Are We There Yet? YES

So finally we set off Tuesday night and now I'm bringing you the latest news courtesy of Cheryls PC.

Our 12 hour drive turned into 18 hours because we missed our check in but we don't care cos we're HERE.

We are on a blow up bed surrounded by all our junk and the dust from Lawrence and Martin's last DIY with the dogs for furry hot water bottles and the cat for a bed cap but we don't care cos we're HERE.

I'll tell you all about it later but now I'm sorry to say we're off shopping, a vacuum cleaner for the dust, some coat hangers and some washing line to make a wardrobe we could of brought them but we preferred the books.

Aurevoir mon petites

And all together now

One more day to go
One more day of sorrow
One more day of this old place
And we'll be gone tomorrow

Where did that come from? Tempting fate? I hope not but if the pet passports are finally done then we're off.

Previously on Breezy Break Blog
We decide to throw caution to the wind and go to live in France
Moan about IT
Introduce the cast
Start getting the pet passports
Theorise about all the stuff we might do
Shop a bit
Wait around a lot and talk rubbish

But just wait till I am regaling you with our tales of derring do it will of been worth it all this hanging around to see if we do anything. See you on the other side folks

(fingers crossed, touch wood and all that stuf

Are We There Yet? No!

It's now day eight of the seven to ten days wait for the pet passport blood test results.

We have rung the vets three times. The first was last Friday to make sure they had the right number to ring us when the results came, the second yesterday day seven and then again today. No doubt we'll be ringing again tomorrow too and the day after that and . . .

Well lets hope not.

So a bit sparse on the news to report front. Except we are all packed up now even to the point of a ready filled (with cat litter) litter tray in Borg's huge cat basket. Just in case we don't have as much room in the trailer as we hoped the boxes have been sorted into essential and could wait for Martin to bring.

The car has been tweaked to a peak of goingness and the Eurotunnel web site is being perused hourly as we calculate and recalculate possible departure dates. I have even been dreaming about booking tickets so there is just no escape. Lawrence has been dreaming about Kung Fu fighters throwing ballroom dancers at each other I just wish he'd concentrate on the matter in hand.

Shopping and Shaolin Cat Handling

Still on the shopping in lieu of moving we again went in search of the elusive 99p blueberry bushes. No joy. Although we did see the very empty basket where they had been on sale in Sowerby Bridge which is the closest we've come.

We bought Borg a rather fetching collar in a luminous motorway maintenance green so he can't be mistaken for a stray when we move. He's trying to decide if we're taking the p***. We can tell that by the way he's laid on the sofa twitching the tip of his tail and giving us hard stares. We've put an address tag on but if we were taking the p*** we'd of left the bell on too. He complains to the management when he spots a mouse or a bird, so no need for a bell. He's also got a new litter tray with a rim on that will allegedly stop him kicking litter where we can walk on it in our bare feet.

He's been quiet the last few days since his blood test. I think he's in shock. The vet nurses had obviously trained at the Shaolin Cat Handling School. They had him out of his box, neck shaved, chip checked, blood taken and back in the box in less than a minute. In his younger days he would of showed them a move or two of his own, perhaps a no shadow kick or two complete with Bruce Lee yowls. He must be getting mellow.

Oops Heroes is starting got to go

Sea Holly is Not a Blueberry Bush

Irene is now the proud possessor of a Victoria Plum tree which we picked up from Lidl for her this morning. There was no sign of any blueberry bushes so Lawrence bought some sea holly. Well it's a plant and it's blue.

Not to be outdone in the money spending fest I bought Kitchen Garden magazine. No that's not edible either but it had a free packet of cucumber seeds on the front. Again cucumbers aren't edible according to Lawrence except maybe in Greek salads and then only in Greece.

Anyway it's my favourite magazine being that it caters to three of my current obsessions gardening, chickens and beekeeping. Theoretical of course but it's all there bulging in my head just waiting to be put into practice. Perhaps I should be buying one of those celebrity magazines though as we're starting to sound like a right pair of old farts when we're watching tv and I had no idea who half the folk were on Strictly Come Dancing. My mother has more idea than me despite only intermittently knowing what day it is.

The tree in the pic by the way is in Samaria Gorge, Crete

Pesky Crows

Tasha is well pleased with herself this morning she has sneaked under the duvet and had a lie in followed by a walk where she sorted out crows and shouted at other dogs, then a visit to Grandmas to play with the squeaky toy. As a bonus the fire is on full blast due to Lawrence being under the weather so she can lie in front toasting her belly. Her life is complete.

Crows are Tasha's pet hate. This is because she's a dog who takes herself seriously and a crow once made her look foolish. This was about five years ago, but she knows how to bear a grudge.

