Incremental Improvements

My daughter and I sometimes swap words that either make our skin crawl or that make us giggle or are ones that we love. Some of her worst ones are "bruising" and "tender" and one of my favourite words is "incremental". Don't ask me why but somehow it rolls off my tongue on the very rare occasions that I have the chance to use it.

So what has happened to make me even think of my favourite word? Maybe it is the fact that I have realised that every day, we delay a further five minutes before closing the wooden shutters in the evening, thus closing out the last of the daylight. Perhaps it is the increase in the depth of the excellent compost in the huge bin in the back garden, or the number of birds coming into the garden or that we are noticing the earlier arrival of the first rays of sun that tip the trees along the back of our property. Every day there are more grape hyacinths coming into flower and today we realised that we should have five narcissus blooms open by tomorrow.

I don't even know if "incremental" is the correct word to use for most of these scenarios, but I do know that suddenly there is more and more of the good stuff going on. We sat out in the courtyard at lunchtime, and while Jean barbequed some marinaded pork chops to perfection, I gave my Valentines Day cyclamen a nice big pot to expand into. While working, first I shed my tracksuit top and then I rolled up the sleeves on my flannel shirt before shedding it completely. Clad only in my short sleeved thermal vest, I realised that our suntrap was working overtime and that it is just about time to start re-organising my wardrobe.

For five years in Florida, we never had to wear anything warmer than a light sweater in January, but for the past two months, we have been lumbering about in endless layers, thick socks and solid shoes. Now it is time to unearth the tee shirts, dig out the shorts and do something about our lily white legs. I know that we are not supposed to risk removing a single layer of clothing until the end of March, but quite honestly I can't see myself working in the garden in my current kit of tracksuit pants, snow boots and an indeterminate number of upper layers.

I spent a very pleasant hour today lying in my hammock which is now suspended under the bay trees reading a fascinating manuscript given to me by the artist Barbara Robinson. All I had to do was to reach out a push on the branch next to me to set the hammock rocking gently. The neighbourhood dogs were taking a lunchbreak from barking and the passing village traffic had stilled while everyone had his knees under a table somewhere or other. The sun filtered down through the rustling bay leaves, and if I watched really closely, I am sure I could see the grass growing.

I know we might still get a cold snap, and although we made our own grow bag today and put in six tomato plants, I did fix them up with a cosy little frost blanket in case the night air was a bit chilly for them. I have already shed one blanket from the pile on the bed and we have stopped putting the heater on at night or warming up the bathroom before undertaking morning ablutions.

Spring is no longer being waited for impatiently - the incremental lengthening of the day, the shortening of the night, the increase in temperature, the appearance of the blossom and the softness of the air all lead us to believe that maybe winter is losing its grip and the French countryside is bursting back into life. No wonder it is one of my favourite words.

Looking back and Looking Forward

OK, I may not be Angelina, or Madonna or any number of women that I could name, who, if they were about to hit sixty, would be preparing lavish parties, wildly expensive holidays, booking appointments with plastic surgeons and reserving weeks at a health farm. But that's all right, because I have just skidded from the fifties into a nice neat sixty, and if today is a foretaste of how it is going to be, I can highly recommend it.

I can clearly recall my 40th birthday while still living in South Africa. A group of friends and family gathered at our lakeside holiday house, and as the wine flowed, the music played and the pace of dancing picked up, the full moon laid a path of silver from the range of hills behind the lake, right cross the water to our doorstep. I can still hear the voices of a group of girlfriends yelling "It's Raining Men" as a few lonely university guys wandered along to join in the fun.

Where did the intervening twenty years go? Sadly my marriage of 20 years ended, but Jean and I met, and together we embarked on rebuilding a derelict farm in South Africa while discovering whether or not our budding relationship had a chance of survival. My children left school and training and went off on their various adventures and the situation on our remote farm became more and more dangerous. It was time to leave Africa, and we flew back to England where we spent three years trying unsuccessfully to convince ourselves that it was where we wanted to be. A chance meeting resulted in us spending the next five years in Florida following which, we decided that we had spent enough time dodging hurricanes and longing for rising ground, and we returned to our European roots and moved to France.

