Before fireworks on the same day

"Oh how magazine" says a friend for morning coffee re the kitchen!

We sat for longer than I thought she had time yet I was pleased to chat.
Even though I'd forgotten about my intended trip to Le Blanc, where 350 stalls were showing ancient and modern ware in intense heat,  I went with three hours to spare.  It was worth the pistachio ice cream but I did not find what I was looking for. On the way I took a route that I was not familiar with (was thinking about something else, so travelled much further cross-country than I relished).
On the edge of one of the many woodlands a sleek, golden brown buck bolted across the road looking into my eyes as I approached at speed!

I rather like the fusion of wood and metal and thought of my son who could make something such as this or these.

 Then I thought of at least two friends who like sports vehicles!

The second one is for me!

Whizz home to leftover lamb (all leftover veg had been eaten in three days), quick shower, dress business-like for two hours voluntary work which made my head spin!
Whizz home to calm quiche making from THE FRENCH KITCHEN ... page 55 and my first pastry making session in three years, I am sure!  Bit short but it yummy. Not enough tomatoes in the fridge so adapt with red peppers. No cream so add the festering feta cheese and left over cube of pokey Cantal diced small with Herbes du Provence. YUM. Any bacteria is blasted by the heat!

in the oven

out of the oven, on the new grill, on top of the new induction hob and the lovely silk print of frangipani flowers selected by me from Sri Lanka 20 years ago!

a slice of!

Gently stroll at twilight along places where people gather to watch fireworks as mist hovers above the river pressed down by colder air before the fun of the fair.
(Does that need commas? Perhaps or not?)

Three clicks of the camera and the theatrical stage view changes slightly!

Not often are stages set with people cooking, eating, walking, searching, sitting, waiting for the best viewing place, whilst that grand chateau under repair and fortification has waited for 11 centuries for this day to look down upon us.
It is under new management by a company from Dordogneshire - a company that manages several National Monuments. Unfortunately, the Forteresse and the Roc aux Sorciers will, as far as I know be closed at the end of August, so come this month if you would like tickets for the two sites. 

Still

Yup, still not feeling creative with writing or producing articles.
Today the weather has cooled off.
I don't mind on one level but I would like more sunshine for August as mostly work has been indoors.

The kitchen is as done as it can be for now. Needs a splashback and some other treats! I can live with it.  There is such a lot of space as I have kept the laundry room as part larder.  Things will be moved around later.

Pic later.

Last night adding to the stress of Saturday there was a RAVE somewhere.. incessant boom boom base repetitive rhythms and evidently huge beams of light in the sky. It started at 6 and ended at 6!  I eventually slept and emerged at noon today! Day and mood awry!
The stress of Saturday was to do with Thursday and Friday's non stop work of tidying tools away, cleaning dust of renovation from all rooms, being appalled by how many spiders were concealed in corners, and moving stuff out of "atelier" wherever possible has exhausted me and him. FRACTIOUS is an understatement.

CHANGES
UNWELCOME but WELCOME changes are afoot.
Will I cope?
I must!

I know

I know, I know my avid list of known readers ... about five... are all waiting to see
pics of the brand new kitchen.. and to read tales of what this mad woman has been doing...
and soon...
soon...
Soon, I shall have time to write and publish my photos.

I shall backdate the news!!

MY EXCUSE -
I have been working. I HAVE BEEN WORKING flat out. even though I have done little to instal the kitchen.  Garden and Domestics had to be controlled to calm the mounting chaos with the kitchen stuff in three rooms in the last 16 months.
A friend has written that my kitchen has been a prison.
YES.  It has been a sentence!
I deviate as usual.

Eventually, I gave up monitoring HIS tools, (the 'friend' who returned for his own sentence!)
Now,  he has a LOT to tidy up and it aint going to be me that does it!
I can see that I shall have to supervise where it all goes because it needs to be tidy ish!

The kitchen and the laundry / larder are all finished apart from the kitchen backsplash and le buanderie credence.
OH MY... dare I cook  in the kitchen?

The kitchen one will have to wait because I cannot choose tiles from a dustance and have no time  nor inclination to travel to tile shops to find something special.

I shall get the chaos sorted here as I have just a few weeks before THE HELPER travels on!!!

Here it comes... lalalalah!

