A little look through our house

This blog post is for those of you that haven't seen pics of inside our house.

Enjoy.........

Front door - note the map of Australia on the wall to the left.

The top part of the door opens up seperately to the rest of the door.






Front door and dining room.

Both the front door and the dining room doors face toward the main road through the village.

Lounge Room













Dining Room

Kitchen with window that opens out to the street.

2nd Bedroom with four poster bed.

3rd Bedroom - The Pink Room.

Staircase to first floor.













More pics to follow in a later post. We are doing some work in the attic master bedroom. Bill is making shelving and hanging robes to install.

Wendy

So much to do....so little time

Another very busy week for us.

I had a go at drying lavender to use in the soaps that I made.

I picked the lavender from my garden and dried in bunches first (which I hung around the house whilst drying).

Then dried some grated lemon rind to combine with the lavender.

The soap making process using pre-made Melt and Pour Goats Milk soap base.

The soaps turned out okay but still working on the technique.









Finished the quilt for my Mum - pretty pleased with the result.

And still more socialising. After our "Cafe Franglaise" evening last Wednesday, a few of us went to the local Kebab place for a meal and to practice our french.
















Le Musique night on Saturday night at the local Pizza joint in Boussac.

It's an annual event that allows local musicians/singers to perform.

About 11 people had a go, some were really good.

We were taken to this church at Moutier d'Ahun (about 20 mins from our house) on Sunday.

Our french neighbours, Rejane and her mum Jane, were very kind to show us this part so close to our house that we had never been to before.

Jane is 97 and just amazing.

They are a both wonderful people.

Rejane suggested that we get together with some other neighbours and practice our french.

So now there is a group of 6 that are meeting weekly.

She gets to practice her English at the same time so works for everyone.



First constructed in 997. The dates are just incredible.

So hard to fathom anything that old.

The church was stunning with the alter, lecturn and choir chairs made from oak.

Each chair has a different face carved onto the underside of the chair.








We then drove to a place called Masgot.

A village full of sculptures.

All the sculptures done by one man using granite.

Another amazing place.

Thankfully the weather was kind to us that day. About 8 degrees and sunny - perfect.

Bill has been busy making a recyclable Christmas tree - I just love it.

I will be busy decorating it tomorrow and putting it at the front of the house.

The cows in the back paddock were on the move yesterday.

They were being herded up the road.

It's a real novelty for us to see them being herded up the main street and past our front door.

We saw more of the cranes flying south for the winter.

The first lot we noticed on 5 October and there have been many flocks flying over since then.

We are in their flight path and to see them is an amazing sight.






My next blog will have pics of the inside of our  house for those of you that haven't yet seen our house.

Till then....

Merci for taking the time and interest in reading these posts.

Wendy

Busy doing fun stuff in France

Projects are underway for the winter months.

Bill has been busy out in the barn.

He is making himself a workbench from timbers found in the barn.

Looks like he's having fun but it's only 3 degrees outside.



Might have to consider installing a wood burner out there to stop him freezing to death.

This is where the new workbench will be located.

We need to get more lighting in there as it's quite dark.

We have a lot of old doors that were left in the barn.

Some will be used as garden benches for potting.

I have inside projects in front of the fire (lucky me).

I have started a quilt for my Mum.

There are quilting classes that are run in Boussac which I may join.

It will help improve my french and I can learn new techniques for quilting at the same time.

Also a chance to meet new people.

Plus drying fruit and herbs in my food dryer.

I have discovered using baking paper stops the bananas from sticking to the hard plastic.

I have now picked the herbs and dried them, storing them in glass jars that were in the barn.




I tried drying some figs but am still testing different techniques.


We attended the Armistice Day commemoration in Boussac on Friday 11 November (It's a public holiday here in France).

A very moving ceremony.

The French uniforms are very smart and dapper.

And still more socialising.

A lovely lunch at Sandy and Pete's place in La Sciauvre.

Then followed by a lovely walk down to the river after our very big, yummy lunch.













Plus a wonderful night at the Salle Polyvante (local village hall) on Saturday night (2 doors up from our house).  It is held by the Comité des fêtes for the Nouveau Beaujolais 2016 (the first wines of the season).

They hold a number of events during the winter months to bring the locals of the village together. We have put our names down for the New Year's Eve celebrations - should be a hoot.

Jusqu'à mon prochain blog....

Wendy

First snow of the season

How excited were we on Monday when we awoke to the ground spotted with snow.
















We had to scrape it off the car to get to our French lessons.

I was so excited to see the snow on our new cover when I opened the shutters in the office that I actually ran back up stairs and pulled Bill from the shower to show him.

At -3 degrees, he wasn't too happy but on seeing the snow, I could see a great big smile working it's way across his face.









We are so lucky to live somewhere that it snows at our front door. This is something we have always dreamed of achieving and now we have. It's so magical and seems to clear the air and lives of any problems. Hopefully we will get more and actually see it falling next time.

The weather is certainly cold enough. It has been -3 to maximum of 3 during the day, so pretty dam cold. Today the wind is blowing hard and lots of rain. We haven't had many windy days since arriving.

The fire is being lit around lunch time each day (hopefully we won't run out of wood).

But we are certainly enjoying this wonderful change in the seasons.

