The Brassempouy Christmas fair last Saturday must surely rate as one of the village’s least successful events. We arrived when it opened at 10am and by the time we left for lunch at midday, there had been not even one customer. There were about 8 stalls; those manning them were the only people who attended in the morning, standing around in a freezing cold, undecorated sports hall, trying to look cheerful in the face of French Christmas musak (yes, even worse than the English stuff!).  I don’t imagine it was a lot busier in the afternoon. I think I’ll make a swag for the mantlepiece with all the little Christmas stockings I made.

So, full of the Christmas spirit (or maybe not), but not wanting to look too bah humbug near the veritable Santa’s grotto that’s sprung up next door, Nick and Kieran decorated our Christmas tree in the garden.

Apart from that, it’s been a bitty sort of day; Nick’s done a bit of plastering and Kieran’s sorted some of the wiring on the digger and taken the chain saw to bits.

At the patchwork club this afternoon, one of the ladies, an ex opera singer, kindly lent me a boxed set of four CDs by some famous singer who I’ve never heard of, in spite of my protests that classical and operatic music really aren’t my kind of thing. It seems to be classical and opera mostly, with a bit of folk thrown in for good measure! I think I’m going to be tested on it next week, when she’s threatened to bring me something else! I’m very willing to embrace French culture, but there are limits!

Thank you for all the entries to the “name the digger” competition. After much consideration, we’ve decided to declare Ginny the winner. She suggested Dougal; a name which, for me at least, evokes images of a solid, down-to-earth, robust type. I have to give a special mention to Becky, though, for the longest, most imaginative and most unpronounceable and impossible to remember suggestion (see comments).

After some rain over recent nights, the drive resembles a quagmire; you don’t so much drive along it as skate, praying not to slide into the gas tank behind the house. What we needed was a man with a digger and a heap of rubble. Then, as if by magic, they appeared; if you want to see them in action, click on the box at the bottom of this post.

The lads also plastered the next bedroom ceiling today; soon it will be time for me to redecorate that room.

We bought a couple of grapevines on the market yesterday; Nick wants a row of table grapevines forming a barrier along the side of the septic tank. I don’t know what they’ll taste like, but my choice was one whose leaves turn the loveliest shade of deep pink in the autumn. These two are now in place and we hope to have grapes next September.

I was teaching this afternoon; adjectives, comparatives and superlatives. Hmmm, exciting stuff! However, “Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer” contains lots of adjectives and it is nearly Christmas, so I took my guitar along and taught them the song. I was amazed; they all joined in and loved it, so next week we might do “Silent night” before we eat the mince pies I’m going to take along 🙂

Kieran’s a happy bunny now, playing on the digger. Today he and Nick removed the last two tree stumps and roots from the garden; they took more work than yesterday’s but Kieran lifted the last one out with the digger. His skill is impressive; he must have been a professional in a former life.  Perhaps we’ll have to cash in on this and run digger-driving courses next year 😉 The garden, however, does look as though we’ve been invaded by giant moles now; he’ll have to hone his levelling skills next.

I spent the day making a Christmas wreath and some little Christmas stockings to put on Adrian’s Christmas market stall on Saturday. He’s made some wooden reindeers, which just looked as though they needed something to hang from their antlers. I hope they sell; otherwise  Santa’s going to be horribly confused when he comes down our chimney to find 14 miniature stockings hung by the fireplace!

The “name the digger” competition is still open; we’ve had some great entries so far, but if anyone else has a suggestion, please send it in.

OK boys and girls, the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived, as has Nick and Kieran’s Christmas present. (drumroll) They were so excited; grins as wide as Cheshire cats (another drumroll). So what, I hear you ask, is it!

IT’S A MINI DIGGER!!!!

Yeah, I know; boys and their toys! Kieran was the first to have a go and, typically, took to it very quickly. I then had a turn, to Kieran’s consternation, and managed not to do any damage to anything! It’s actually great fun to drive, though I wouldn’t have been able to do anything constructive with it, being a girl! Nick had to wait till last, but coped admirably.

Once we’d all had a play, the lads got down to the serious job of removing some of the stumps and roots of trees we lost in the garden, in the storm of 2009. Two down, two to go.

What we need now is a name for it; so please log in and make your suggestions. If it’s any help, the brand is Yanmar and the French for mini digger is mini pele.

Yesterday, the lads fitted a new double glazed window in the bathroom; that’s all the old windows replaced now.But the best bit is that you don’t brain yourself every time you get out of the shower now, as it opens from the top.

I finished tiling the hearth with the “magic tiles” and was disappointed to realise that only one person felt sufficiently inspired to finish my story from the last blog. It is, however, an ending to be proud of and certainly caused us great amusement, so thank you, Becky. It’s not too late to write an alternative ending; so if you’re a frustrated author, please feel free to indulge your talent!

Because the eventual habitable space here will be more than 170sq m, we have to employ an architect to draw the plans for our barn conversion, so we asked one round this morning. He was very friendly and extremely chatty and came up with a few ideas we hadn’t thought of as well as explaining how to slightly, and legally, bend the rules to our advantage.

Nick and Kieran are going to have to share a Christmas present this year ;-( Yes, life is so hard and our pension so small and the euro so strong……. OK, so it’s none of the above, but we went to see said Christmas present this afternoon, with Adrian as our technical expert, to give us his opinion and he said yes. I’m not allowed to disclose what it is, but it will be delivered tomorrow, so watch this space!!!

