Pumpkins and stuff

The first of the pumpkin harvest and a busy cooking day.

Cornish pasties (nothing to do with pumpkins but anyway a batch of 14 for the freezer)

Butternut squash soup was the next on the list to be followed by an attempt at pumpkin pie.

The large orange pumpkins were from a volunteer plant. I didn't have a big enough, sharp enough knife to slice through one but TS came to the rescue with his wood splitting axe and split one in four for me.

We were so busy chopping up this pumpkin and turning it into puree that I accidently invented a new recipe, butternut squash and ginger mash. This involves a couple of cloves of garlic, an onion, a carrot, a potato, a teaspoon of ginger, lovage and coriander leaves, two butternut squashes and a litre of vegetable stock. Combine as if for soup ie sweating veg first in butter then adding stock then forget about it while you wrestle with an oversized pumpkin so that the stock is absorbed by the veg and the excess boils away and the vegetables will mash with a fork. But catch it just before it starts catching on the pan. Delicious! I might try making it on purpose next time.

Just waiting for the pumpkin pie to cool now. If we like it I've got another 5lbs of pumpkin puree on standby.

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.

I will say this only once

I know it's another kitten photo but this one of Eddie was just so good I can't resist.

I have a confession to make. the French lessons have fallen by the wayside due to TS having work that pays money. It's a shame but given the choice of eating and paying bills or sitting ecoutez-ing and répétez -ing it's no contest. However, all is not lost because we are plowing on with the Michel Thomas CDs. He has cleared up a lot of mysteries for me and I might finally be finding a French voice.

Than again.

Yesterday the phone rang I said "Hello". Like you do, you are perhaps thinking. But no it's not just a random choice of word it's for two reasons.

One it's probably someone English ringing and

Two if it's not then it's easier all round if the person on the other side of the phone doesn't start off with any great expectations about having a conversation.

It was a French lady so I did my usual "I'm sorry I only speak a little French but if you speak slowly then perhaps I will understand"

She asked if we had a freezer I proudly confirmed we did, Because we have. A bargain buy the other week for the princely sum of twenty euros that is so old and noisy it has to live in the barn but it makes stuff cold, really cold.

Anyway she was from a frozen food company and would we like to buy some with free delivery. Thinking of the portion of curry and brown sliced loaf that are the sole beneficieries of all the freeezy coldness going on in the barn I expressed guarded interest.

Well the upshot of the shooting my mouth off in French is that they are turning up on a Friday between 9 and 10 and may or may not be making a delivery of some stuff that may include salmon, scallops, ice cream and cauliflower. Or that could of been an example of an order. Oh and I'm not altogether sure which Friday either.

But I will be receiving a free recipe book.

I think.

One volunteer is worth ten pressed men

Here's our volunteer pumpkin. It could only be from the compost I dug into the garden last winter. Huge in comparrison to the ones I have coddled and nutured it's elbowing the cauliflowers out of it's way ready to go rampaging across the garden with a volunteer potato hot on it's heels.

If pumpkin pictures are just too exciting for you I do have a picture of a tomato. Sad I know but after last year's complete wash out I am thrilled to have nine (yes nine I counted them) little tomatoes appearing on one of the tomato plants. The others have some too but I haven't counted how many I have a short attention span.

We very nearly have peas too! We have leeks that are developing a distinct leekness, onions that might actually come out of the ground bigger than when we put them in, and climbing beans climbing. Also putting in an appearance are salsify, swiss chard, beetroot, carrots, cucumbers and broad beans.

In fact if it wasn't 30 degrees in the shade I would be out there weeding and coddling and praising all the little veggies and telling them just what a bang up job they are doing. But with my eyes screwed up against the sun I can choose not to see the weeds.

If you go down to the woods today

I dare you to look at the full size image!

Have we been watching too much Sci Fi ? Is that why we got the feeling that if we leant in too close it would reach up and grab us? Or maybe it did and now we are being controlled and seeking to infect others.

