Petula Gordino

I just realised you don't know what she looks like. She's a bit of a blur I'm afraid

My family and other people's animals

The Breezy Household has upped sticks and moved a couple of kilometres up the road to house sit for a friend who is currently somewhere between here and Scotland with five horses, four cats and two dogs. I racked my brains for something she had three of but couldn’t come up with anything. Sorry.

She has got three sheep but they are still here waiting for their new owner to pick them up. We don’t really have a clue about sheep but we are armed with a telephone number of someone who does. Anyway they don’t look too fragile. In fact they are the sturdiest sheep I’ve ever seen. They seem happy enough with a bit of fresh bedding and water and are just getting on with doing sheep stuff round the back.

We seem to have inherited Stan the cockerel and Mrs Stan who in keeping with the Dinnerladies theme is now Petula Gordino. She is keeping her distance from the Dinnerladies and roosts in one of the barns. Stan obviously has an eye for quantity over quality and roosts with our girls but goes running off every morning as soon as we let him out to search for his free spirited wife. I was entertaining thoughts of Warren x Maran chicks running around the place but judging by Stan’s behaviour I think not. He’s very good at the virile poses and the cock-a-doodle-doing but that’s as far as it goes. His love for the Dinnerladies and Petula is a pure courtly kind of love. He’ll defend them from the kittens to the death but there won’t be any of the other kind of nonsense thank you very much.

Eddie and Ernie are having the time of their lives stalking the Dinnerladies and being chased by Stan, playing at jungle warfare in the valerian, climbing trees and exploring the dark depths of the yew hedge. We no longer hear the thunder of tiny kitten feet while we are trying to get to sleep at night just have two exhausted little bundles curled up on the bed.

Now that Sissy is convinced that the two dogs, four cats, five horses are no longer about she has stopped going to sit in the car and is happily ambling around the place. The sheep are a bit scary though so she never ventures round the back of the house unaccompanied.

TS is off somewhere with a bill hook hacking through brambles exploring and looking for evidence of the fish farm that was once supposed to be here.
I’m missing my garden, especially since my replacement fork from Spear and Jackson was delivered yesterday. Still it’s only down the road. Failing that there is fifty acres to go at here.

Stan Stan he's our man

Those wonderfully well travelled chickens of ours the Dinnerladies are on holiday again.

Like all the best holidays there is deluxe accommodation, great scenery and a little bit of holiday romance.

Meet Stan. Quite dashing isn't he? He lives at our friend's house and only has one wife a very glamourous looking copper marran. He escorts her around the place pointing out to her the choicest titbits of food. They make a lovely couple. Except now she's gone broody and left him to his own devices. He was finding it all a bit depressing really.


So enter the Dinnerladies. What they lack in glamour they make up for in quantity. Stan certainly thought so, when he spotted them across the lawn in the chicken run. He couldn't get over there fast enough. It was like he'd been starving and we'd offered him bread or erm something along those lines.

We worried how they might react to each other as we opened the gate to let him in. Would there be trouble and pecking orders to be established? No need. Once in the run he struck virile poses while the Dinnerladies gathered round to admire him. You could almost hear Dolly saying "ooower he's a bit of alright isn't he Jean?"

An hour or so later our girls were back to scratching around and exploring their new run while Stan proudly stood guard.

Although I don't know how Mrs Stan is going to react when she decides to emerge from her nest in the barn.

We will be joining the Dinnerladies on vacation in a couple of weeks as our friend is moving back to the UK and we are going to stay at her house so we can empty ours out and varnish the floors. But we felt so sorry for Stan we just had to send them on ahead

Bring me my gin

A hot sunny day yippee!

The Dinnerladies needed the use of the parasol for a bit of shade. I think they were waiting for drinks to be served too but they had to make do with nibbles.

The dry weather gave us the chance to plant out some peas, beans and chard and more flower seeds and generally do what we like best and spend the whole day in our garden.

TS took over the job of weeding the Bermuda Triangle which is the flower bed at the side of the house (well a triangular shaped bit of land) into which hours and hours of weeding and planting go without it actually looking any less like a bomb site. I think after about ten wheelbarrows full of weeds, broken bricks, bits of plastic and broken glass it now almosts looks like part of a garden if a bit bald. I softened it up for him last week though!

Everything in the garden is luverley

Except for the plank with the nail in it that I trod on this morning.

But I hobbled on heroic and undaunted and have got the leeks and cauliflowers in and made a promising start on the weeding.