I woke up this morning and saw the sunshine peeping in through the wooden shutters, and taking my courage in both hands, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked for signs that somehow overnight I had left the 50's and slid into the 60's. No change. My hair still stood on end, there was the usual crease down one side of my face from having slept so well, and my standard outfit of pink furry slippers and warm dressing gown were hiding signs that anything had slipped any further south.

An exciting pile of cards with postage stamps from a variety of countries awaited me, and I had only just finished opening them when the phone started ringing. My children in Australia had phoned with messages of love and encouragement, and my grandson James who believes in telling it like it is assured me that "60 is pretty old Granny". My mother who had been so ill over Christmas phoned me with real strength in her voice and pride in her daughter who had travelled so many paths through life to get this far.

Jean, as always, was wonderful and the day was a succession of treats, not the least of which was a visit to our local boulangerie for delicious deserts. A quick check up with the doctor confirmed that I was in the pink, and although she didn't actually kick my tyres, Jean reckoned that I had passed my MOT and was good to go. We spent two happy hours gardening this afternoon and suspended the hammock between two of the bay tree trunks. I can see myself spending some very happy hours here with a good book and a glass of something cool.

So is being sixty scary? Absolutely not as far as I am concerned. Am I looking forward to 70? Not just yet, because with my track record, I probably have quite a lot to do in the next ten years. But for now, I am incredibly grateful to all those wonderful people who have helped me make it this far, and to all of those who have made this day so special.

Sacristans and Lavender

Sacristans in all their icing sugar glory


The vegetable plants are starting to encourage the French gardeners



An endless choice of fresh herbs for kitchen and garden

A busy, and occasionally a slightly confusing day. The sun was absent this morning which meant that we were not lured from our bed as bright and early as would normally be the case. I then had to wash my hair and since we had various social visits to make, I thought I ought to do battle with my horrendously curly hair and I covered my head in rollers. It then occurred to me that I had wanted to phone my daughter in Australia and of course I couldn't get the headphones on in order to use Skype.

Time to go out into the garden and see how the transplanted bunch of bulbs were settling in. It was probably just as well that they were in for a cooler day, but so far so good and they are all standing to attention and looking perky, so here's hoping they will come into flower. Jean did stirling work and finished snapping all the smaller twigs from the bay hedge into pieces that would fit into the barbeque for starter fuel, and then it was time to get organised and head off to the Lunel market.

We always tell ourselves that we are only going to the market to look at the plant section which is well worth a visit, but of course, our first port of call was the bread stall. Fear gripped me as we approached and I could see that stocks were running low, but mercifully there was still a stack of delicious sacristans left, and we purchased four of them before they disappeared. For the uninitiated, sacristans are foot long twists of puff pastry, embedded with slivers of toasted almond and thickly dusted with icing sugar.

The great thing about French markets is that so many people wander around with icing sugar spattered down their jerseys, or fingers shiny from popping olives into their mouths, or peppered with crumbs from the crispy end of a baguette being sneakily bitten off, that nobody worries much. The only difficulty arises, when one is standing guard over a mound of extremely cheap lavender plants while trying to gobble down the last six inches of sacristan in order to dig out the euros, before someone else grabs the bargain first.

Laden with our purchases and feeling rather stuffed with sacristans, we drove up the steep range of hills behind Lunel and headed north to Ledignan for tea, pausing for a chilly picnic en route. The view across the valleys towards Nimes was dotted with tiny villages and winding roads and all it needed was a wash of sunshine and the dotted colours of early blossom. Apart from a few brave mimosas, everything else is poised on the very edge of bursting into colour but another week of this welcome warmer weather, and the white of the almond blossom and the first flush of green on the willow trees will convince us that winter is finally behind us.

We made our way back home via the little village of Bonsel where a friend of ours has bought a fascinating old house that was once a thriving winery. Stone archways, cool cellars, views out over an old vineyard and the prospect of warm summers enjoyed from her terrace only served to confirm what we have already known for some time. Life in the countryside in France is filled with so many delights and a constant stream of things to look forward to and to enjoy, and as our circle of friends extends, we find our pleasure is increased by sharing it.

Resting On Our Laurels

In actual fact, we have just spent a very contented hour resting under our laurels rather than on them. The old stone wall in the back garden has been completely cleared and now creates the most wonderful windbreak, and the sun bounces off it and provides us with much needed warmth.