We think it's an Octopus Stinkhorn, a kind of fungus. It was there in all it's gory glory this morning and already by the time this picture was taken something had eaten a bit of this one and the other one a few yards away was gone entirely.

They are supposed to be edible if disagreeable. I think I'll stick to button mushrooms in a plastic punnet thank you.

Raining

The train station at Limoges.

Rather nice eh? Debs at Us in France tells me it looks pretty good on the inside too. Maybe we'll go somewhere one day and find out.

I didn't even know it was the train station till we somehow got diverted round the one way system and came at it from a different angle.

This photo was taken the last time there was a hint of blue in the sky. Which feels like months ago but was probably last week.

The rain has meant constant slug patrols to guard the newly emerging carrots and newly planted out pumpkins and cucumbers. This entails me walking round the garden with my "slug tin" and a stick for maneuvering slugs into the tin. When the tin is full, or a slug looks like escaping I take it down to the woods and empty it. Well more accurately I fling the slugs as far into the woods as I can. TS takes a more direct approach and picks them up and flings them individually (urghhh).

Snails and little slugs get fed to the chickens (harsh but fair they eat our food so get eaten by the chooks who provide us with eggs so we still get our food, indirectly). I've mentioned before, I think, that our chickens won't eat the big really slimey slugs which is why the big slugs get flung instead. I don't know why I can't bring myself to directly kill them but it just doesn't seem right somehow.

No feeding to the chickens or flinging it's so much more humane.

Not so Fast

Tootling around in Frogmella as is our want. What do we see but sheep spilling out into the road. Oh no! look out!

No gentle reader do not panic these are not sheep but sleeping policemen of the French variety.

"Oh those heartless Frenchies" I hear you cry. But fear not for no sheep were harmed in the calming of this traffic. These are the concrete sheep of Mézières-sur-Issoire.
Convincing aren't they? Well they are when you are tootling along through the town. Close up they do look just a little naff. With strange pointy mousey faces.

They are strategically placed on the major roads through the town to slow the traffic. At least we think that's what they are for. Maybe someone on the council just likes sheep

I Am An Internaut

Following our run in with the law we thought we'd better get on to sorting out registering our ownership of Frogmella and whilst in the mood for venturing into Limoges and looking officialdom in the eye, why not get TS registered as self employed to increase our employment options?

The saga started Tuesday when our very good friend Elizabeth from Limousin Property Shop . (very very very good friend. What else can you call someone who will drive for an hour to do you a favour and then be surprised and delighted when you offer to pay for the coffees, bless her she is one in a million).

Anyway it started Tuesday. First job was to go to our local Mairie to get the right form for the car. We thought at this point (naive!) that we were going to the Marie to actually sort this out. No we were given the right form and instructions on where to go in Limoges to sort it out and what to take with us.

In the mean time Elizabeth had rung to check what we needed to do for TS to register and where to go. So the printer was red hot photocopying our life's archives passports, birth certificates, marriage certificate, driving licences, utility bills, bank statements, school report from the fourth year (kidding! or am I?). And we thought "Great! we can get all this done in an afternoon with the aid of our French speaking friend"

There will now be a pause while we and everyone else who lives in France laughs hysterically.

To be fair we did loose an hour by getting lost in the one way system and not being able to park.

Then we went to where we thought we should go only to find out we should actually be somewhere else at the other side of the city centre. So we hopped into Elizabeth's car to go where we ought to. There we (well Elizabeth) spoke to a very nice lady who couldn't actually help us but promised to pass TS's dossier on to the person who could the very next day. This person would ring Elizabeth if they had any questions.

And she did the very next day. We were impressed!

In the mean time the very next day we went back to Limoges to sort out the car registration as by the time we had finished at the right place where they couldn't actually help us at that moment in time the Prefecture was closed.

We went in a took a ticket. Good system I thought. It was. The only problem was the 33 people in front of me in the queue. Anyway to cut a long wait short I presented all the right documents got a slip of paper in return then queued at the paying for the car registration desk and YAY ! got the new Carte Grise (car registration document).

