Back to our version of normality

[Alice Abbott]

I haven't posted on here in such a long time as we have been so busy in the weeks leading up to "the visitation" at Christmas time. At last we are back to normal - or as normal as we get.

Firstly, we have a new floor in our living room. This is such a major achievement for us after living with a dirt floor for a year and a half. It's beautiful thick reclaimed oak, all sanded and polished and gleaming. It makes such a difference as we now have the whole ground floor covered with proper flooring at last. Mack worked like crazy at it for three solid weeks. Pretty opportune really as it has been raining here for weeks and you have no idea how horrible a sloshing mud floor can be in your living room.

We still have a very basic electricity supply (one cable and a double socket) and our broadband cable so we feel we are living in luxury compared to a few months ago. No running wter yet (unless you count the torrents coming off the roof) but we are managing really well without.

Christmas was a major challenge as we wanted to have a good Christmas but not dig into our non-budget too far. We managed it and are still on target at the moment to keep ourselves for a whole year and spend no more than a few euros a week.

The children made dozens of paper chains with glue and a roll of lining paper (€2) which they coloured themselves. We found a perfect little tree out in the woods which we dug up and will take back shortly. It looks as fresh as ever so apparently none the worse for its indoor Christmas. It was in the rather chilly hall so I'm hardly surprised. We made stars and so on with sweet papers the kids had begged from various places, garlands of popcorn, little woollen dolls and, once my mother arrived, fresh cranberries strings and peppermint candies.

Thanksgiving is really the "turkey" dinner in the US so we really had a Thanksgiving dinner, turkey with cranberry jelly (thanks Mom!), roast potatoes, veggies, etc. Then cinnamon apple pie and custard. I think my Mom quite got into the lifestyle as long as she was able to retire to her electrical gadgets and TV in her comfortable little gite each night! She arrived with an enormous set of aromatherapy oils for me, something new for me to learn soon. Apparently it cost her a fortune in excess baggage!

As our Xmas gifts were all hand made or home grown, I asked our friends to either give us something similar or, if they weren't into making stuff then to "donate" anything they no longer needed and thought we might like. So we have ended up with the following from our various lovely neighbours

Pate and a leg of pork (our nearest French neighbours)
A bottle of Brandy (more French neighbours
A big box of board games
A caramel coloured woolly rug (lovely in front of the fire on our new floor)
and a lovely sofa, given away because the colours weren't quite right! I actually love the sofa ( a sort of russett brown weave) but then as our previous seating was the kids' camp beds I suppose I'm not likely to complain really.
A box of chocolates from one neighbour who couldn't bring herself to give us anything other than something new ans frivolous.
New jackets all round (courtesy of my Mom)


Amazingly, the mayor, who thinks I am only marginally this side of totally insane, called round with a big bag of oysters and a bottle of lovely white wine on Christmas Eve. He had a glass of mulled blackberry wine and wandered off very amiably!

So, I'll be back shortly looking for essential oil ideas. In the meantime I hope everyone has a good New Year.

[ElizabethBinary]

I am new to this forum so I have no idea how you were fairing a couple months ago but I am IMPRESSED at your holidays with no running water and kids and still managing to make it awesome! Go you!!!

[Green Aura]

Hi Alice, I'd been wondering how you were getting on.

The new floor sounds fabulous and your Christmas sounds wonderful.

If you want to learn properly about essential oils see if you can get hold of any books by Shirley and/or Len Price. They're some of the best available.

[Millymollymandy]

Hi Alice and happy new year!

I'm glad the visit and Xmas all went well and (my idea! oh I feel a bit smug ) your mum staying in a gite worked out perfectly by the sounds of it. You have some lovely neighbours - I don't even know what our mayor looks like!

Your floor sounds lovely and we need some photos now.

[Alice Abbott]

Yes, thanks MMM. Great idea about the gite! My Mom (who seems to have become even more American than I can ever remember) adored France and all things French, even the weather. I suppose she has a good start as she lives just on the coast south of San Francisco where the weather is normally lovely. So a bit of rain, sleet, hail and thunder is quite a novelty. She loved the gite, the gite owner, the crazy lady across the road who spends her time searching for someone or something lost (we hear her calling for it all the time, wandering the lanes - Mom tried to find out what is missing but they had a total communication blip) and even the mayor. The mulled wine was all down to her, the poor guy was so bemused that he didn't dare refuse.

Thanks for the aromatherapy book recommendation, Green Aura. I will see if I can turn it up as a used book on Amazon. It's a huge kit, I think there are 2 dozen 2oz bottles of oils, large bottles of different base oils and creams, mixers and so on. I will have great fun!

Photos will be along shortly of all house developments. We are now marking time until the begining of June so we are using up what materials we have - we might even manage some flooring in one of the barns. The cat scheme also goes from strength to strength. We've "done" seven now, three males and four females. The first one, Nobu, has moved in with us in a casual kind of way. The lurcher seems to tolerate him and even lets him pick bits out of his dish.

ElizabethBinary (I love the name by the way, where are you?) our sudden venture into almost total self-sufficiency was more or less forced on us by biting off considerably more than we could initially chew with a renovation scheme in France (I will try to update my blog shortly if you want to check out how far we've come since last June - I have diary notes ready to go straight in). Our two kids are intrepid little monsters of 5 and 3 who are loving every minute of their time here, spend their time visiting all their "friends" in the village (I do sometimes feel a little sorry for the old folk they have adopted but they are teaching them the most amazing things, how to make wooden sabots is the latest) and appear to be as fit as fleas. I think probably their French leaves something to be desired as they are learning almost exclusively from people who are in their sixties, seventies and older, have rarely ever left the village and speak a strange Occitan patois. They do have a six year old friend who spends two hours with them every day and they all get on fine so I'm not worrying too much!