I checked out the old compost bin at the top of the back garden this morning, and low and behold there was the most amazing crop of grape hyacinths growing in among the horse manure. No point in leaving them there, so I dug out a shallow pit in the newly cleared part of the garden and lowered the whole chunk of bulbs and compost straight in. Here's hoping they provide us with a good display and don't get confused at having moved house so close to flowering time.

We went our local large branch of Leroy Merlin this morning; that purveyor of all things horticultural and household - and there was a definite feeling that the end of hibernation was at hand among the customers. Despite a chilly wind blowing up from the coast, people were purchasing bags of potting mix and fertiliser; trolleys were laden with shiny new garden tools and there were more people gazing at the seed packets than there were in the electric light bulb section. The "Green Men" as we tend to call the generous number of staff who seem to know everything, were being rushed off their feet helping customers find hosepipe fittings, garden fence posts and new blades for lawnmowers. Even here in what should be a relatively balmy neck of the woods, we are all fed up with a long and unusually cold winter, and it is time to look forward to all the delights of the Spring season.

One addition to the front garden is a split bamboo screen. I fear that Postman Pat might not take too kindly to seeing me in dressing gown and curlers, and our kitchen window is rather exposed to the passing commuters en route to Montpellier. While waiting for the oleander bushes to fill out and create a natural fence, we are closing ourselves in a bit, thus fitting in with every other house in the village. I can honestly say that ours is about the only house that it is possible to see from the road, and just about every other building, from the smallest of cottages to the grandest of mansions is cut off from its neighbour and from passers-by with high walls, thick foliage and heavy gates. Having been used to the open plan front gardens of America, it is strange to see the French hiding themselves away, and it makes rubber-necking a rather fruitless pastime.

We only close the shutters at about 6.30 now and find that we are making do with less and less indoor heating. Gone are the slothful mornings when we stayed curled up in bed until 9am, and it is no longer possible to ignore the chinks of bright sunlight that find their way in through the wooden shutters and thick curtains. Once the real warmth starts, the house becomes somewhere to sleep and keep our clothes, and we will spend most of our time out in the garden or sitting on the terrace working on our laptops. We have cleaned out the old original barbeque and yesterday Jean cooked some delicious sausages on it, using dead wood that we had cut from the laurel hedge. From now on cooking outside becomes a most inventive and pleasant way of preparing the midday meal.

It is my 60th birthday this week and we are planning a festive lunch which is being delayed for a couple of weeks to ensure that the sun has continued gaining in warmth. The boules court has been swept and the gauntlet has been thrown down. The pastis is waiting to be opened and we are ready to face all challenges!

A You Tube video of the garden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNcVkMc2mvw

Check out the video and you can see the back garden plus Jean labouring away!

Photos of the gardening developments

The stone block in position



The stone block in use!



Firing up the barbeque for the first time in years

Jean unearthed this board from the back of the woodshed along with the old original blue shutters. There must have been a good market for cherries way back when!

Springing Into Action

The courtyard poised and ready for action


The wall we never knew we had



The haircut commences




Jean doing stirling work

It is official; we have just sat out in the courtyard in the warm sunshine and eaten sausages for lunch that were cooked on the old barbeque in the corner of the garden. This is a first for all sorts of reasons. It is our first barbeque of the year, it is the first time that the old barbeque has been used for the best part of five years, and it is the first time we have been in France in February.

The onset of slightly warmer weather sent me scuttling out to the tool shed to unearth the secetaurs, the garden rake and the wheelbarrow. All along the right hand side of the back garden, we have a thick laurel hedge, and despite the fact that Jean said many years ago, he was co-opted by a family member to try and dig it out, burn it, poison it and generally do away with it, the hedge has thrived. Having cut away all the growth up to a height of about six feet, I then had to contend with heaps and heaps of bay leaves. I counted no less than twenty wheelbarrow loads that I carted away and we have the most fragrant compost heap imagineable. I posted a couple of dozen leaves off to my dear friend Maggie in England, but apart from hanging up a large bunch to dry off, there is little point in trying to dispose of the rest in any other fashion.