Do you know I have lost the will to live just recounting this so I will race to the finish and tell you that another two trips into Limoges later TS is registered as self employed in the business of Computer and Internet Services and Gardening. His title? Chef D'Enterprise.

I am consumed with envy at this important title as I am now classed as his dependent (then again I always did want to be a kept woman), but my time as 34th in the queue was not wasted oh no for I learnt a new French word whilst watching the information screen going round and round. I am an internaut ! So much more dashing don't you think than internet surfer.

ps the park is the Jardin Moulin Pinard which we found when we were lost at some point over the last week.

Will it won't it Shall I shan't I

Don't know how long I can hang around tonight the thunder is thundering in the distance which means the internet thingy will soon have to be unplugged or risk being fried.

It's been lovely and sunny today and once more the rain on the weather forecast seems to have moved back a day. May is a time of bank holidays and thunder storms and of me dithering about if I should water the garden or not. The sky looks awfully promising there could be lots of rain or it could just pass us by.

My seeds could be sad little dried up things or they could be floating away down the road. Decisions decisions.

I have also learned why lots of people round here have what look like little bus shelters over their tomatoes. For thunder storms can bring hail stones as well as rain. After running round the other day trying to cover mine up with bits of plastic while getting pelted with hail I shall have a bus shelter for mine next year. You live and learn.

Oh I almost forgot, we got stopped by the police yesterday whilst tootling about in Frogmella. It was most embarrassing as TS suddenly couldn't find first gear, or any other for that matter, to move to the designated being pulled up by the police spot. When we eventually got there and they asked for our documents we just shoved everything barring Sissy's pet passport at them.

The policeman tried and failed to speak English to us and we tried and failed to speak French to them so I guess we were quits. At least TS didn't break into Greek which he has been known to do under pressure a new twist on "it's all Greek to me". Incidently the equivalent Greek saying is it's Chinese. You really needed to know that didn't you.

Verte-ually a car

At the first sign of work involving driving about naturally our car went to pieces.

This meant an SOS for a cheap car that didn't use much fuel, that was cheap and drivable and most of all cheap. So here is Frogmella who fits the bill admirably.

A 21 year old Citroen AX with a somewhat younger engine who had been languishing unloved and unwanted in a friend's neighbour's barn.

Unbelievably she passed her CT (kind of like an MOT but lasts for two years) first time. Should she have any problems also included in the deal was a huge sack of spare parts that would almost make another car. Not that we would know what to do with them of course, well TS might. Luckily our French car insurance includes breakdown cover.

We will now blend in with the locals and as long as we keep our mouths shut, could be mistaken for French. That is as soon as we get up the nerve to tailgate other cars on long straight bits of road then overtake on blind corners or the brow of a hill.

Did I mention she was really cheap? To you guv 300 euros and 2 hooligan pumpkin seedlings

Good moaning

Finally today we got to our first proper French lesson.

The ones we enquired about oh last Octoberish.

I've really tried, honest I have, to buck the system and get things moving even to the point of trying to get someone round to give lessons while we were in Leeds but to no avail. I was beginning to think I was cursed to spend the rest of my life having the poor lady in the bread shop explain the difference between saying "I'd like two croissants AND two pain au raisins" and "I'd like two croissants OR two pain au raisins"

So today we have done days of the week, months of the year, bonjours and aurevoirs, thank yous and excuse mes. All of which I know but I am trying to get a proper grip of things to fill in the gaps and I thought going back to the beginning was the best way to learn all those pesky little making sentences words that get you beyond talking like a two year old and asking for socks of apples when you mean apple turnovers. On the down side it will probably make life very dull for the local shop keepers.

I always have a mental picture of myself as the policeman in Allo Allo (though he is probably better than me) as I wander round The Limousin generating gallic shrugs in my wake



Other than that we have mostly been doing the garden and I'm pleased to report that Bristish hooligans will soon be rampaging all over the place. Hooligan pumpkins of course.

I was busy doing stuff

Hi remember me?

We've been home for two weeks now and I just don't know where they have gone. Obviously I have been doing stuff but what was it?