The Christmas decorations are in all the shops now. The French do Christmas so well. So beautifully displayed as they go to so much trouble even for the tiniest of displays. And for once it seems right to have reindeer and snowmen in the windows instead of seeing this in Australia when it's 40 degrees (always seemed odd to me to have snow flakes in windows).

I am busy working on our indoor projects now such as:

• curtain making

• making quilts (patchworking) - this one for my Mum got burnt in the fire last year so am making another one for my Mum

• trying my hand at soap making
• making door sausages (see below pic - got some ideas from a shop in Andorra that was selling very unusual ones)

• working on my children's books

• Christmas card writing
• rearranging cupboards and furniture
• learning french

We had been back from our house sit for a day and already out socialising again. Thanks to Mel and Wendy for a wonderful afternoon and lovely lunch. Dessert not bad either (that's cause I made a Mousse du Chocolate - yummy).

A plus tard

Wendy

House sit in Riner, Spain

We have just returned from our very first house sitting experience in the Catalan region of Spain.









Riner is situated between Solsona and Cardona and the property had the most magnificent views towards the mountains.

Each evening saw us having a wine and watching the views towards the mountains.

As far as house sitting goes, I think this one was quite easy.

The animals were all self sufficient - that is - they came and went through a doggy door.




We walked the dogs twice a day which was just as much fun for us as it was for them.

Nort and Petra were extremely well natured dogs,















The only problems we encountered were on "Hunt Days".

Nort would bark all day and stand guard in the paddock and Petra cowered upstairs.

The sound of gunshots could be heard all through the valley.


They did run off one night, so we got out the torches and were wandering around the Catalan countryside in the pitch dark looking for the dogs. All turned out okay though.


Each day our walks took us through some amazing woods and then up through a hamlet where we were invited into the home of a Catalan family for a snack.

The cats were all different in temperament.
Nickel, the boss cat, sat on our laps at night. Melas, the ginger cat, the easy going puss.

Then there was Maddie.
She was extremely timid and it was hard to get to pat her but in the end we had her purring like a kitten.
She was afraid of the other two cats and the dogs.


Whilst we were house sitting, we had the opportunity to visit Solsona a few times.

The markets were great and we found some award winning Spanish wine that we ended up bringing back with us. Only 1.65 euro a bottle, a bargain and very delicious.

This is Jayne (the lady whom we house sat for).










Cardona was also an amazing place.

Especially the Castle. Built in 1019 to 1040 and so huge.

Jayne showed us the Cardona markets before she left.

The markets were great and the second time we went there was a mushroom festival happening. There is a huge salt mine in the village but doesn't seem to detract from the beauty of the place. We managed to get stuck in the car park and had to get someone to ring the local police to come and let us out. A bit embarrassing but at least we managed to exit the carpark in a reasonable time given the festival was on as the police were extremely busy.

We visited a place 5kms from our house sit called El Miracle.



Another amazing place with the most incredible piece of art work we have ever seen.

We had lunch in the restaurant which was wonderful -  I tried the pigs knuckles.

Very yummy. A few days before that I had pigs cheek at a restaurant in Solsona. So think I am now sufficiently pigged out........

This was Bill trying his hand at drinking the "Catalan" way. We just had to buy one of the different drinking vessels.
















We had a day trip into Barcelona.

We drove to Manresa and then caught the train into Barcelona passing Montserrat along the way. These are very jagged mountains and look spectacular.

Wish we had more time that day but will definitely need to return to Barcelona and also make a trip up Montserrat in the funicular.

Looked like Montserrat would be a fascinating place to explore.

Also we noticed when driving out of Manresa that there's a huge fort of some kind so will need to return here as well.

Barcelona was a mixed bag.

Beautiful in the city centre with some amazing architecture.


We wanted to catch the "hop on hop off bus" around the city.

But it was 28 euros each and we only had 45 minutes.

We had to make our way back to the train station for the 1 and half hour journey back to Manresa and then the 50 min drive home to be able to feed the animals.

So time was too short in Barcelona. Perhaps next visit.

On another day we drove to Baga and to Berga.

Both were just amazing places. Baga is a hiking/skiing village. Very pretty.















Berga had a place called Santuario de Queralt at the top of the mountain.

It's the trail the Cathars took when being persecuted.

A lot of steps to climb but well worth the visit.







The forest was just alive with colour.

On our return journey we had a few hours in Girona before stopping for a few nights in Albi, France.

Girona was lovely and again more time was needed here to explore the place in depth.

A few hours just doesn't cut it.

It is now famous for having scenes from Game of Thrones being filmed here.

















It was market day.

The bridge was covered with stalls.

I had wanted to visit Albi since when we had spent Christmas in Castres in 2013.

I can now tick it off the bucket list.

It lived up to my expectations.



An amazing, wonderful place.





Whilst Bill went through the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, I visited the Museum de la mode. A private collection of 10,000 items (of which only 100 displayed at a time). The museum is in the gentleman's house (12th century) and all the items are in mint condition. I was particularly interested in the stitching and design of the early 1800's outfits. There were also hair clips, hats, bags and shoes on display as well as some men's dinner jackets and dressing gowns. Quite an impressive collection.

On the way home yesterday we passed through Figeac.

Another beautiful, stunning french village.
















The markets were on in the old city.

We had a quick walk around as it was a pretty miserable day weather wise. Raining and only about 6 degrees.



We can't complain about the weather though as we had the most perfect weather in Catalan the whole time we were there.

A bientot

Wendy