[ElizabethBinary]

ElizabethBinary (I love the name by the way, where are you?) our sudden venture into almost total self-sufficiency was more or less forced on us by biting off considerably more than we could initially chew with a renovation scheme in France (I will try to update my blog shortly if you want to check out how far we've come since last June - I have diary notes ready to go straight in). Our two kids are intrepid little monsters of 5 and 3 who are loving every minute of their time here, spend their time visiting all their "friends" in the village (I do sometimes feel a little sorry for the old folk they have adopted but they are teaching them the most amazing things, how to make wooden sabots is the latest) and appear to be as fit as fleas. I think probably their French leaves something to be desired as they are learning almost exclusively from people who are in their sixties, seventies and older, have rarely ever left the village and speak a strange Occitan patois. They do have a six year old friend who spends two hours with them every day and they all get on fine so I'm not worrying too much!

I'm from Australia, my name refers to the fact I have binary tattooed on me. My friends always call me "Elizabeth - in BINARY!"

Oh wow, you're leaving my retirement dream. I always wanted to retire in a village in the hilly areas of France in some big stone house with clawfeet tubs that was built G-d knows when... although I wonder if I'm too modern to be settling down in a place so 'simple'... but I daydream of it here and again. I look forward to reading your blog! I'm both fascinated and scared!!

(and wow this forum saves posts when your computer crashes... I'm staying here)

[Alice Abbott]

Bath with claw feet? Oh how I wish! Ours is a tin thing, dragged in and filled with hot water drawn from a well and heated on our kitchen wood burning range. Come the day we have a water system in here I wil keep my eye out for one though...

[ElizabethBinary]

Bath with claw feet? Oh how I wish! Ours is a tin thing, dragged in and filled with hot water drawn from a well and heated on our kitchen wood burning range. Come the day we have a water system in here I wil keep my eye out for one though...

Daydreams are never accurate! The reality is always much harder - as I'm sure you know!!

[Thomzo]

Alice, I dream of doing what you're doing but, in reality, I complain when my heating switches itself off without my permission (which it's just done - brrrr). I think it's best I carry on dreaming and leave it at that.

You have achieved so much and well done for surviving Christmas. Hopefully, now, your mother understands what you are doing and will be a lot more supportive.

Good to hear from you again.

Zoe

[ellie12022]

Alice

What an uplifting post. I wish you all the best in your continued renovations.

I think it's lovely that your children are mixing with older people in the community, learning really interesting things & I'm sure bringing a lot of joy to the community. children are like sponges, aren't they? My niece & nephew moved here to Wales a few years ago, and despite being a bit older than your children, have picked the language up really well (despite their worries).

Have fun with the oils

[MuddyWitch]

Alice,

I'm really pleased you have a floor, beaten Earth tends to fight back in the wet...I remember!

I so look forward to your 'up-dates;' they always brighten my day and really cheer me up. I'd love to have half your stoicism. You really should put all this in proper print when you are living in luxury in a few months. It'd be a bestseller.

MW

[theabsinthefairy]

Hey Alice

your muddy floor comment - bought back some fond memories of the start of our renovations.

just read your blog too - looking forward to your next entries

- your Dutch campsite/restaurant owning friends are running an Auberge - they are very common here in the Auvergne - and definitely a good way of doing things - especially if you can combine bio foods from your own garden and your own animals on the menu.



Anyway - my point was - I do know how hard it can be to be living off nothing so do you want some of my surplus seeds?

[Millymollymandy]

Hi Monica nice to see you again!

Alice - I have lots of seeds too if you would like any - particularly herbs too like coriander and dill (self seed everywhere here ), and bought packet stuff that I never use all of before they go out of date. Beans galore! Let us know.

[Alice Abbott]

Those seed offers are really kind, thank you! I was really touched that you thought of us.

Amazingly we have done really well so far with our initial basic stocks and the things we ave grown and swapped, plus what I have "earned" in various ways. I think we have over half of our initial stocks still on the shelves and thanks to the neighbours letting us use their old freezer we have preserved probably more than we can eat for the foreseeable future.

As for seeds, we brought piles of seed packs with us from the UK and I'm hoping I can get them all in this year as they are coming up to their "best before" date. We managed to grow just about every herb we could ever need (I've dried and frozen absolutely piles of them) other than coriander, which just drooped. However a kind neighbour has given me a really hardy plant which will go in once this bad weather is over so we may even have that problem solved.

Otherwise I have saved seeds from various things (tomatoes, french beans, broad beans, melons and cucumbers) so I'm actually really well set for options.

In fact, so far I've enjoyed this little experiment so much that I will try to keep it up once June rolls around. We'll buy a basic store cupboard and see how we manage for a second year. We have a huge amount of home-made wine just coming into its own too!

[theabsinthefairy]

We are on our last bottles of elderflower cordial and champagne now - this is a great feebie from the hedgerow Alice, just waiting on the elderberry and blackberry wines now, they have cleared beautifully and I am looking forward to them.


Hi MMM - been a while - just been so busy last year, we had a very busy summer and a mammoth harvest and then had lots of kills for the freezer, lots of goose, duck, chicken,rabbit, lamb and mutton to see us through.