Well out of the last six days five have been spent gardening. Unfortunately only two of those on our garden. We got three days work gardening for someone else on the cheque d'emploi system. This is a way of legally doing casual work in France. The people employing you get a special cheque book to pay you with and the powers that be automatically add social security payments into the amount they pay. If you are interested there is more about the system here.

Well, when I say gardening job it was more akin to slash and burn as it involved clearing copious amounts of brambles, broom (which really is a weed here) and hawthorn from a plot that is going to be a brilliant orchard. It has a long south facing wall and it's own spring fed irrigation system. I was a trifle envious (read dark dark green) both of the plot and the fruit trees waiting in the wings. In fact I think I may be turning into a true gardener as I coveted that plot far more than the rather posh house it belonged to. The trouble was as the weather got hotter the slight slope somehow turned into a cliff face without it actually drying out all the brambles and broom and hawthornes enough to make a really good bonfire and complete the burn side of the whole operation leaving the garden clearance slightly less clear than one would hope. Just where is that Ray Mears when you need him?

Anyway back to our rather more humble Chateau La Pants where we have spent the last two days hauling horse poo, weeding and planting stuff. Oh but not enough stuff by a long chalk. We have leeks, cauliflowers, onions, tomatoes and salad leaves in the ground, peas, beans, pumpkins and squashes in our mini greenhouse thing hopefully sprouting and raspberries and currants newly planted in the orchard. On the decorative front (for we are determined to have a beautiful AND productive garden this year) we have a summer flowering jasmin, geraniums, gladioli, dahlias and crocosmia planted out with sweet peas and nastursiums in the greenhousy thing. That only leaves umpteen other things to sow in the ground or in pots and about half the garden still to clear of weeds. But we look like we have had our bit of sunshine for the week and the ground is still waterlogged.

So all in all this accounting of my time is a bit like trying to balance my cheque book. I can justify less than half of my expenditure. It's not surprising I never have any money or get through half the stuff I want to do. All I can say on both counts is, if I didn't spend it well at least I was mostly having fun probably.

Like so many of my school reports it's "must ty harder" and "could achieve so much more if only she would apply herself" and look now it's half one in the morning and I only just got round to the post I was going to do a week ago and I still have to get a good night's sleep then plant more stuff and go to the bank and do the laundry and get more potting compost and clean out the chickens and pay the house insurance, buy chicken food . . .

Oh and I'm still rubbish at French and then there's the paperwork to sort and I need to check out what all of you are up to.

Frazzled moi?

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

On a High

I feel good

Dooby doobidy doo

I knew that I would now

I feel good

Dooby doobidy doo

(yes I know you thought James Brown was in the room with you for a moment there)

Anyway I do feel . . .

Good so good

Yesterday was another story altogether I was happy to be home but the journey left me the most travel sick I have been since I don't know when. We had to make a sharp exit from Debra's place as it hit me hard as soon as we sat round her kitchen table. Then when I went to bed the room was spinning. Oh but today I'm completely and utterly with it and enjoying being back to the full.

Already there have been purchases of leeks for the garden and potting compost.

You would of had a picture of the violets we spotted in the woods this morning but we forgot to put the card in the camera so in lieu this is Mortemart. There's a plant fair there this weekend and I shall be rushing around it clutching my hard earned euros tightly in my fist. Who knows I might even prise it open and buy something.

Tomorrow we'll be going to buy the basic groceries like butter and bread that completely slipped our minds today in all the giddy excitement of leeks and compost (oh we know how to live we do). That's after we reclaim the Dinnerladies from Deb's place where they have been right royally looked after.

Then I need to dig over the garden and plant the leeks, peas, broad beans, carrots, onions, cauliflowers and all the flower seeds oh and the dahlias and gladioli.

Don't know what we'll be doing after lunch.

Happy Blogaversary To Me

Yes I have been blogging for a whole year today.

Strangely enough a year later and I'm in almost the same place but different.

I am staying at my brother's again (same brother, well only brother, different house) waiting to go off to France to fill our garden with food, do the house up etc. etc.

