So a slow drive back from Spain, so hot (27 C), so sunny, towards La Chaise. A farewell picnic at the Porta Catalana, the last pit stop before the Franco-Spanish border. For once no roadworks round Perpignan! Weather still hot and sunny. We knew we were heading...
One thousand, five hundred pages of printed text, divided over three paperbacks, some newsprint, some newspapers online and various random items of information – that is what I have read in the last four days. I have sat in the sun and seen a most beautiful garden,...
Guiltily I confess: we have run away from La Chaise. But, she added hastily, only for a few days, only because of the rain, because actually we were useless, probably even de trop. The tiler’s tiles and Manitou were making manoeuvring in the front garden...
Had an absolutely horrendous time last Wednesday, trying to get back to La Chaise from London as French air traffic control was on strike. Mind you, it had not been on strike for years, so one was due. Great struggle on the EasyJet web site to find out whether my...
It has been wonderful to recover, for human and ovine use, the three horse fields. Apparently sheep and horses cannot share the same pasture – or at least the same water – because the liver fluke that sheep harbour are even more disastrous for horses. On this basis...
My wild, passionate, dirty winter love affair has gone sour. We are getting tired of each other, of ourselves, wishing we each would go away. But still we drag grimly on and blame the unusually prolonged tail end of winter weather for the situation in which we find...
As fate would have it, we seem to have chosen the worst spring ever to have the main house roof re-done. It was very necessary but I am more than somewhat grumpy that the World Union of Rain Gods has decided to exercise ancient skills on south-west France. (Also on...
One can seriously go off sheep, especially when they no longer look pretty. At the moment the ewes look all angular and awkward. They have recently been shorn, so the hip bones, shoulders and spine are very visible. Also, I think, they feel unlovely, undignified. ...
May is strawberry time in the Dordogne which prides itself on producing the first, and best, strawberries in all of France. Sadly the May weather has not been at all propitious for this delicious fruit, temperatures way below seasonal averages – or at least below...
Last weekend Country Mouse and Spouse went to Town (London) which was mostly a mistake. To start with country distances between towns in France have got longer despite the expensive creation of motorways, or dual carriageways, between them. Take the distance between... 
