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Stuff I forgot to show you

11/26/2014

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Hello All
The Blackies who were supposed to have eggs which fed us, scurried their supplies away and had babies instead so now I have to feed them. I love it when a plan doesn't come together. She is doing remarkably well for a first time hatcher and had 13 chicks, sadly only 11 left now. Aren't they tiny.
So we are entering a chaotic period where all I do is eat, sleep and worry about whether I have made enough Cumberland sausages. It is the first Christmas Market this Sunday for us in Brossac and the weather is looking dry, though not sunny for Sunday, fingers crossed for a good one. Patrick has offered to come home again this weekend and help out it might be a good opportunity for him to see if he can cook a roast dinner as he had mentioned last weekend that maybe it was time to learn. If he does you can have pictures next week.
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To the left, catching you up on stuff that happened during the summer, is our silage pit, or pile to be precise that I keep forgetting to show you. It will be keeping our girls and boys happy through the winter. Apparently it is fast approaching. We can tell from the dark mornings and evenings but not from the temperature, I don't think. Both of our fires are lit to stop the house feeling damp but an on/off switch would be handy. I thought we were going to melt the other morning and had to open the door to cool the house at six in the morning. To be honest it was pretty warm outside too.
Saw some more of my lovely Crane friends migrating south today to sunnier climes. Did you know that there are 26 sleeps until the days start to lengthen again. Yippee.
See you at a market somewhere
Helen
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A change is as good as a rest?

11/20/2014

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Hello All
Well Christian Gleaner from 1825 who said "a change of work is as good as play" which is interestingly the earliest origin that can be found for this phrase, not sure that I completely agree with you. I suppose in a sense some muscles and joints in my body did have a rest this week, however there were other muscles and joints that then made their presence felt after I had made my way once again up the grassy, muddy slope carrying yet another roll of fencing. I must add at this point that I only survived the week with assistance from a very good, friend and my children who all toiled with me through the rain moving fences, sheep and finding sheep that had gone walkabout to the neighbours.
My husband abandoned me for drier, foggier climes in Yorkshire this week to have his first holiday in 4 years. Well abandoned is not precisely correct, I, like a fool, encouraged him to go away thinking that the weather would be reasonable and I would manage perfectly well for a week. Did anyone notice the weather this weekend? We had hail and a thunder storm on Saturday and fairly solid rain from Thursday through till Monday. 

He went on a sausage making course for some inspiration and ideas, to the sea in Bridlington to visit friends and then Essex(?). Whilst in Essex, again visiting friends, he runs into Jimmy of Jimmy's Farm fame and has a chat. Whilst recounting his adventures with TV celebs, I was distracted with concern for whether he had completed the shopping list he was given.... 9 and a half out of ten was his result. For some reason despite my having spent a year working for a sherry company in Spain many moons ago, I have been unable to educate him in the differences of each type of sherry. I should be grateful however, that at least he came back with a bottle of Spanish sherry rather than an imitation and that more importantly than that he remembered the tea bags.
Number 3's eyes nearly fell out of her head at the mountain of chocolate that came in from the car, so I won't tell her yet that it is only the half of it as the rest is stashed for Christmas.
Talking of Christmas there are a few markets we will be attending locally.

Sunday 30th November- La Giraudiere, 16480 Brossac.
Sunday 7th December Manoir de Longeveau, between St Séverin and Aubeterre 16390.
Sunday 14th December Duras Christmas Market, 47120

See you all soon
Helen



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And now for something completely different....

11/12/2014

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Picture
Hello All
Now when I was a child we had a toilet something like this.... I never remember it having any problems and to my young and tender mind it always worked. In fact both sets of Grandparents had toilets something like this on the right of the page and to the best of my knowledge they were always in good working order. So then I moved to Zimbabwe and the toilet we had in our house usually worked. It looked something like the one below.....

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The cistern in Mother in laws house usually worked but had a notice on it that read "Please lift the handle after flushing" and after many visits to lots of different houses in Zimbabwe during the 12 years I lived there, we had variations on the sign "please push down after use" and "lift then press" etc, etc. We also had bits of wire coming out of the top of cisterns to enable you to either pull up or push down the floats or valves inside the cistern without removing the lid.  Anyhow I thought to myself oh well this is obviously what it is like to live in Africa and put it down to bad manufacturing and poor economic environments and living in the third world.
During the drought years (91/92) there were bricks in the cisterns to reduce the amount of water used, bits of tape put over the flushing buttons so that one would remember not to flush too often and even some clever little ditties printed on the cistern to make the whole experience more amusing for everyone, "if its yellow let it mellow if its brown flush it down" springs to mind. Nice and memorable with a good rhyme. If I recall correctly they turned off the water during the day in some of the towns, Bulawayo area being the worst hit.
So moving back to the first world in 2004 there would be the up side of having a toilet that worked properly like I remembered from my childhood.
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This is a picture of my toilet cistern here in France once again suffering from its probably monthly attack of "the water-is-going-to-run-continuously-itus". Oh dear bang goes that chance at one-upmanship for the first world.
In fact this is not an isolated incident my foster brother, recently visiting from UK, London no less, tells me that the toilet cistern in his London home (that he rents out) also suffers from the same affliction which can lead to complete disharmony and revolution amongst his tenants when this occurs causing him to contemplate having to install a second bathroom facility so that when, not if, the problem 
happens again they can use the second toilet whilst the first is being repaired. 
This, once again, is not progress. I don't think I view my childhood through rose tinted spectacles and I am sure I would have remembered my Dad cursing at the toilet, if it had been a regular breaker downerer, if Gavins behaviour is a standard approach to the irritations of plumbing.
So with all that said happy flushing
Helen
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Update and yes it is that time of year...

11/6/2014

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Hello All
Yes it is time to get the winter duvet and the electric blanket out of the cupboard, find the axe and make sure nothing has died in the chimney. The chill has arrived. Mind you we have had our fire going for a couple of weeks as our house is prone to being rather damp once the really hot sun has disappeared.
Ha gotcha.... hands up who thought I was going to say it is nearly Christmas, time to think about what you might want to eat during the festivities and possibly make an order. But no, I wasn't.... but seeing as how we have touched on the subject maybe you would like to think about it;-)

Here is our tree surgeon swinging about in our very large trees outside our tobacco barn conversion.It was very impressive listening to the trees being felled and as you can see he is quite a long way up. The first photo is taken from the first floor window. 
Here is the upstairs of our barn all boarded out. We are on a pause before the window stage as I am still trying to find the best value for money site in France as my first foray into window pricing gave me a price of 5000 euros which was way out of our budget. It is lovely big space upstairs and we spent an hour or so this morning drawing lines for where the rooms and bathrooms should be. Gavin has come up with a clever plan for an airing cupboard so goodbye to all those damp sheets that get hauled in from the garden at this time of year.
With regard to the dog attack on the sheep and insurance we are still waiting for a response from the dog owners insurance but we are hoping for a fairly straight forward run as there are no challenges involved but we will see.
Thermals and thick socks for tomorrows market methinks.
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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