Now that we have extended the width of the garden by about six feet, we realised that there was a lovely old stone wall hidden behind the laurel hedge which gives protection from the sneaky north wind and provides a perfect spot to sit with a book on a sunny afternoon before the real heat begins. However, perfect spots need somewhere to balance a tea tray, so we joined forces and rolled the most enormous cut stone block from the back of the garden into position. We now have English neighbours not too far away and this being half term, they were all out in the garden with their children. They must have been slightly puzzled to hear the two of us swapping Anglo Saxon expletives and grunting and groaning, but eventually the rock was in place and we took turns in sitting on it to catch our breath.

We are planning a party at the beginning of March and it has occurred to me that we have four sets of boules in the garage just waiting to be played with. With the application of the garden rake and wheelbarrow, I have cleared the space for a game or two, and we can easily balance the bottle of pastis on the stone block. One certainly cannot have boules without pastis, and if anything it improves the throwers abilities even though it can make spotting the little cochonnet or small wooden ball, a trifle difficult at times.

Doors and windows have all been left open today and the first thing I heard this morning when I opened the wooden shutters, was a wood pigeon singing in the trees behind the house. Even he sounded as though he had taken off his woolly scarf and was making a good job of welcoming the onset of Spring.

Putting a bit of Spring into our step

For the past five years, we have lived without having any particular change in the seasons. In Florida, you go from very warm to extremely hot to hurricane and back to warm again. The palm trees never change (if they have survived the hurricanes) and apart from being gilded with twinkling fairy lights over the politically correctly named "Holiday Season" they were always the same. The lush vegetation likewise seldom changed although I suppose there were times when the bouganvillea was brighter than others, but the bottom line was green and lush and unchanging.

Now we are here in the Languedoc, we are awaiting our first Spring with great anticipation. Any spray of yellow broom or "genets" as it is called here, is spotted and remarked upon. Some of the willow tree limbs have started turning a rather strange shade of yellow/orange and we are hoping that this is a fore-runner to the soft green of the first leaves. In the garden, there are a few hesitant grape hyacinths coming into flower and I am under strict instructions from a gardening friend that the blooms should be pulled out and NOT cut if I want to have some in the house.

The mimosa is making a hesitant appearance, and I recall that in South Africa, this was a definite sign of winter coming to an end, but it also heralded the arrival of the strong winds that would whirl the pollen up everyones noses along with an awful lot of dust. I never minded, because that mimosa pollen was the most evocative scent and even as I sneezed, I knew that it meant that cold days and frosty nights were just about over.

Having arrived here on the 14th July last year, just as the weather turned really hot, it is hard to imagine what the gentle onset of heat will be like. I want to sit out in the courtyard and read my newspaper or potter about in the garden and feel the sun on the back of my neck. I want to put away my pink furry slippers and haul out my flip-flops and do away with my long sleeved vests and dig out the t-shirts.

"En Avril ne te decouvre pas d'un fils". Translated, this means "Cast n'er a clout till April is out". So patience must be my watchword, and I will ensure that for the time being, my top drawer is full of freshly laundered clouts while keeping an eye out for the almond blossom.

Valentine Cowardice

A chocolate bomb and a coffee eclair with a red heart for good measure!



Setting up camp in the courtyard and catching some much needed sunshine and the Telegraph


We set out with such strong resolve this morning, armed with a flask of hot coffee, two apples, a chocolate bar (well it is Valentine's Day) and the determination to have a look around the Sommieres market before going for a walk and maybe a picnic.

En route, we stopped off at the household supply shop on the edge of Sommieres to try and find the right connection for my headphones. Now that we are blessed with British TV, I always seem to be right in the middle of something interesting when Jean has to take an important phone call, and rather than me lose track and him being interrupted, we have all the cables necessary to let me use our excellent headphones. Sadly we were unable to find the right combination of male and female plugs, so picking up a packet of fat balls for the birds, we left the shop, and found ourselves in the teeth of a wicked north wind. In addition to this, a fair amount of cloud had blown up and the distant Cevennes Mountains were once again capped with snow, so it was a joint decision to get back into the car and head for the warmth of home.

There was only one more port of call and that was the boulangerie. In honour of the day, we felt that we should have something delicious to go with our coffee, and so I stayed in the car while Jean went to make the purchase. It wasn't laziness on my part, but due to the fact that there were no parking places left outside the little parade of shops in the village, so I had to keep on moving.

