Some time ago

BLOGGER inexplicably removed my lists from the right hand side......]
all the blogs I used to read...
I must learn how to reinstate them..

Almost a month since I thought Summer was here

I was duped!
The weather has been wet, grey, humid, miserable with occasional glimpses of the golden orb!
We have also been working at the kitchen.
Me?   I am the client, the support, the skivvy, the observer, the organiser,  the finder of lost tools,  the person to be consulted about "would you like it like this or this?", the second pair of hands, the person who tries to keep up morale when IKEA kitchen problems arise....
He? He has been the one to use intelligence, skills and expertise on how to put it all together.
We are nearly at the end of the process but not without a few dramas and visits back to IKEA... and still another one is necessary because the second tap also drips very slowly, but it drips and I shall return it and go to a different shop to spen a little more money on a quality tap .. maybe Grohe.

In addition, for the last 4 to 6 weeks the courtyard has been dug up because the mains drains needed attention.  We have installed one Clark drain cover for the existing rodding section which we left below pavement slabs, sand and gravel.  There is another one to instal but we are awaiting delivery of a smaller Clark drain cover.

Today the specialist should arrive on the third date given to make a third rodding drain cover on the public road.  In addition the pipes have to be resited a little so that they have the correct direction of descent!!!!!!!!!!
I really do not need a fourth 'dig up' of the waste system to ensure there is no further backup!  There was enough of that at my previous French residence and it's all very well with strong arms but I don't have those nor the inclination to rod the drains!

Almost a month since I posted on my blog, but I have been disinclined.  It takes time to focus, load photos, type text,  and I just have not been focussed on this form of diary!

Perhaps when I have more of my own time again, or before, I will be able to report on my kitchen progress.

The first and second of twelve

I am beginning to think I shall end this blog...
but I won't,
until I have completed 'the kitchen' in a way that is fulfilling in my senior days!
I think that by then I will WILL be ready for a new life, and, hopefully, by then, in 2016, I will have developed a better sense of Thoughts, Needs, Hopes, Dreams, Regrets, AND moreover what I DO NEED to achieve before I can't.
This has been the red curtain hanging open upon my stage... it's still open and until the day I cannot BE, it isn't yet the final curtain.
I am trying hard to appreciate the difficulties that other persons experience.... and how it must be that HOPE is so hard to think about.
The glass is half or more full in my life despite whatever black dogs haunt me!
It is true that I've felt tired of blog posting, but not tired of being creative, if I can harness a positive stimulus. However, being human, I am proud that I can confront / express emotion without sweeping debris under the rug or into a box to put upon a shelf.  It is  better out than in.  I write for me and not for an audience! I write so that I can begin to understand LIFE as it is doled out ... or as I take whatever I take!

SO... an idea arose on my walk today: 45 minutes trailing The American Way leading to 'La Tranche Anglaise' with the final ascent then descent back to MY HOME. Oh yay, my home. Am I not fortunate to not yet be homeless!  Let's Step back one day to yesterday...

On the first day of Christmas LOVE brought to me:

• a cycle ride along a strait then walking long shallow ascents on the return (TOTAL time : an a hour and a half)
• a reindeer in a tree ( amusing )
• champagne and oysters...eaten in warm sunshine ... all we needed was the beach!  I provided a delicious Lanson Champagne... I am sold!!!
• delicious Christmas flavours, Anglais sur l'assiette.. which isn't what mine host envisaged. As I said to her later, we learn from Christmases we experience. Those who served were instructed to get the food portioned onto the plate before it lost heat! ... the plus side were the wines, the humour and that it was achieved in true French fashion ... eating over six hours with pleasant intervals when various people removed themselves from the table to return at the appropriate moment!  
• the fun and joy of children interacting with adults... 
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  How delightful to see a 4 year old eating more than one!!!!

  

  The beautiful hand made tablecloth from Emmaus for less than ten euros!!!!! 

  
  

  
  

  

  At least 20 plates / dishes of different sizes  portraying Hummingbirds ? Colibris from Emmaus for ten euros!

  

  I do like a boy chicken!