.. . flames from the sun in June..
WE have had three days of high temperatures and a BLUE SKY! 
Out with winter - in with summer! 
Out with wet - in with dry.
Out with woodburners and in with alfresco eating!
Out with indoor tasks and in with gardening..
Sunday was a weather transition day and a rest from work day.
What is the meaning of the word "rest"?
A new route was discovered on an old railway track. Take the car across the departement border, park up, walk the lanes to arrive at a straightish track.   It can be walked or cycled ... involves some roads. More later!
After a two and a half hour walk I mowed one lawn for two hours... The next day the other lawn but the mower forced me to stop after an hour and a half.  The next day another hour and it was mostly finished but the wall and fence wildness needs taking control!  Grass cuttings were left as it was quicker.   The grass was getting too long!  I prefer to collect the mowings!  Then my legs became wobbly with that old known feeling that hasn't happened for a long while, so I stopped knowing a town drive and shop had to be achieved because the stock cupboard is low.  
I like to ensure that I have replacements for food and household stuffs. Hate running out of stock cupboard items. No one to borrow  cup of sugar from here, although the village shop is a blessing. When one goes to the town which is a 40 minute drive one has to do other tasks to also justify the journey! It can take hours.

Yesterday, eventually was KIND. It was so nice to be treated, to sit al fresco with a glass of red St Nicholas.  But the centre of that tow is so busy and noisy!
I never managed to get to the shop for  induction ironware   nor to the DIY store for electrical hanging lamp necessities!
Home and crash into bed at 8h30... having lost four hours sleep that morning.

The kitchen is being a pain for the man installing it.
One gets monkeys for peanuts and whilst design is a forte of IKEA,  especially packaging.. (they are BIG on cardboard, paper, plastic.  I intend to weigh it all, including the metal and plastic parts included in the packaging that we do not need)  they are hopeless in quality on other criteria!
Designed not to last!!!!!
Capitalism! Global waste!

The doors have fine hair line gaps so have to have 'the attention to detail' that my friend can give and the 'not yet in use tap' has a drip!  PLUS to my annoyance,  the sink hole is in the wrong position so when the tap movable spout pours water on the sink, water splashes and lies on the sink bed!!!!!!! GGGRRRR!!!!!!!

Ah... but it is beginning to look clean and tidy...
How it will work for someone who likes cooking will be  the test of time...

I have no time for reporting photos or other stories on the progress of this almost final stage of the six year french house renovation  on a budget.

When I can STOP working then maybe I shall get back to posting!

What really matters though is that to have had company here since early March has been good for my brain and emotions.  Again I have missed the cake club and other things ... because my friend here cannot stay and will not stay and maybe that is sad but reality!  I have also missed things because I have to get the kitchen installed. Even if I do not do the bulk of manual labour, I am on hand with the second pair of hands, to do as bid with holding this and that and to be consulted on this and that as well as making refreshments.

I could not have achieved the renovation work in this house without him and when he goes on his travels  I wonder if he will ever return..,for he will have done the last downstairs room and saved me thousands of l'argent!

I THANK HIM even though it has been six plus years of being separated.
The tears and heartache diminish over time as stress decreases!

Yesterday's pain

Yesterday, we were forced to make a 40km apx / two hour return journey to Poitiers, to Leroy Merlin to be exact and return three sacks of tile adhesive marked with a fabrication date of 11/2015, bought at end of March 2016, kept in my kitchen room. Plus time spent in that green, orange and wh0te balloon-ed shop making the complaint,
More of that long and detailed tale later....


HOWEVER, en route through Monthoiron, a particularly interesting village, but where we usually never stop, I noticed a machine standing by the bus stop!!! How incongruous!
On the way home, deliberately taking the same route, we stopped, and YES, it was Distribupain or something like it!!!
No, I don't need any more pain, but BREAD would be good for lunch .. I fancy an egg sandwich!

WELL, by that time of the day, well after lunch hour, having had our floor laying plans scuppered, and not flawed or even floored by modernism, we pushed one euro in the shape of five 20cts pieces into the mouth of this monster and received a loaf of bread, baguette shaped, chewy and tasty, which we tore off chunks and ate on the way home leaving enough for an aforesaid egg, lettice and tomato sandwich!
You could buy one or two baguettes in a bag.
You could pay with espèces, billets ou avec une carte bancaire.......
He would have done the latter, but I like my hard currency ... lo, the day when I cannot use a euro or sterling currency, or any other coinage currency!