While waiting, it occurred to me that all the men coming back to their cars were laden with bunches of flowers, and before long, my patience was rewarded by the sight of Jean coming towards me almost hidden behind a large pot of beautiful pink cyclamen, with an interesting small cake box suspended from his finger with a blue ribbon.

My Valentine had gone one step further and had purchased the Saturday Telegraph which gives me enough reading material for a week, and armed with our coffee and fresh cream cakes, we ventured out into the courtyard and found a sunny sheltered spot. Defiantly we set up the small table and two chairs, opened the newspaper up and declared it Spring.

We might not have made it to the market, but we have marked this happy day, and we realised that it is the first Valentine's Day that we have ever spent in France. May it be the first of many, and to all of you, wherever you are, may the sun shine warmer (or slightly cooler if you are in South Africa and Australia and are fed up with the heat) and may love from whatever quarter it may come, make a welcome visit.

The Hunter Gatherers

We have just got back from visiting Norma. Despite sounding like it, she's not an elderly lady with whom we drink tea, but a large wholesale type of supermarket in Castries.

I have realised that shopping with rather high cholesterol takes a lot less time since I can by-pass the entire yoghurt, cheese, butter, ice cream and milk section which in France can take up a huge amount of space. I also march firmly past the racks of ham, sausages, pate, fois gras and bacon. But what does this leave me? I have to turn a blind eye to the cake and biscuit section or my jeans really aren't going to fit when the summer arrives, and apart from a couple of rather guilty loaves of wholewheat bread, I ignore the boxes of croissants and pain au chocolat in the bakery section, that are just crying out to be bought. The sweets and chocolate section stays unexplored and I whizz through the cereal aisle pausing only to grab a couple of boxes of oats.

Salad is in plentiful supply but somehow the weather is still a bit too cold to make salad sound exciting, but I do stock up with plenty of fresh vegetables in order to make a huge vat of soup. Chicken pieces are fine as long as I remove all the skin, and of course turkey breast is a good standby as they have a very low fat content. Fish comes in a large packet of long frozen fillets and I mix these with a pack of seafood bits and pieces and slowly cook the whole lot in a big saucepan with wine, olive oil and fresh herbs. The smell alone is worth it, and the result is delicious. Once cooked, it is divided into portions and can then go on to become anything from fish cakes to the filling for an omelette or served with a few oven chips or a pile of roasted vegetables.

I was delighted when my doctor told me that there was no reason why I should not continue to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine each day. I think that the French have a real concern that sudden abstinence might bring about a serious decline in health, so I will happily follow her dictates and carry on enjoying a glass of rose from the pumps at the Castries Fruit and Vegetable Market.

Tomorrow is market day at Sommieres and it's always fun to see what's on sale and who has turned up, but sadly I will have to slink past the cheese man, the roast chicken and chips man, the crepes filled with chocolate spread, the saucisson supplier and the boulangerie stuffed with sugar dusted sacristans.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be safer to go to the Flea Market instead - I can't get into too much trouble with a set of bellows and an old milking stool!

Medical Adventures

I shall be turning 60 very shortly, and having managed to avoid most of the iniquities of American health costs, we are now relieved to be a part of the excellent French medical system. If I am to pass my MOT and be rated as road-worthy, a bit of a tune-up was called for.

One problem for me was that I had started on a dental programme in America but this went by the board when we packed up and left, and there was some work which simply had to be completed. With no difficulty, I was signed up with our local Dental Surgeon who is just a quick walk up the road and I am once again able to chew my croissants and smile without scaring small children.

The next stop was the Doctor (just up the road as well) who ordered a set of blood tests and signed me up for a course of fifteen physiotherapy sessions with the local physios who are also just a walk up the road. These sessions are proving to be not only helpful for my rather problematic shoulders, but they also good for my French. I now know the names for all sorts of bits of my body, but these are rather tricky to weave into normal conversation, especially if you are choosing bread in the boulangerie!