We picked up three sacks and a dustbin full of really well rotted fumier cheval (horse poo) from our friend up the road this morning and we will be going back for more of this black gold throughout the next week or so until we run out of space to dig it into the soil or she gets sick of seeing us. I'm hoping this is going to ensure a bumper harvest.

The Dinnerladies came home yesterday from their holidays and escaped from their run the minute we left the garden. "Oh they don't bother trying to get out under the gaps" Debra had said. Well obviously not at Chez Us in France where there were constant deliveries of treats and tit bits. I just knew they'd be legging it off down the road for the finer things in life the moment they got the chance. Ah but they blessed us with four eggs this morning so I forgive them their fickle little ways.

Oh and the sun has been shining all day. Fab

Chateau Les Chooks New Improved Version

Inspired by Sydney Opera House, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and an air raid shelter the new actually movable, by TS and a complete stranger who was just passing by taking down the village Christmas lights, chicken house was unveiled early this afternoon.

Based on a pallet and an old tea chest and faced with PVC tongue and groove there are perches in the front for roosting and a nice big four chicken sized nest box at the back since that's where our girls seem to prefer to sleep anyway.

The chooks were wildly excited. Not so much by their new quarters but by the fact that they are actually back on grass instead of the big pile of hay that I kept adding to in the movable sized run that was not moving anywhere and was rapidly turning into a swamp. In fact they are so excited that even though it is dark and raining they have still not gone to bed.

News Flash - they have gone now and are making sleepy happy chicken bed time noises.

The only drawback with this design (which TS wants me to point out was constructed under extremely difficult circumstances in the barn with inadequate tools, bits of wood and almost no light) is that it is not raised up to provide shade and/or shelter from the rain. This is easily sorted by a piece of tarp over half the run.

As soon as each bit of ground gets weeded, debugged and manured we'll move them on to the next bit.

Voila! as us French folk say

Slightly less interesting than a fish sandwich

Christmas the season of The Great Escape on tv and the season of the escape proof half a chicken tractor at the Breezy household. Finally, those pesky chooks have met their match in the the form of an archetypal chicken arc type run from which there is no escape.

They have tried. I've watched them inspecting every inch of chicken wire and gathering in the corners comparing notes. For two days now they have been stymied. It's great. No more climbing over the barbed wire to retrieve them from next door, no more walking up the road with a chicken under each arm.

In the fullness of time we will complete the moveable chicken house and Chateau La Chook will be retired in favour of Dunroamin (a nice little Swiss Chalet type design in my head) and then the Girls will get to do the gardening ready for next year's stunning crop of veggies. Optimistic? not really.

We are emerging from a horrible cold flu type of thing and one of the symptoms seems to be being really depressed and paranoid I'm sure it was the feeling of impending doom which finally motivated us to get on and get the run built.

It also motivated me to phone my mother. That and guilt. Now she hasn't got much of a grasp on why we want to be in France and do the things we do but she does like to hear about what the chickens have been up to as a rule. So I gave her a call "Hello Mam How are you?" "Martin's just brought me a fish sandwich" Clearly the conversation was over before it started.

So there you have it our life in France - slightly less interesting than a fish sandwich.

Enjoy.

The Dark Side

Well I absolutely completely and utterly was going to give it a rest on the subject of the chickens. But every day their little bird brains dream up some new way of winding me up.

This afternoon I went out and there was not a chicken in sight. I checked next door front, side and back. No no chickens. Checked the woods and the chemin. No chickens. Came in found cat ball with bell in and got jug of tasty chicken treats. Checked next door front, side and back, woods and chemin shaking jug of food and ringing bell in cat ball. While keeping an eye out that I wasn't spotted by any passing French folk as explanations would of been quite difficult in English.

The bell by the way is what we thought we had trained the chickens to respond to by ringing it when we fed them treats. Normally it brings them running (and there is nothing funnier than the site of a chicken running towards you) but not today.

Anyway I was looking out of the bathroom window torn between worry and thinking well good riddance I've got a fridge full of eggs anyway when I spotted them. In the other side next door neighbours garden. So I was out there again trying to get their attention with bell and jug peering through the hedge. Of course I could of just gone in there and got them but this is strange next door neighbour. The one with an electric fence instead of a gate whose cat wears a collar and is chained up outside a kennel. Honest. (Before you start worrying about the cat I have to say that it looks perfectly happy and healthy and quite often roams through our garden and scares Mimo) So no I was not about to knock on the door and say please mister can I have my chickens back that is the kind of job I normally send Tech Support to do.