We were walking along by the side of the canal when a crow landed in front of her. Of course it had to be chased because Tasha's mission in life is to be in charge. It obliged by flying away as it should and Tash congratulated herself on a job well done. Unfortunately, being a crow it had a sense of humour and flew round in a circle to land behind her to be chased off again and again by an increasingly frustrated bossy little dog.

So crows are the enemy (even worse than turbo-squirrels but that's another story), whether they're seen perched on a lamp post or at the side of the motorway from the car, they have to be cursed and chased if at all possible. Pesky crows.

Pet Passports the Hour Approaches - Lidl Special Offers

So of course I can't settle down to doing anything constructive today because I've convinced myself that at least one of the gang will fail. Probably the cat just for spite. That will put us back a month and I want to go NOW.

Wait till I'm waiting for the results I'll be really useless.

Besides, they are selling blueberry plants at Lidl for 99p from Saturday (a nice person posted about this on River Cottage but don't tell anyone else or there won't be any left) and we want blueberries for the garden and we could buy them and take them with us. Otherwise we just have to go buy some for Irene's garden and then Martin will be telling us how many blueberries they got and even worse how good the pies were.

The shopping is of course a replacement for doing stuff so that we can feel like we're moving toward our goal. The practical alternative is looking things up we might want to buy on t'internet this is a lot cheaper so here's a link to Lidl online to save you going in and spending money. Don't say I never give you anything.

French

The learning French item on the To Do list keeps looking at me funny. Sort of with raised eyebrows and a tut. It's trying to make me feel guilty because I never actually get any further than CD 2 or in other words about a month's worth. I am however up to CD 2 of about four different courses now, but I can't really call that the equivalent of 8CDs worth.

I keep telling it that when I get there it will all be different because I'll have to and I'll get to practice in real life situations like with Madame and Monsieur next door who are really lovely and willing to spend ages getting through to us. It looks sceptical. I'll show it.

In an effort to appease it I've added HardworkingHippy's commune blog Bourrou to my regular reading. It's bite sized chunks and pics so my brain doesn't switch off.

I am getting quite good at getting the gist but getting French to come out of my mouth is another thing altogether. It's like driving lessons "you mean I've got to look in the mirror, change gear and steer round a corner?" except it's "you mean I've got to listen, translate and reply?" all while my brain's running round in circles waving it's arms in the air. If I do actually manage to do all this my brain is then so overcome with admiration that I miss the next 10 minutes of conversation .

Ah well c'est la vie

Bodging and Badgering

I started to browse about the panels for the raised beds and via green woodworking ,which was a pretty useful bit of info on the BTCV web site, I came across bodging which is polelathe turning. If I'm honest I have come across it before in Ben Law's book The Woodland Way and I think I may have to give it a go.

No not just because of the name, although I will admit that is a major attraction I think Bodger would look good on a business card for instance, but because of the great stuff these people are making on a piece of machinery that you can make yourself. And they are making them out of what would essentially be scrap wood.

There are bowls, toys, candle holders, little boxes loads more things than I could imagine being made on a lathe. Not that I do a lot of imagining about lathes as such.

Badgering? no nothing about that I just wanted it in the title.

Bed raising, Self sufficiency the musical

I know it's spring and this is an autumnal picture but I just like it. I took it at the fishing lake at St Sornin-Leulac when we were house hunting. I cropped the right hand side to get rid of Techsupport's bum. (he was bending over to pick up chestnuts)

Although I'm stll thinking about vegetables and the raised beds. In fact I sketched it all out again today but I've still not got it all staight in my mind what's going where. These thoughts have led me to thinking about trees and woodland due to thinking about where to get the wood for the raising of said raised beds.

Mmm perhaps we can have a bed raising sort of like a barn raising, but for people with limited DIY skills who don't like ladders. There could be food and checked shirts and slapping of thighs and everything.

There is lots of wood in the barn but Techsupport says it might be useful for some other project like building the kitchen or a table.

I'm cooking up the idea of some sort of woven panels. The stakes could be chestnut which apparently is good for that kind of thing as it does not rot quickly and we have lots of chestnut so that's score 1 for self sufficiency. We also have hazel and bamboo but the question is can they be used freshly cut for the in and out bits of the weave. I can see the advantage if they could because they would be more flexible so that would be self sufficiency 2 points.

On the down side I imagine that it would take an awful long time to weave 150m even if it was only six inches high. Minus 1 point for defeatism. So I'm going to take a break from the veg and tootle off to do some browsing on t'internet and see if the books that go in to that sort of thing are here or in France.

I suppose I'll also have to do some washing as the washing fairy hasn't been calling much of late.