I reckon there were bread fairies in that there machine, making bread, bagging it up, taking the money... - one of them even said "Merci" in her very best french!!!!!!

Is this the way of the world .... !!!    ?????
Me thinks it's a jolly good idea in rural France, but please could we have croissants too? 



 

Wtfiiaa?

This particular blog started as a way of recording the renovation of a property... much as many others have used a blog format as a journal.

However, it also became unintentionally, a vehicle for an emotional journey, after the break-up of what I thought was a relationship made-in-heaven.  No such thing exists, I have discerned.  My vulnerable dream was shattered by my own negative energies and those of another.  My dream of having a relationship that incorporated all that I dreamt of in terms of 'happy family' sharing when my parents never did, came to fruition fleetingly and then was quickly dissolved by irritability. scorn, criticism and blame and maybe other stuff.  Let's not go down that road for now!

This blog has seen a few up and down episodes of my personal life since 2010 or whenever I started to blog, in retrospect to that time that I bought my property.  This blog has also commented on places and events.  It has witnessed my observations of, and in, my village and surroundings.  I try to avoid personal and family pics.  I try to be cautious with global internet exposure but sometimes fail!

On occasions I tried the challenge of blogging every day of a month by writing articles ahead of time when the facility to do that became a possibility,  or I discovered it!  It takes time to get photos prepped and an article written.  I have posted deliberately and unconsciously as a form of creativity, as well as avoidance of doing other tasks - let's call that procrastination!

Sometimes I write ahead, then edit and re-edit before publishing.  Most often I write and publish.  To the discerning few who bother to read this ego-centred self-published material, they may have identified that sometimes I edit after publishing.  Sometimes I feel I've been too public with the emotional outpouring.  Or a poem needs to be improved or altered to make it, in my mind, better!  Or my form of dyslexia has come to be too garbled in its word-salad, so I have to rewrite the nonsense sentences into ones that can be understood and not misinterpreted!

Sometimes there have been major gaps between postings, where I've become silent, unmotivated, dispirited, when words or creativity are blocked.  The gaps might signify I have been occupied or that I have nothing worthy of publication. The gaps may signify that I have been in a dark hole of depression or contemplation of the thought:  "W--- t--  f---  i-  i-  a--  a----?"
This posting is in itself an admission of that.  Excuse me for any sensitivities of the use of an expletive. Isn't it amazing how few letters are required for one to be able to read a sentence? My children at school loved that they could read, if I covered the ascenders or descenders of letters!

It is also an admission that I do NOT produce this for others... I produce it for me. Very ego-centred!  I am aware and what is wrong with that form of artistry?  I do not seek compliments but if you wish to make them then I feel honoured.  If you feel you want to refute me or disagree then you can do that too!  My blog is a kind of diary.  I am proud of it.  I am proud  of the progress I have made in writing skills when at the end of my career I was writing absolute goobledy-gook for important documents: no one told me!!!  - no one even understood - least of all did I realise that dyslexia manifests itself under stress. I feel it is remarkable what I have achieved given that at the age of 17 I had not much idea about literacy! From an early age I read the dictionary at bedtime to learn vocabulary and spelling because I'd read the main reading material - the family print company's selection of Charles Dickens novels.

I have made progress coping with and in the particular challenges I've experienced of living in France.  All the downs and all the ups.  It is called LIFE and possibly would not be any different wherever I lived.  I am who I am!  However, I think the very fact that one lives in a different culture where the primary language is my secondary language, does make an enormous difference to sanity, as also does the fact that the country is huge.  To go to a supermarket or anywhere to experience culture is a often a long journey necessitating the ownership of a vehicle!

My former blog tried very hard to gloss over the hidden REALITY that was not exposed to others in the lifestyle that my former partner and I were living,  although there were some who knew and who were helpless to help, because as for all of us, there is only one who can make a difference, and that person inside us needs a certain amount of  knowledge, skills and talents that perhaps doesn't quite exist when it is required.  Some friends and members of my family said they would not read either of my blogs because the first was not REAL!  It was my real!  It was often the better parts of life as it stood then in a chocolate box cottage surrounded by sheep and a pony where I learned to write poetry.  We had some wonderful positive experiences and I really should find the time and expertise to transform these blogs into book format.  For me. for my grand child.  For posterity or they can burn it at a later date!

