January 10th, 2019

Good morning everyone and a Happy New Year to all.
We are nearly ready to face 2019 and all it has to throw at us. Funny that because as it is already upon us we don't actually get a choice in the matter so onward and upward...
To begin with the most important things in life. Food. We cooked our ham just before Christmas and having a suspicion about how the food menu would deteriorate into a lusciously delectable menu of full flavoured food items, I decided to opt for a lighter Christmas Eve lunch. The ham, cooked finnish style, not sure if it was what the Finns intended, but it was delicious. So Berkshire ham roasted in the oven. It was soft and succulent more like a cross between pulled pork and corned beef I suppose. I made a ham and leek pie a few days later with the remaining meat, which I forgot to photograph, which was also epic according to the rest of the family. Btw there are a lot of leeks in a ham and leek pie. My frying pan was nearly not large enough.
The down side for me was that during Christmas I had a rather nasty cold so my taste buds were a little under the weather for much of our eating spree. So I figure that if I could taste anything, then the flavour really must have been wonderful.
​The children have been catching up with hugs and licks from the dogs, and our new cat, "Tiggy" brought in from the barn, finally, and spayed is slowly becoming a more friendly house cat. Only another three to go and we should be in control of our feral cat population. The other three are not coming inside though, the barn is plenty big enough and the 5 we  already have inside will probably get a little grumpy with the lack of seating. 

Hugs

Bedroom temperature

Boxing Day

Brothers and sisters

The girls

Tiggy

So what have we been up to since Christmas other than eating more delicious food, sleeping rather alot and squeezing as many minutes into the day of being with the children before they all disappear off again to pursue their own studies ..... as little as possible would be the response. However, as you can imagine some jobs are unavoidable, like the end of year books that have to be made ready for the accountant who needs to start us on our data inputting towards the end of January. And the yearly clean down of the butchery which always takes longer than I think it should. I have completed, to the best of my ability, the books. The butchery takes a little more enthusiasm as it is jolly cold in there and also quite dark as one of the lights has decided to cease to function. I await the arrival of the person that fixes stuff, unfortunately I have only just reminded said person, who is a little preoccupied with sheep and fencing. The latter is always a challenge in the freezing weather. Our bedroom was seven degrees when I woke up this morning and I think my sinuses had/have frozen as I had/have the most abominable headache. So I am currently hiding in front of the fire pretending to be busy blogging. It is however a beautiful day outside and I will have to go and fill the barrow with wood eventually. 

We have had a few lambs chez nous enough to keep Gavin entertained, and yesterday we were outside collecting wood and generally tidying the field edge for the next sheep move. The dogs as always in attendance, looking for an excuse to run and make a lot of noise...just like children really ;) Trying to take a selfie with an over enthusiatic, licky dog is always a challenge. I was lucky enough to avoid a full facial though.
The big news is that I have finally sent off my dossier for "une demande de naturalisation" and we are in the throws of adding more paperwork to the childrens dosiers. We met some lovely local Gendarmes who came to see if the children were who they said they were and are likely to see them again in the near future as they like to acquaint themselves with local businesses and asisst with security. Nice to know. The upside of a gret deal of paperwork is coming into contact with more people within the community the downside is that Canon are making a fortune out of us with regard to ink cartridges, not to mention the trees donation to our endeavours.
We will be back at the markets next weekend the 18th and 19th January and normal service for delivery runs will resume in February.
The Franklin Family wishes you all a happy and trouble free 2019
Helen