail hit our vines, unlike a lot of other vineyards in the area, and Frederic will at least have a harvest (vendange) this year. Not a huge harvest though, as the grapes have been a bit irregular due to last years hail.

Lack of funds virtually put a stop to work on the house for the early summer, apart from laying self levelling screed down on the 'lounge' floor. Problem is that there always seems to be something more urgent to spend my hard earned cash on. The exhaust on the Peugeot literally broke in two, and in the most awkward spot possible. I had to buy a whole new system, including catalytic converter. The price came to an eye watering 1011 bloody Euros!! Then the aged fridge freezer decided it had had enough, right in the middle of a hot spell. Another 415 Euros spent on a replacement. Talk about things being sent to try us! On the good side, the Yaris was repaired, and I couldn't believe how 'new' it looked, although in a sence, most of it was new. Finally Towards the end of August, my work on the house sped up. I tiled the lounge floor and finished off the ceiling, which took a lot longer than expected. With the skirting boards in place, the room was actually finished!! The first room to be fully finished, as all the fiddly finishing jobs were done too. All It needs is some furniture and curtains now.

I finished in the vines mid July, and got stuck into sorting out the vegetable garden. After an incredibly slow start, things looked quite good. Apart from the chili/pepper plants, which were sooooo way behind that they won't be able to ripen their fruits fully before the first frosts arrive. I continued to water them, but felt I was wasting my time. Everything else was fine, courgettes and beans galore, cucumbers and aubergines too. Tons of Roma tomatoes, until they caught blight, my fault I guess for not treating them enough. Although I was able to pick a couple of buckets full to preserve in kilner jars for winter. Plenty of lettuce kohl rabi and beetroot. Oh and the sweetcorn was delicious!

On the fruit side, it's been a wonderful year for my strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrents. Of the latter I picked 1.7kgs from two bushes! Lovely looking apples and pairs (not stairs!) and a tree full of Damsens.

My little wildflower meadow turned out to be wonderful, as hoped, a real blaze of colour, the neighbours loved it, and Denise my neighbour kept picking the flowers for local weddings!

Three lambs, two from this year and one from last year, have been killed so far. Last years lamb was the one I'd badly castrated, leaving him with one testicle. It was the reason he had to go, but I was worried he would have a bit of a 'rammy' taste. At 16 months old I decided he needed hanging longer than the young lambs, as I felt he could be a bit tougher. I kept him hanging for a week before butchering, and you know, I've never tasted better lamb!!

Hens and ducks are all fine, apart from old Fergus who actually dropped dead while eating! I guess he had a heart attack, because one second he was happily eating, the next he gave out a squawk and just keeled over. I was getting fed up with the size of their willow 'trees' cutting out too much light, so I spent a day chopping one or two down, and thinning others out. I've only done one of the runs, and already have an enormous bonfire. So big in fact, that I'm going to wait until it's burnt before cutting back any more.

Boo is very old these days, her legs are really not good at all, and getting more and more incontinent too. Ted is well, and the opposite to Boo, getting younger by the day due to a new member of the family!!! One day I noticed someone had dumped a box in a field up the lane, and popping out of it was a little black and white kittens head. I never understand why people do this, it annoys me they can be so cruel. Anyhow I was very busy and decided there was nothing I could do, and nature would have to take its course. It would either die or become feral. That night there was a horrendous thunderstorm, and going out next morning to feed the hens, I heard a muffled meaowing coming from the Peugeot. Looking underneath I found nothing, still plenty of meaowing, finally the very same tiny kitten climbed out from the engine compartment and basically demanded to be fed! We occasionally get feral cats and kittens passing through, but he was definitely not feral, as he wasn't wary of me at all, and when I opened the front door, he shot inside! After a huge bowl of Ted's food and some milk he fell soundly asleep in Boo's bed, quite content in his new found home! I looked at Jan, she looked at me, we both shook our heads and said "I guess he's staying then"!! I've decided to call him 'Tomsk', after one of the Wombles characters popped into my head (no idea why!) Ted, as you can imagine, wasn't best pleased to have him around. We were concerned that he might drive Ted away, so made a big fuss of Ted whenever he appeared. Problem was that whenever Ted was pissed off with Tomsk, he swished his tail from side to side. This was great fun for Tomsk, something to pounce on! Ted would hiss and spit, then run away at first. Later he settled down and decided that beating Tomsk up was a better bet. This didn't bother Tomsk at all, as he thought it was just a game. Ted finally gave in and accepted the little fella, they still fight, but it's very much a playful 'rough and tumble' fight.

My parents flew over for 9 days in August. Typically the nice hot weather we'd had in July turned to clouds and heavy showers!! They slept in the bedroom whilst I was reminded of the early days here and slept in the caravan. Jan returned from a trip to UK for the last few days of their visit, and 'endured' the caravan too! My parents thoroughly enjoyed their stay, we all ate far too much, so I guess that's proof of a good holiday!

Finally, talking of Jan and I, we decided to part company (nothing to do with the caravan!) We are both still very fond of each other, but realised that our futures lay in different places, and that staying together would only become harmful to our relationship. So we unfortunately split up, but stay great friends instead. We still see each other, Jan lives in a small flat with two other teachers in Spain, and doesn't have room for all her clothes, books, computer etc. So occasionally she returns for a weekend, when she needs items, and also to see me, sometimes I feel nothing seems to have changed, just that we are now best friends rather than lovers, but I'm comfortable with that, and I know she is too.