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How to Entertain your Dogs when the sheep are being good.

8/26/2015

1 Comment

 
Hello All
Pools and squeaking children, what a lethal combination for any self respecting Border collie.
Since our flock of naughty sheep have become experts on escaping at the most inconvenient times we now travel everywhere with Ben. He is pictured above and has always been fascinated by hosepipes in fact by moving water in any format, to the point of obsession. If in fact sheep were made from water then we may well be able to get all our sheep work done rather more quickly than we currently do. 

We were out visiting some other friends with a pool the other night and Ben stayed at his post staring at the children splashing for about 3 hours with no break. The following day he was more exhausted than the children and no good to man nor sheep. 
We, however, managed to find some energy and muscle power to put some double doors into our house. I knew those in-laws would come in handy. We had a few dodgy moments when the door slipped out of its framework when Gavins fixings didn't quite hold in the intended fashion. Thanks to a judiciously placed behind in front of the door, the door was saved from certain death. Elegant and discreet braces were then positioned while the cement dried.
Later in the week more children with balloons were provided for the dog who spent many happy hours looking through the window having been banished outside due to over excitement.
See you all soon
Helen
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How To welcome new clients?

8/20/2015

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Step 1: 
Always plan your day so that you have enough time to spend explaining your business and how it operates with your new client.
Step 2: 
Find out if they are from the area. 
Step 3; 
Ask what kind of things interest them so you are better able to advise them on your products in the future.
Step 4: 
Go through their current purchases with  them before they leave so they understand what you have done.
Step 5: 
Politely wait for them to leave first and then calmly follow unless they are remaining in the area and then you can dismiss yourself.
Step 6: 
Follow up on your intial meeting to make sure everything was to their satisfaction.
Step 7: 
Make absolutely, completely and utterly certain that you HAVE NOT OVERCHARGED THEM.
As you can see I am just checking out my new outfit for the future. I think it will go well with the inability to follow steps 1 to 7.
Other than spending time burning with shame and embarrassment we have been quite busy entertaining guests from around the globe. Some popped in for lunch from the other side of the globe and we had a lovely afternoon. Others stayed for a week and enjoyed the excellent weather whilst watching us dash around fitting everything in and also got roped in to do some farming and housework too. Some turned up stayed for 5 days ran around alot breathing heavily, ate, drooled everywhere left piles of hair to sweep up and got tetchy in the heat... No not the in-laws.....The doggy guests.
Some people and places were sadly missed out on as they were just too far away to be easily popped in on for tea when we had so much going on. 
We went on holiday for 2 nights to friends who live 10 minutes away from us and have a pool. Very convenient for dashing home to feed the sheep and cats. Also great for proximity to naughty sheep who insist on escaping all the time. Here is the proof that we do sometimes sit and do not very much at all. Had a really great couple of days drank too much wine ate too much food. Objective acheived.
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How to make French traders very unhappy, yet also bring out their creative tendencies..... Leave your possessions in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There are usually signposts in the street that state the day of the week and the hours during which a market will happen. You have been warned! 
I was going to show you my photo of the chutney I made this week but Number 3 said it looked like the contents of someones stomach, so we erred on the side of caution and vetoed the photo of the pot in which it cooked. So here is a jar photo.

Happy holidays see you soon
Helen
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Progress?

8/13/2015

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Hello All
We had a lovely evening out on Saturday last week, returning home quite late and in not too inebriated a state; just tired after my early morning start for the market. The girls rose from the sleep of the living dead somewhere around lunchtime on Sunday amazed that their evil parents had actually let them stay in bed all that time. So, zombie like, Gavin and I were hoping for a peaceful day possibly even for a bit of work on the house. Ho ho ho, should have known better. The sheep had decided it would be an adventurous day. In fact I am suspicious there is some kind of sheep algorithm that calculates proportionally the distance and frequency of travel related to the hour at which the owners return home of an evening. Crafty bunch. So 4 separate lots of sheep, one of which had the audacity to escape twice, and 3 hours wasted plus the feeding time etc it turned out to be a fairly average Sunday.
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No we didn't have the Gendarme out putting the sheep away with us but this pic did remind me of the other day when we recieved a phone call from the Gendarme in Sainte Foy la Grande telling us to come and collect a goat they had picked up on the main road which belonged to us..... Now that is 30 minutes drive from home! "Gavin have we lost any goats?". No he tells me. Hmmm.... apparently we are legally bound to go and fetch the goat. Another wasted day. The gendarme are quite assertive and we have to fetch said animal tout de suite. It transpires the animal was sold 3 years ago and on arrival home we discover that she doesn't like to stay within a fenced area. Great, more ammunition for the sheep and their excuses on how they frolicked across the fields and there was this goat eating the green grass on the other side saying "Ewes should all get yerselves over 'ere". Bad? Yeah, well sorry I am a Mum of 3 little angels. 
We spent the whole of Monday moving fences and sheep to avoid a second day dashing around the countryside achieving not very much so that we would have a day to try and do something constructive in the house. Literally.
And through the rectangular window there's  a Gavin.
See you all soon
Helen
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New Things

8/6/2015

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Hello All
We have new neighbours..... well the butchery has new neighbours. Yes finally our across the road, holidays only neighbours have bitten the bullet and moved from the bustly, busyness of the UK to the sleepy, hollowness of Eygurande et Gardedeuilh. Although, now I think about it, we live in "Grand Bâtard (Big Bastard to non french speakers) which is opposite "Petit Bâtard" giving me cause to think that maybe Sleepyhollow wasn't always that sleepy;-)
We had a new sausage flavour this week, Spring Onion and Ginger, which seemed to go down well. Emily my big daughter newly passed her code and had her first driving lessons, so we will have a new driver in the midst soon. She is very happy as she has successfully managed to not kill anybody yet.  The dog has gone to visit a new girlfriend so there may be the pitter patter of new feet in the not too distant future. 
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Here is Gavin learning a new skill. I think it is called something like, " working out how to put the walls up in a renovation project that has no square corners whilst trying to keep the wifes vision alive at the same time". As you can see we are nearly on track to having a window this week. That will be truly amazing. All we need to do now is finish the roof insulation, so working upstairs doesn't become a competition on who can stay the longest in a Scandinavian sauna. So we can continue with what seems like an endless list of jobs to do plasterboard, plumbing, final floor levels and electrics etc, etc. I have counted the sockets that we will need and it currently stands at 42 double sockets. Too many? Too few?.... Not sure yet. 
The rest of the month is panning out to be quite busy both work and social life wise. Could be fun!
See you all soon
Helen
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    Helen Franklin

    I am farming sheep and goats on the Dordogne/Gironde border with my husband and our 3 children. We have an on farm butchery and sell our meat direct to the public via the markets and delivery points in our local area

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