But another year older is another year wiser so I have been looking on e-bay at bits and bobs to take back with us like kitchen units that are strangely expensive in our bit of France where people don't chuck everything out and go for a new look kitchen, living room etc every few years.

I won't be taking umpteen packets of veg seeds, except I have already bought six on a whim yesterday but they were only 29p each so maybe I will. But I won't make the mistake of putting them in too early or trying to give plants a good start in crap compost. And I will plant some stuff that will produce food into the winter like chard. I'll also be planting squashes because I've discovered that I do like them to eat as well as to look at. I will not however, be trying to grow onions or leeks from seed. I'll buy a punnet of 50 little leeks for 5 euros and a bag or two of onion sets instead. I'll also buy pepper plants and chilli plants and probably tomato plants because we have nowhere warm and light enough to start them off.

I'll also be working on making the garden pretty as well as productive so that we can enjoy sitting out there even more. Whilst still feeling guilty that we're not doing up the house or something else useful.

All in all I'm just as excited as I was this time last year but I know a little bit more. Maybe I'll direct my energies better and finish some jobs. More likely I'll just find a whole new lot not to finish. At least we'll be starting off with heating, washing and cooking facilities even if we are still on the blow up bed. That has to count for something. Right?

Neck Yer Chickens Missus

It's been a busy few days. For me at least. TS has been idling on the sofa since Saturday while I have been digging the garden, chopping wood, moving the chickens about, cooking, cleaning, virtual assisting.

Alright I knew you wouldn't believe that of him! Actually he's had a bad back due to the little comedy of errors described here . I think he may of given up on his ambition to be "The Finest Woodsman in the Whole of France" (it only works if you do the Inspector Clueso accent). He certainly can't do the hand on hip manly chest thrown out pose that goes with that claim at the moment.

So today I was poking about in the barn looking for easy bits of scrap wood to cut up when a white van pulled up and a swarthy looking chap got out. We did the obligatory bonjour handshake stuff, then he said could he take the scrap metal next to the barn. The aforementioned scrap is actually some sort of cutting thing that goes on a tractor which TS had decided a few months ago might be worth something so it has been lying there ever since. I'm sick of the sight of it and sick of telling various scrap metal people that no they can't take it but they can buy it if they like. Taking advantage of the fact that TS was incapacitated I said yes take it.

That's a good thing about here actually you can't hire skips to take rubbish away (at least not cheaply and easily) but leave just about anything in the way or scrap metal or knackered furniture, fridges, cookers at the side of the road and someone will pull up within a couple of days and ask if they can take it. If that fails the commune will send someone out to pick it up if you phone them but we've never had to yet.

The conversation then moved on to anything else we might want to get rid of but we already had a bunch of people round last week who got all the remotely saleable things out of the barn that we didn't want. The next talking point was how long we had had the house and was there a lot of work to do on it at which point the guy produced a flyer advertising his painting and decorating company and said he also did tiling.

Finally, spotting the Dinnerladies in their swanky new run he said something about chickens which I didn't get. I used my favourite phrase "je ne comprend pas" he then mimed wringing a chicken's neck.

It's tough making a living in the Limousin you clearly have to turn your hand to anything.

I told him they were for eggs only and no we wouldn't be killing them when they stopped laying as they were pets, or I might of said they were my familiars, either way he got the message. It's weird actually all the French people you speak to about your chickens want to know if you are going to eat them. Maybe it's because they know us English won't so it's a joke or maybe it's just the French obsession with eating.

Sunny Days and Rainy Days

Yesterday was completely unremarkable yet quite perfect.


It was sunny and mild so we spent most of the day pottering about in the garden.


First of all a funeral pyre for the old chicken house, then digging over the ground where the chickens have been, turning and building up the compost pile, clearing bits of wood and stones, pruning the raspberries generally tidying up.

All the while we were making plans about what we were going to try growing this year and where we were going to put it, watching the antics of the chickens, admiring the robin who was flitting about checking out the newly turned soil and compost heap.