The biggest undertaking was to have an ugly lump of fat removed from my shoulder and this needed to be done under hospital conditions. Having been put on an operating table in America for an angiogram and allowed to shiver and shudder, it was lovely to be tucked up under a blanket and then to have warm air piped in to keep me cosy. I couldn't follow the conversation between the doctor and the three or four nurses who attended him, but in thirty minutes I was done and dusted. I now have visits from the district nurse who calls in every two days to replace the dressings, and I can say that I am enormously impressed and grateful for a highly efficient health service.

My only slight gripe was that the results of the blood test showed a rather high cholesterol count so the cheese and butter had to go out of the window for a while, but like a good French doctor, she cheerfully informed me that there was no need to give up my two glasses of wine each day, and in fact went so far as to suggest that they were very good for me. She also said that if I got my cholesterol figure down a bit, she would give me the name of an excellent local cheesemaker!

Crazy Weather and TV

We are supposed to be poised on the brink of Spring, but every time we think that it is just about to arrive, we get another blast of icy wind and flurries of snow from the direction of the Cevenne Mountains. Take today for instance. At 11am we were actually thinking of sitting out in the courtyard and having lunch, and by 1.30 it was snowing. As the Americans would say - "Go figure".

Each morning we open up the heavy wooden shutters and take a look at the thermometer on the terrace, and occasionally we are rewarded with numbers nudging up towards double digits. Our farming days in Africa had instilled the habit of being up early and going to bed early, but nowadays with the luxury of semi-retirement and a postman who only appears at 10am, we tend to be a bit slow getting going in the morning. I also have the additional luxury of Free to Air tv from UK and this means that my evening viewing is one hour ahead of the English timetable, so I find that bedtime has been moved from 10.30 to 11.30.

I'm quite sure that once the warmer days establish themselves, we will revert to outdoor living and the tv will be less of an entertainment, but for the time being, it is lovely being able to catch up with old favourites and get used to new programmes. Despite having upwards of 500 channels in USA, I would still hunt for the English re-runs.

It has also occurred to me that for the first time in a long time, I am actually in the same time zone (or only an hour out) from family and friends in England and with pals in South Africa. My children in Australia are still a frustrating 12 hours ahead, but we have learned that breakfast chats for me are supper time chats for them. Thank heavens for Skype and cameras on the computer as I can see my five lovely grandchildren and see how fast they are all growing, and be brought up to date with all sorts of interesting bits of news about school, play and favourite things. The little boys have been excited at the sight of so many helicopters, fire engines and general excitement while my gentle grandaughter has been packing up toys and clothing to give away to friends who have lost so much.

Getting Through the Winter

After five years spent wallowing in the warmth of Florida, we have had to dig out the few winter clothes that we possess and get used to feeling a bit chilly at times. Luckily our house has thick stone walls and the ceiling in the living room is wooden, so once we have the shutters closed and the curtains drawn in the evening, we are as snug as bugs. However, in an effort to keep costs down, we don't bother to heat the bedrooms and bathroom which are in the other part of the house, so trips of an ablutionary nature are made very swiftly!

This is nothing new to us as we had the same system going when we lived on Bulklip Farm in South Africa. Apart from the wonderfully effective Jet Master fireplace in the lounge, the rest was a case of speed and much gritting of the teeth. However, we can boast to our French friends that we keep our heating bills down to a minimal amount when compared with their efforts to heat large extensive homes.

It was just as well that we visited my brother in Toronto for Christmas a couple of years back, and we raided all the re-cycling clothing shops in Miami and stocked up with jerseys and track suits etc. However, visits to Montpellier call for something a bit smarter, and I am everlastingly grateful to my good friends Sybil and Mary from Miami who each gave me a very smart scarf, and these go a long way towards giving my rather mundane outfits much needed "pazazz". I have long ago given up trying to keep up with the French ladies who wear their smart black outfits in the city and all manage to look like extras from an art movie of the 1960's.

Gardening is at a standstill for the time being, but we do go outside on a regular basis and inspect the grape hyacinths which are making every effort to produce little flowers. There seem to be hundreds popping their heads up through the soil and once they are all in bloom, not only will the garden be beautiful, but the scent will be delightful. The old folks are concerned that we do not yet have almond blossom out, but we have seen a few mimosa trees bravely coming into bloom so spring has to be on its way.

We have spent a very worrying week listening to reports on the fires in Australia. My daughter and her family live in Whittlesea and have had a very narrow escape, and our thoughts and prayers go out to those people who have lost family members, and everything else that they possess.