I decided they would come back of their own accord round about treat time which Dolly and the two Jeans did but Anita didn't. So many more forays into the woods peering through hedges shouting bup bup bup ringing my bell followed. Strange next door neighbour is probably reading this now and thinking yes the words pot, kettle and black spring to mind (but in French obviously).

About an hour later Anita was spotted next door (the other side) and reunited with the rest of The Dinnerladies. So we still have four chickens and I don't have to go buy another four before TS gets back.

No more now on the subject of chickens

Till tomorrow

I am not the God of Chickens

The chickens have sussed out that The God of Chickens (aka TS) is AWOL and has left me in charge. They are playing me up big time.

Yesterday I had to retrieve them from next doors garden twice, the second time I got caught in the act. Luckily Tuesday I had given Madame a dozen eggs so she was feeling kindly disposed towards them. Nothing will persuade them to come out of there on their own as the bloody daft things can never seem to remember how they got in there in the first place.

I tried shaking the can of sweet corn but all they did was jump up and down and squawk that they couldn't possibly get back and they would never get to eat that corn and they might die. So in I went after them narrowly avoiding a well placed bit of barbed wire, did they squat down like they do for The God of Chickens ?

No they kept just out of reach under the sprouts and crapped and pulled off the odd leaf just to make sure next door knew they'd been. Or ran round and round the pampas grass.

In between the two forays into next door Debra down the road knocked on the door to say she'd just chucked one of them back over the fence as it was out the front near the road.

So I put the chicken run back up, we had been letting them range round the garden now that there's nothing much left for them to ruin.

I obviously did a bang up job because this morning they got out and when I got back from walking the dog I could hear one in the chemin. Again she'd got out there couldn't remember how to get back in the garden and was in a right tiz because she absolutely had to lay an egg right now. I love walking down the road with a chicken under my arm it makes me feel so sophisticated and cosmopolitan.

I was going to round them up again but they promised to be good and just potter about and sunbathe next to the house so I relented. Now at least two of them are next door again, little Bs.

Time to go chicken wrangling then hide round the corner and see how they are getting out. I feel like Mrs Tweedy.

To think I promised not to eat them while TS was away.



ps Got caught again and now all the chooks back in their run jumping up and down looking over longingly at next doors garden Oh and something has eaten all my leeks so it looks like only the brussels sprouts left. It'll be a windy winter!

Chicken Run

"It's like this chicken I'm a predator and you're prey"

"Come on girls there's three of us"

"Ooooooh . . .














. . . sh******t"





















"So anyway I said come on you three chickens if it wasn't for this wire fence you'd be KFC"

We all Have a Dark Side

I was ambling about in the garden today wondering when we would get something to eat out of it (beyond leaves). Thinking well the new potatoes might be ready soon which would be the makings of a substantial meal. I stopped to watch the chickens a bit.

They were doing chicken stuff mainly scratching at the soil and stepping back to see if they'd unearthed anything and chasing the one who managed to get the biggest bug. This got me to thinking about how free range chicken legs are meatier and tastier because they get to do that too rather than being crammed into a barn where they can't move around.

Do you know where I'm going with this?

Yes I'm afraid so. I began to look at "our girls" as food. Not that I would ever eat them no of course not perish the thought. But I might consider eating a chicken that I owned. In fact I might feel more comfortable doing that than eating a chicken that hadn't scratched about in the sunshine and fresh air and had a chance to be a chicken.

Scarey thought for a townie.

God of Chickens

The Dinnerladies are enthusiastic gardeners. Usually they shout encouragement from their run but they are happy to get involved especially when the God of Chickens (Tech Support) is weeding.

I can be doing absolutley riveting things like digging up ants nests, shouting and tapping look at these lovely grubs but no when their hero is in the garden they only have eyes for him.

Their garden time only lasts about an hour though, eventually they get carried away and start trampling the onions and vandalising the peas. So one by one they are picked up and put back in the run and they have to be content with getting the weeds to scratch through till the God of Chickens smiles on them again.

Pees Please

At last we have walls around the bathroom so not only do I now have a pot to pee in but I can pee in it in peace. The luxury is overwhelming. Hot water at the weekend. Bloody hell life is good!