Nothing major going on then just a feeling of quiet contentment.

Today, well it's been raining and I've booked Sissy into the vets on the 21st for her pre return to the UK tick and tapeworm treatment and the three of us on to the channel Tunnel for the 22nd.

Thank goodness the vet receptionist speaks some English between us on the phone we managed to establish what I wanted and when I wanted it (I hope). The phone has to be the most difficult way to communicate in a foreign language but at least I can cheat a bit and have babelfish open for when I really get really stuck. I am getting better though. I have taken to keeping telesales people on the phone until I get the gist of what they are trying to sell me or they get frustrated and hang up. They must think they've hit the jackpot when they first get through poor things only to find out they are really giving me free French lessons.

So 22nd Jan UK here we come. Assuming of course that I've booked the right thing at the vets, Sissy's microchip hasn't gone missing, the car doesn't break down, we don't win the lottery . . .

. . . good job I only have just over a week to think about it

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

No more Mrs Mardy Pants

I've been having a wander round various blogs reading about what people have achieved over the last year and what their plans are for this year. Quite inspirational really. So I thought instead of being Mrs Yah Boo I've Got To Go Back To The UK Mardy Pants I would have a look back over what we've done this year that we never did before and maybe make some New Year resolutions that I can kick myself later for not achieving (oops Mardy Pants keeps raising her head bear with me while I give her a quick slap)

1) I have achieved my long held dream of sleeping till I wake up for nine whole months. This means not getting up at 6am in the dark and dragging the poor dog off for a walk in pissy cold wet rain before joining in the wacky races on the M62 to get to a job that sucks my soul away and saps my will to live (Ok it might not of been that bad but you know what I mean).

2) You might not of noticed. I know I hardly ever mention them but we have chickens. How did we ever manage without them? No more wondering if the eggs I'm buying are really free range and what sort of conditions the chickens were kept in. Plus they are a joy to watch. Unless you are watching them digging up someone else's garden that is and they talk to you and hum and make happy chicken noises. The eggs are almost a bonus. Lovely fresh eggs to make as much custard as you can eat with some to spare to give to friends and neighbours (eggs that is not custard).

3) Kind of leads me on to I made custard! Real custard not from a packet and jam and chutney and soup. Whole meals even from stuff I had to hand. From scratch.

4) And of course we grew food like potatoes and beans and peas and sweetcorn and salad and carrots and onions and cucumbers. I got past wondering if everything might have a maggot in it and not really be up to the standard of something grown by professionals and discovered that vegetables taste really really good when they are really really fresh and you've nurtured them and anticipated eating them for weeks and weeks. So much so that cooking them is fun and satisfying and rewarding. I've felt the soil in the garden warm up as Spring moved into Summer and I've actually been affected by what the weather is doing rather than just inconvenienced.

5) We've built internal walls in the house ( that very nearly reach the ceiling and will do if we ever finish them), plumbed pipes, fitted sinks and a toilet and a shower. We've discovered that a perfect looking house is not nearly as important when you're not compensating for not having control over other areas of your life. Although a scruffy shack can still be quite embarrassing especially when it looks the same as it did when someone called in months ago.

6) We've lived in a foreign country

Six of the best is enough to give you the flavour I think. So looking forward I will:-

1) Stop sulking because I am luckier than lots of folks

2) Learn more French

3) Grow more food

4) Cook and eat it with the respect it deserves.

5) Repay some of the hospitality and favours of the wonderful people we have gotten to know this year

6) Oh I don't know. I'm sure the list will be up to 60 by the end of the week

So this is 2008

So eight courses and a bottle of wine later it's 2008

That was six hours spent on a meal folks. It's almost a full working day!

There was prawns, lobster, scallops, sea bass, foie gras, truffle soup, ravioli, sorbet, beef, smelly sock cheese (alright I passed on that one), chocolate mousse, mango mousse, more sorbet, tropical fruits, little chocolates coffee. I may never eat again.

I am now off to sleep the sleep of the over indulged if I can find somewhere to put my stomach

Happy New Year everyone