The Santons of St Jean De L"Arbousier

The wonderful winery just up the road each year displays this collection of Santons



Catherine Vigeur the wine maker told us that she has been collecting the Santons since she was eight. The collection is animated and everyone in the little village is busy doing something or other.




Although the Santons are usually displayed at Christmas and incorporate scenes of the creche and the manger, everyone seems to get in on the act at St Jean de L'Arbousier




The more you look, the more you see!

The Castries Aquaduct out in the country

Jean investigating the aqueduct which runs between Guzargues and Castries. Not a bad bit of construction just to keep the chateau gardens watered!




Some of the archways of the aqueduct. A few battalions of soldiers were brought in to do the work and for a while the water flowed straight to the chateau. It took the French Revolution to convince the owner that it might be in his best interests to share some of the water with the locals!


An 18th century manhole cover/inspection plate! The channel is still in remarkably good condition and there is a keen organisation who work hard to keep it open and free from undergrowth.

The village square in Guzargues. This charming little village is the source of the water which flowed to Castries. The story goes that the man who owned the water source was convinced to share it with payment of a pair of gloves.

The Sommieres market in winter

Strolling players give the visitor a warm welcome, and occasionally get muddled up with other strolling players which makes for a sort of fusion music!




One of the Sommieres squares where the winter market is in full swing






The route up to the Hotel Orange - a stiff walk but a worthwhile one





The Hotel Orange situated behind the village and well out of reach of flood waters, but right next to the church bell! "You pays your money and you takes your choice"








The stall on the immediate left serves the best mix of roasted meat and potatoes plus some delicious fried puff balls very like the "vetkoek" of South Africa

Look carefully and you can see the flood water marking for 2002

One of the first picnics of the year

Taking advantage of a gorgeous Sunday just a couple of weeks ago


No picnic kit packed in the car but a very useful pile of grape vine cuttings worked well!



Vineyards in the Pic St Loup region

Pic St Loup on the road to St Martin de Treviers

Snow in January

Pansies in the kitchen window with the first powdering of snow outside

After five years in Florida, the snow in January was quite an exciting event, but now that we are nudging into the middle of February, we are seriously starting to look forward to Spring. The hundreds of blue grape hyacinths in the garden are coming into bud but so far there is no sign of the much awaited almond blossom although just a few mimosas are coming into yellow flower.





There are signs of various festivities starting up, and I must say that I admire the sturdy stall owners who have continued to keep the markets going throughout the bitterly cold months. We did visit Sommieres a couple of weeks back and were amazed to find that the town centre was filled with well wrapped up shoppers, and the aroma of roasted chickens and delicious fried potatoes wafted around the square and went down extremely well with a glass of mulled wine.





Fairly soon, we will head down to Lunel market and buy a few trays of cheery plants that are almost out of danger of frost, but for the time being, I am keeping my geranium cuttings safely snuggled up in the tool shed, and only take them out now and then for a bit of sunshine.







Jean's bird table doing stirling work for the blue tits




Snow at Montaud







Vineyards around St Drezery




Snow in the garden - the deepest in a long time

Apologies for the repeat!

The New Year Starts Here

When you arrive in a small village trying to find a party, you need a bit of a guide. The dog met us at the carpark and showed us the way, and when we left, he kindly saw us back to our car!

The stunning Soraya (centre) who dances in the way of her forbears the Tuareg







The difficult choice of who to kiss first as the clock struck midnight!

The great thing about Sauve is that you just never know you are going to meet up with!

The Music Room at the fabulous home of Carl and Soraya in Sauve

"Witches, Wizards and Vampires" said the invitation. I decided on The Spirit of Christmas Just Past and Jean went along as a Vampire who had undergone "anger management"!

February 2009 and Hibernation is almost over

http://diaryoafrenchhousewife.blogspot.com/

For anyone checking out this blog, you are welcome to refer to the link above which will take you to the original blog which ran from July 2008 until November 2008. We then went into hibernation for the winter, but the sun is warming up and business is about to be resumed here in our little corner of southern France.
Stay with me and read about our adventures starting at a strange New Year party in a partly medieval house in an ancient hill village. If you're going to have a strange party, this is the place to have it!