People make things. I have done so. I made music.  I fed children's curiosity. I have in the past sewn,  crocheted, knitted etc. I like to write.  My poetry is quite substantial now and this too I would like to get published alongside my photography such as it is!

Meanwhile the spectre of a kitchen room haunts me...
It seems so obscene,  the price it will cost to have the kitchen room electrics rewired for first and second fix!  The flooring seems reasonable but I am undecided on wood or ceramic that looks like wood but I think real wood will win the day!  Then the furniture  and appliance costs seem so obscene.  Yet what I love is expensive. I have expensive tastes as a pauper!  My mother aged 89, said to my daughter when giving her a Christmas gift and not one for me, that I have everything I need!!!!!!!  Maybe she is correct. I have relatively exceptional health for someone my age and I am stil young even if old but I hold no bars to my daughter...who gasps at some things I say... and yet it is tame, very tame, compared to some tigers! All my life my mother has always said that I have ideas above my station! And indeed I have... and wtfiiaa in this isolated west facing property  on the outskirts of a beautiful ( so they say) village!!!!  They don't live here!  Let's not go down that road.

Thinking outside of the box

RANDOM THOUGHTS THAT POP INTO MY HEAD ... in this case, as I light the woodburner and look at the crisp clear blue sky.

I have thought this, in this link which I include here ... not so much about his music but his eloquent intellectual style:
he was the one who did open the theatrical door onto a world already heading in that direction of openness in the late 70s...
who did make it OK for people to experiment with who they are to find their true person.
This man who has just died seems to have almost a godly persona .. and I believe he really has walked into the gates of heaven!   I also believe that his life, now ended, will ricochet causing new positive developments in a modern world which is already changing.

The BBC one can share the link:   http://bbc.in/1n7er5h  
and if that link does not work:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/d5c291be-258c-4217-922e-38f9d78de878

and so I do agree ....

For some months, I've been trying to fathom out why my daughter is as she is... I have been thinking that her because it is my opinion that she has not been using her creativity, her intelligence, her happiness, her  complex talents...one would perhaps think she isn't very intelligent but she has deep, deep knowledge that is blocked for some reason.   She finds it difficult to be consistent - don't many of us?  That in itself is a consistency in that she is inconsistent!!!!!!
Creativity is important.. people cannot live around the internet...I know this about my own behaviour.  Two different peas in a pod!

As a young, naive person with television in the house, which I didn't often like to watch when family did on a boringly basis,  I didn't know about the REAL world but I did tap into the aural one.  We had loud, non stop rock music in our houses, once I'd left home. I also played classical stuff as a music student, until I managed to find Radio 4 and 'Woman's Hour' in my life.   My husband played Indian music.  One rental was a student house, the next in the middle of a field attached to a neighbour  was a house sit where we were mindful of sound levels. Another was a detached house in the middle of rural England where the nearest neighbour was some distance!   Great years for feeling a sense of freedom and an attempt at 'the good life'.  They were the times, the early 1970s when even though one was a rebel one still did what establishment said ... for example, following what the BABY BOOKS said about babies... and I very much regret their advice to leave the screaming child who needed a hug to sob itself to sleep!!!!!!!

The internet for me is a wonderful tool for personal self learning and to learn about psychology, but as David Bowie said it comes with a WARNING LABEL: those are not his words.   He warns of the creativity of the tool but also of the dangerous aspects which indeed that prophecy is indeed true.

In the last 24 hours I have discovered a very interesting man... also suffering from a common phenomena of anxiety about the world and self.

He thought outside of the box. In my younger years I too was encouraged to think sideways. However, my problem was that I was never proactive! 

The twelfth of twelve

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sang to me:

12 drummers drumming,

11 pipers piping,

10 lords-a-leaping,

9 ladies dancing,

8 maids-a-milking,

7 swans-a-swimming,

6 geese-a-laying,

5 golden rings,

4 calling birds,

3 French hens,

2 turtle doves,

and a partridge in a pear tree.

