Getting stuck in.

One of our main concerns before we moved was to ensure that we joined in with the local community and integrated with the French speaking part of it.  We needn't have worried, the French speaking community have almost insisted on welcoming us and getting us integrate with village affairs.

Competitive Wife has already been roped into a variety of local events and meetings, in two weeks she has sat on the committee for opening a new community library, helped make the local goats cheese tarts called "Torteaux" and baked them in the community oven and at time of writing is at her French class in the local town followed by lunch with the French class at a Creperie called "Le Marmite" (I think it's a big cooking pot roughly the same shape as the jars of savoury spread, must be a connection there).  Last week she also went (with a friend who visited from the UK) to a soiree Tartines, which we came to realise can only be described as a toast topping festival!   I’m working on her to write an account of "soiree Tartines" for my blog but true to her name she won't let me have it unless it's better written than my entries! (Not altogether difficult one would have thought).

For my own part I'm getting into French society through the medium of DIY and vegetables.  We have started receiving vegetables from a variety of sources, in exchange for anything from furniture to cup cakes.  Green garlic are particularly plentiful at the moment, we've received about 30 of them so far and are running out of things to put them in.  Along with those, in the last week, we have had 4 lettuces and a bag full of what Local service calls spinach but which looks alarmingly like doc leaves, nice in an omelette though.  On the DIY front I'm pushing the limits of what I can do on a daily basis, I've replaced windows with cut glass and putty, wired the barn with lights and set up/aligned a satellite dish all for the first time ever.  The window and TV work fine so 2 out of 3 isn't too bad.  I'm afraid I'll have to call 40 cat man to help with the electrics but he will then need to have a drink with me afterwards and he does smell of cat wee and doesn't say anything while he's having his drink leaving me floundering around to make conversation in basic French!

Well, onwards and upwards and let there be light next time I write.

Nous Somme Arrivés

Well here we are, we've arrived in France and house in the UK is due to sell any day now (the point of no return, so to speak).  It’s all a bit chaotic, and flying by, so far so just a few bits and pieces here, possibly a better written and more cohesive entry will follow shortly!

The big house (there are 2 on the property, the other one we imaginatively call the little house) is coming along well, totally unrecognisable from two years ago when we first saw it.  It fights us tooth and nail to remain as it is with every simple DIY task taking 2 or 3 times longer than you would expect due to years of abuse from previous owners, I mean why use the supplied fixings to put blinds on windows when a blob of super glue does the job so quickly?  Changing things like blinds then becomes a far trickier job than advertised.

I seem to remember referring to our 18 month old as having premature terrible twos in my first post, well perhaps she thinks she should be living up to it. I had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be.  If anything fails to go her way at the moment she has decided that spitting on the floor will get her the reaction she is after.  Where exactly this new fad came from, neither Competitive Wife nor I are able to fathom.

Last week one of the local British imports of Prop Forward physique, asked me if I could help him unload a lorry bringing his sheds from the UK over here.  I said I'd be delighted but had little idea (nor, I think, did he) that it would take six men a full (and full on) 3 hours to unload.  At time of writing I'm rather sore.  Myself, Prop Forward, Local Service, Grumpy Welshman, the driver and a local plumber/electrician with 40 cats (40 cat man) managed to shift the equivalent of a small copse of trees from the back of the lorry and in doing so consumed (between us) 1 cup of tea, 2 Oranginas, 12 cans of strong lager, 5 shots of whiskey and a Pastis.  Apparently nothing can be done around here without offering an alcoholic drink afterwards or in this case during.  Grumpy Welshman was on particularly good form, turning up in a hi-vis vest and making sure the traffic got past the lorry safely, I'm sure both cyclists made it home all the more safely as a result.

That's all for now.