Back to Britain

For the first time since moving here, we are all back off to the UK for a week to help celebrate my dads 60th birthday. We are leaving the house and animals under the safe supervision of Gregg and, fingers crossed, all should be well on our return. The best news of all is that when we come back we will be "sans les enfants" a real novelty in itself. Over the last week I have been working my socks off on the conservatory. The foundations are in for the glass walls and the shuttering is in place to do the first access when we get back. The first week in August, we're having a go at "come dine with me" any menu ideas greatly appreciated.

Going Greener

After an exceptionally successful find on Leboncoin, possibly the best free ads site in the world, work has now commenced on my latest creation. The Greenhouse, Summer house, or detached conservatory as I am contemplating naming it, is most definately not a polytunnel. At 6.5m long by 4.5m wide, it's a bit of a whopper to say the least. Not only does it have a polycarbonate, aluminium framed roof with industrial steel frame, it also came with 16 sheets of 8mm glass 1.6m x 1m x 8mm thick. My mission for the next few weeks now is to build a small supporting wall and a wooden frame structure to hold the glass. To say that I'm a little excited about this project would be gross understatement. If I really pull my finger out, I should have the whole thing up and finished by the end of August,

The Quail Factory

Josh asked for something in a cage for his birthday. We decided that he should start a quail farm and make lots of pickled quail eggs for us.40 eggs went into the incubator and we had a pretty successful hatching although we have lost a few babies on the way. So far things are progressing well with about 20 quail split between 5 cages. I have to get on and build some more cages soon as we are running out of space. There is also a new addition to the veal herd which will be a lovely tender peice of meet in a few months time.

If you plant them, they will grow.

Back at the beginning of the year, we started work on our latest greener living project. The vegetable plot. Although we have had a few disasters on route, all in all it has been a very successful venture. The potatoes have just flowered and we will soon be digging up the first few plants to see just how well they have performed. No one told me just how quick radishes grow so I planted the whole packet. We did manage to eat half of the crop and the goats and other animals enjoyed the other half. Stupidly I have since planted a whole packet of black radishes, only grown in Northern France, which it looks like we will be eating forever. The beans, on their second attempt, are now as tall as me and flowering well. Although we lost half the crop of sweetcorn, the other half seems to be doing well. Also growing we have cucumbers, melons, pumpkin, spagetti squash and lots lots more. It will mean that if you join us for dinner soon, there will now be more than just pork on the menu.

Kirsty has a good one too ....

Kirsty has had an excellent school report too. For all of you non French readers just read the numbers!!!!! She is very pleased and we are very proud of her too. She also managed to achieve the highest score in her class for her maths SATS. Did I mention that before????!!!

Poorly Finger

Peter is now doing well after having an operation on his finger yesterday under general anaesthetic!! What started as just a splinter under his fingernail turned into a little nightmare for us. Yesterday morning I went to the hospital expecting them to just pop the blister and take out the pus!! No, not here. He ended up in hospital in Bayeux, being in theatre for two hours!!! The wait in the bedroom was not nice!! However, we returned home last night at about 2130 all bandaged up and ready for bed. Lets hope this is the last disaster for Peter this year!!