I have been on slug patrol this evening. All our slugs are reddy orange so at least they are easy to spot. I can't bear to touch them so I wonder round the garden with a plastic pot and an oversized dining fork collecting them up (no I don't spear them just sort of manouver them into the pot). Then, since I can't bear to kill them either I relocate them to the woods. Strangely I have no qualms about feeding them to the Dinnerladies but they won't eat them even though they promise to when they are lined up at the wire saying "What you doing? Give us some". They just stab at them a bit then spend ages going "Yuk slimey slugs" and wiping their beaks. (well they do in my world thank you very much ).

Some stuff in the garden is doing really well. You could string a hammock between the spuds , honest. Other suff, well it's crap and just not trying like the leeks or it didn't bother to grow at all. Yes kidney beans I mean you. So tomorrow I am going to start some more stuff off. In pots because I can not distinguish between weeds and veg yet and I'm sick of having myself on that there is a row of food there and not a general blotch of weed seedlings.

I love gardening.

Slugs Ate My Collective Farm Woman

Well you turn your back for a minute. Several days actually. Because it's raining and because there is stuff to be done inside and before you know it your crops are devoured. It's goodbye Collective Farm Woman Melon, goodbye Gigante Liscio Tomatoes and goodbye brave solitary little Heatwave Chilli.

There you are rain and neglect it leads to slugs you heard it here.

We're keeping an eye out for colorado beetles (they call them doryphores here) The only way to deal with them apparently is to pick them off the potatoes and squish them although we might see if the Dinnerladies fancy picking them off and eating them. (Big event this weekend we got a double yolk egg!)

Everytime someone mentions colorado beetle it takes me back to standing in the post office with my gran while she was waiting to collect her pension. There was always a poster of a colorado beetle and details of who to contact if this scourge of potatoes was spotted. This was in a part of Leeds where the houses all led straight onto the street or if they were posh, had a couple of feet of earth and a privet hedge. I always hoped to spot one so I could call out The Man From The Ministry but surprise surprise I never did.

There wasa cobblers shop next to the post office I can smell it now or it could be the dog.

Cool Cats Drugs and Chicks

We took Borg back to the vets today for his check up. This weekend we had been worried about him as he couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep and he looked really depressed.

However over the last couple of days he has managed to sleep and has perked up to the extent that he is giving the dogs black looks even if he can't be bothered to swot them and he is going upstairs to find a sunny spot on the bed to kip. At his age we can't expect a full recovery but as long as he is happy I'll keep drugging his food. I'm getting so good at it that Tech Support is starting to wonder just what goes into his meals as some days he finds he does exactly what he's told without realising.

The chickens have discovered that they can get out of their run. Well actually it's just Dolly and her mate Jean at the moment. Anita and Twink are not so adventurous. Luckily they are happy for us to go and pick them up so no comedy chicken capers yet. Tomorrow we will have to sort out a move for them. Their run is looking a bit bald and the grass is definately greener on the other side. They'll be on the lunch menu next door if they hop over that fence .

We noticed our first little peppers forming today so we are full of anticipation for the culinary delights to come. I've told the tomatoes they've got some catching up to do.

Toilets, sheep it's all happening here

At last we have a flushing toilet and only two more plumbing bits to buy to get a fully functioning bathroom, well shower room actually we don't have room for a bath and anyway I'm not overconfident that the floor would hold a bath full of water. It's just a niggling doubt you understand something to do with the way it all slopes towards the centre. Anyway tomorrow it WILL be finished.

Well, when I say finished it hasn't actually got any walls around it yet so it's more kind of en suite you've heard of dining kitchens well we have an showering bedroom luckily the shower is strategically placed to allow a certain amount of modesty to be retained whilst using the loo.

It will be put right this week we are on a deadline now. Bob is coming round to put the upstairs sockets in next weekend so we really do need the walls by then. One good thing about France (and there are many but I wouldn't like to go on) is that they sell doors complete with frames so with the size of our house that's half the wall done already.

They've moved sheep into the field near our house. I never realised what noisy buggers they are. It's sounded like non stop Prime Minister's question time ever since they got here. The dogs are a bit put out as it's walks on leads now till we get past them. I don't know what breed of sheep (if any) but the lambs have a real piggy faced look to them. Not that they aren't sweet in their own way of course but it sheds a new light on the porc & mutton sausages we've been buying.

Did I happen to mention that we had chickens by the way? Yes? Well today we had a thunderstorm and rain. I thought they would all seek shelter either in or under the chicken house but no, one had to stand outside (let's call her Anita) she even looked like she was enjoying it. There's surprisingly little to a wet chicken.