Once upon a time there was a hard working, downtrodden assistant Transfusion Practitioner who, appalled at the thought of working for the NHS, with ever-worsening conditions, till she was 97, decided to embark on a new life. She escaped the confines of the broom cupboard she shared with her equally hard working and downtrodden boss and headed off to see the big, wide world.

After sailing across the seas, she arrived in a mythical land of mountains and valleys, vineyards and duck farms. Over the following weeks she had numerous adventures, met lots of frogs and even fell in love with a handsome prince (OK, so I made that bit up!), but as the summer drew to a close, she had to find somewhere to live. A couple of friendly, but undomesticated, wood elves said she could move in with them, on condition that she did the cleaning, the cooking, the washing and all other household tasks except lighting the fires. She agreed to this, little realising the scale of the task she was taking on.

After a number of weeks, bored and fed up with playing the role of domestic goddess (a role she had never excelled at), she found a bucket of magic, reclaimed tiles. Using these as a bargaining tool, she escaped from the kitchen, leaving the wood elves with instructions to make the dinner, and started to tile the hearth in one of the bedrooms. The tiles fitted into place easily and when the hearth was finished……..

Your turn now; please finish the story for me. There may even be a prize for the best!

NIck and Kieran have worked on the electrics in Nick’s workshop today; as a result, all the lights work and there are plug sockets everywhere. They’re beginning to put tools in their proper places, too; soon it will be fully functional!

Apart from my English class this afternoon, I’ve done very little today. I went for a Chinese massage this morning, to ease my back; it was amazing – incredibly relaxing; I’m chilled for England now 🙂

This weekend is the “Telethon” in France, which I think is a bit like a “children in need” appeal. Nick’s meant to be going for a bike ride in the morning, though he hasn’t had to get sponsorship or anything, so I don’t know how that raises funds; then we’re going to lunch at the cycle club house and will probably be parted from lots of cash there. I’ll let you know how things are done here later!

The sky we awoke to this morning!

We’ve been duped! For years we’ve been led to understand that the French don’t do Christmas like we Brits; all the commercial stuff, that is. But you wouldn’t believe that if you’d been in the supermarket today! Trees, cards, baubles, toys, santas -bah, humbug!!! I suppose it is December 1st though, so they can be forgiven:-)

On the way home, there was great excitement at the sighting of a second hand mini digger which was for sale, at the roadside. We spent an hour learning about the finer details of how it works, what shovel sizes are included, etc., before coming home to consider whether or not to invest. At 7,000euros, it seems quite pricey to me, but what do I know? Any experts out there?

For the last month, the markets and garden centres have been packed with trees and shrubs of every description (well, except Christmas trees); it’s the planting season. So today Nick and Kieran went to a local riding school and came back with a trailerful of manure. We then set to, to plant some of the things we’ve bought recently; a blackcurrant, a redcurrant and a pomegranate tree. So next year we might have home-grown pomegranates at Christmas!

The workshop is looking more like a workshop by the day now, and today Kieran was given the task of attaching the chimney to the little wood burning stove and venting it. Once that was in place he could light the fire and start to brew coffee, so he was a happy bunny.

Nick and Kieran have spent the last two days putting floorboards down on the joists above Nick’s workshop and the floor’s now finished!! The workshop is beginning to take shape; there’s still a wall to build at one end, and eventually, when we get planning permission, we’ll put windows in; but it’s nearly at a point where Nick can use it to house his tools and start making stuff. The lack of windows, now that it’s not open to the roof, does make it a bit on the dark side, so this afternoon, they installed some lighting. It feels like real progress.

I made enquiries at the Mairie about the plans we’ve been drawing up for the building work we want to do, only to discover that we have to get an architect to do them for us as the habitable area of the building will exceed 170 square metres. All that hard work wasted!

Last night was cold; when we got up this morning the first job was to light a fire, since any form of central heating is still a dream. But by lunchtime the sun had warmed things up so much that we went outside to have coffee. Doesn’t seem possible at the end of November! It made up for the last 4 or 5 days of gloom, cold and fog.

We’re exhausted! It’s been a really tough weekend!

It started at Adrian’s yesterday, with lunch. Then off to the duck farm open day, for a tour of the farm, followed by aperitifs. A quick trip back to Adrian’s to feed the dogs, then out to the salle des fêtes for dinner, courtesy of said farm. The starters were a meal in themselves; huge quantities of foie gras, rillettes and other duck produce, followed by duck confit and beans, then dessert, coffee and armagnac. Of course, we needed all that to be able to cope with the journey home, in the dark, through the fog.

This morning saw us heading into Nogaro for the cycle club AGM; I’ve been to one French AGM before and hoped that the way it was run didn’t set the pattern, but unfortunately it did! Before the start, everyone was given an agenda booklet containing the details of how many rode the weekly club run every week for the last year, who rode which non-club event throughout the year, who went on the cycling holidays organised by the club, what the average attendances were for every event and, of course, the accounts. This booklet was then used as a script for the meeting, which lasted a full 2 hours (though I think I may have missed a bit when I fell asleep!) Afterwards, as a reward(?), aperitifs were served and we repaired to a local restaurant for a wonderful, four course lunch, plus the inevitable wine, coffee and gallons of armagnac.

We finished lunch just in time to pick Kieran up and go to our neighbours’, who’d invited us to dinner; roast chicken and pork, with all the traditional English trimmings and followed by chocolate pudding, cream and ice cream. I think we understand how those “foie gras” ducks feel now! We must have put on half a stone each this weekend; I think it’s bread and soup for the rest of the week till we recover:-)

The bad news is that it’s the patchwork club AGM tomorrow – oh joy!