The eleventh of twelve

On the eleventh day of Christmas
Love came yesterday
in the form of a cheerful card from my son and his wife.

with two gifts which made me feel humble and tearful, knowing that despite all the difficulties we do love each other.  There have been too many years of hurt and pain ... Life isn't easy and the mouth soon opens when it is better to keep quiet!  I am hoping we can move to the future!
One gift is a jar of 100 capsules of "green lipped mussels" recommended by my son's wife for arthritis (they knew of my recent temporary lumbar paralysis).

One gift is delicious Chinese teaballs that open into a flower in the teapot ... just as in Wagamama's... mmmmm...
The best gift though was his simple touching sentence about hoping to catch up in 2016.
Ah... yes please.
However, I did phone just before New Years Eve. The post took 12 days to arrive!   Still, I would like us all to meet.  B has never been to France in 12 years to see where I live.  S has been but on each occasion was treated inappropriately and hurt by anger, thoughts of betrayal and my inability to be a go between.
I live in HOPE that we can be Family again!!!   That would be the best gift ever!

The ninth of twelve

On the ninth day of Christmas..
my inner love says to me
that I love to write, take photos, walk once I've got my coat on and gathered motivation to get out and about, cycle (when weather becomes warm) and when muscles get used to the action.
Yesterday, eventually I became inspired upon a route and headed in that direction. I marvel at the fact that the woodland above L'Anglin has remained as it is for 100 years or more, yet constantly in its state of growth and decay!

Further en route, I discovered a different siting of a Borie, in excellent condition on a small chemin that I had never walked before. I like to find a new route.
See two previous postings for regional cabanes/bories/shepherds' huts :  one    and   two 

 The view looking out from the borie doorway:

Just around the corner of the lane , inaccessible to any roving wanderer, but more visible in winter, is the largest borie I know of in this region.  I suppose I have identified at least 12 in this area.

I had walked much further than intended. I'd been out for almost three hours.  I still couldn't find the chemins marked on the map but have clearly been eroded by agriculturists and the owners of woodland.  On the way home in the dusk with rain falling, the former miller of the watermill offered me a lift into the village.   I abandoned my 'dog defense tool', an acquired walking stick as I stepped into his new looking vehicle.

The eighth of twelve

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love wishes thee
"a marvellous future year with happiness, wealth and cheer, opportunity and chance to help you sing and dance."  TRULY, let it bring good or better health, fortune in not only a monetary sense, happy times with family and friends, opportunities to meet new people, go new places, experience new things, broaden horizons, safety and security.
Happy New Year!

The seventh of twelve

On the seventh day of Christmas it was a lazy day to end the year.
I look forward to having a better time in 2016.
THANK YOU to everyone who helped me in 2015...
many gave words of encouragement... it all helped!
Here are six animals who seem to enjoy my visits this last week .. ah .. food they say!

The sixth of twelve

On the sixth day of Christmas ...

I collected two eggs.
Two cats had a playful fight for supremacy.

Les pompiers arrived.  I was glad to donate in exchange for a calendar. They gave me a receipt.
One had worked 27 years as a voluntary fireman, the other four.
One was an arboriste and the other researched argile for the ceramicists. Fascinating. 

 Two new part time neighbours who'd asked for advice earlier this year were invited for aperos... so I made blinis which were more like Scotch pancakes - delicious kept warm on the woodburner eaten with or without hummous. Vouvray - an early celebration of the change of year for me!

How lovely to receive flowers to add to my poinsettia.
I remember arriving in France 12 years ago and being in shock horror about the price of flowers. These days the supermarkets and florists have cottoned on to present bouquets and even wrapped plants at an affordable price.

The fifth of twelve

On the fifth day of Christmas
all was as still and quiet as a mouse ... in my house ...
as I listened to the radio.
I told myself that I wasn't being lazy as I spread out on the settee in front of the warm woodburner mid morning.   I WAS being focused. I WAS concentrating,  listening to issues of the 21st century that I know little about.  It was Woman's Hour; subject - transgender issues.
Then ...
in the quiet of the day,
battling with lack of concentration to do much at all
I
cleared garden weed debris to take to the dechetterie
wrote hand written letters to people I like
cleared paper stuff that no one else has generated
brought in logs
ate eggs
visited the cats and chickens - two eggs today.  One cat wasn't there; the other wanted to play.
invited people for aperos when really I want to be the one to be invited. I can be gracious.
celebrated peace and quiet
enjoyed the still small voice of calm.
Hark! what can one hear?
PEACE.

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!!!!!!