We enjoyed the rain or rather the lack of watering duties. Its forecast sun and showers for the next week so that should see the veggies perking up a bit no doubt the weeds too so I'll be out there with me weeding fork till the cows come home. That's another good thing about France by the way, at least this bit, they have really pretty cows.

Well I've really wittered on tonight it's the giddy excitement of having that toilet.

We Are Rubbish at Shopping and Finding Stuff

Every time we have been out looking for something this week to progress the work on the house we have bought something we needed but not what we went for.

Looking for taps we came back with carrot seeds and a tin of paint.

Looking for a base to stand the bathroom sink on we came back with a water butt and a pump for the well.

Today neither of us felt like doing any work so we convinced ourselves we need to go shopping again.

Looking for tiles we came back with herbs.

This house is never going to be finished

We are also going through a phase of finding the things we were looking for yesterday. So while I was looking for a jubilee clip this afternoon I found the countersink bit for the drill that we turned the house and barn upside down for yesterday.

The chickens found a jubilee clip in their run (I kid you not still in it's wrapper too) but unfortunately it was the wrong size and all rusted up, but not a bad effort for chickens who are new to DIY. This is more help than the dogs or cat have ever been.

Self Sufficient Sandwiches

Now that we have eggs (courtesy of our lovely girls) and salad leaves as displayed here we can have egg mayonaise and leaf sandwiches for lunch and congratulate ourselves that we have created a meal entirely from our own produce (except for the bread, butter and mayonaise of course). Oh what a wonderful feeling.

The leaves don't even have many bites out of them as luckily there is a toad living under a nearby plant pot.

Now I look at my garden with pride and joy being that it's only been six weeks in the making but travelling around and looking at other peoples' gardens a slight sense of unease is creeping in. You see my garden is rather like me, a bit scruffy and unkempt at the edges, as you can see by the odd tuft of grass and such on the path. The veg plots I see on my travels are pristine with not a speck of non veg greenary to be seen and rows that are straight I mean really really straight and plants that have been spaced to the millimeter using, well I don't know they must of used a micrometer and lasers or something from CERN or NASA. So I feel the same way as I feel when confronted by women who can wear white for more than ten minutes without looking grubby a little bit chastened but not sufficiently to change my ways.

You can see the peas and beans have a way to go and my supports won't be winning any design awards either but we found the ladders in the barn past supporting people but I don't expect the peas will mind.

Half a Job is Better Than None

Today we applied ourselves and we now have cold and cold running water to the new kitchen sink not only that but worktops too. How's that for civilised? It was almost a pleasure to make food.

We still kept popping out to see the girls though who you will be pleased to know found going to bed an hour later perfectly acceptable and settled down as good as gold. We got two eggs today laid in the nest box that was cunningly designed to be opened from the back so we were all happy.

I love having chickens so I'm afraid you have to have another picture of my darlings.

Tomorrow I will have to lavish some TLC on the veggies the weeds seem to be springing fully formed from the ground everywhere and my plot is looking decidedly scruffy compared to next door.

We just get too easily distracted every time we go out we see WILDLIFE it's great. Deer and a hare yesterday morning on the way to the shops and gorgeous butterflies that have to be looked up in the butterfly book and bugs that have to be looked up in the bug book and birds well you get the picture.

And so to bed with the stuff on the to do list getting a bit done here and a bit done there by the half a job Anglais

Today we have mostly been going bup bup bup

That's how we talk to our chickens who have been moved to their new residence.

They took a bit of persuading to come out it was Dolly who came first. We think she's the one who's laying as her wattles are redder than the other girls at the moment. Anyway she's the boldest and will come to you if you bup bup bup and will let you stroke her. The others have yet to come out of their shells (ha ha ) and reveal their personalities.

We've just put them to bed and of course they didn't want to go back in it was still a bit light and all the other birds were still playing out. But the anxious new parents wanted them safely tucked up before dark.

Having a house on legs so they could get shade underneath seemed like a good idea and they have enjoyed making a dust bath under there today but it's also a good place to hide when you don't want to go to bed and no amount of bup bup bupping and tapping your food dish can make you come out.

Maybe tomorrow after they've spent the night in there they'll take themselves to bed.

Tonight we will sleep with the window open so we can hear if there is any ruckus in the night and we have the spotlight ready set up in case any undesirables try to creep in. Well you can't be too careful we'll be buying a 4X4 next so we can transport them safely to their piano lessons