  

  Whilst a modern pudding much like a steamed sultana pudding with a caramel type sauce was interesting I much prefer a real Christmas pud of home made quality but it has been some years since I have had the desire to make one!

and let us step forward to today:
On the second day of Christmas LOVE brought to me:

• a glorious warm spring-like day temperature about 15C!!!!!
• laziness feeling being content...
• a 45 minute walk to my friends' house to find out my holiday duties ...

Trees lopped or felled to provide logs for the owners of the land and to provide a clear view of the mill house!

Le Tranche Anglais - allez -up!

 Indeed - Allez ... up!!!!!!

9999

Currently, just before midday in France on 9th July there have been that many visitors to this blog!

7,777

viewings .....is coming up today ... as this morning at 09.40 French time, it is at 7,770 as I write.   Fun!

Yesterday

this blog had 332 posts and 5,555 page views all time history! 

Marmalade Queen

Press the wrong button and the whole of my finished posting with poetry and emotion was deleted.
B*****.
I just spent over an hour creating and now I am disheartened and very p***** off!!!!!!!
MORAL: Type in Word and SAVE!!!!!!!!!!
PS. I am not usually one for invective comments but, as you see, if you read asterisks as letters, then your interpretation is as good (bad) as mine! 

Belated Happy Birthday

on 5th September 2012 as my blog reaches it's first birthday. 
I have actually written this on 19th September 2012!

I have kept this blog fairly private even though it's in the public domain. This has been for reasons of cautiousness, protecting a friendship, and my insecurities. Here though I have found within a space a place where creativity can unfold and heal the past whilst I confront the present and the future. It is where, within a certain anonymity, I can feel brave enough to record a diary of events.  I can challenge and correct a mild dyslexia using word processing combined with visual book style presentation.
I know that I find the public sharing of my life a difficult one.
With my previous blog I had an alias which I continue to this day.  I like it very much.
I rarely had my profile on that blog.
I am not  fan of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc where I have to share my real name and statistics!
But here I can be RestlessinFrance!!!!!!!

My reasons for creating this diary and blog

A Life of Enquiry

I'm creating a narrative with regard to owning French property, having purchased a renovation project! As a result I think I am 'growing up' in retirement age. I try to conceal a personal, private story apart from a public story but that which I share, indicates a journey in My Life. I'm confronting life-long behaviour patterns and emotions. Fluctuating levels of sanity or insanity arrive as I strive to correct 'mistakes' and yet these have created who I am. Courage and confidence have to be learned. I try not to seek approval or disapproval. I know who I am when I feel happiness being as free as the wind walking on the beach. No beaches where I live!Since the 1970s without influence I developed my own ideas about the primary classroom and that EDUCATION should instil ENQUIRY. One of the most important gifts for the child is to develop confidence. It is learned. It is vital not to become passive nor aggressive, but to become assertive and express one's opinion. Despite teaching this, I did not learn it! Being proactive to make a decision and choice requires confidence. My parents never encouraged me/ taught me to be confident so I wonder if my own children learned their confidence from their life with me? I definitely tried to impart it to the primary children who were receptive in my classroom but with my own children I think I was more strict!
In my later life I acknowledge that every action, look, word, thought has consequences and that we choose every second of the day what the future will be! My own children seem to have learned this before me and have become self-assured adults. I'm still learning to begin to manage thought and conduct and still I make mistakes. I believe that we have the power to make changes that should not hurt anyone and it is important to be considerate of others. But when sometimes thoughts and feelings are projected onto us, it is more about the person the observations emanate from. It is better to walk away. I try to live by observing the outside-of-me-myself-world and heed my intuition.
I have come to my house to enquire about many things. It asks me to be patient, calm, active and it would like me to be confident and have more courage.
I love my place in France but I miss my home. I enjoy living in one of the most beautiful villages in France but yearn for the beaches, reedbeds, pretty houses, cream scones and Adnams beer of the Suffolk and Norfolk coastlines.
I miss the sound of the sea.
"A home is where a heart is and my heart is in France as well as near the sea and the East Anglian coast. When I love two or more places, I can enjoy being wherever I am, and when I go from one place to the other I can always look forward to going home!"