Tag Archives: charlie

Jugs to JCBs – a quick round-up

Posted on by Richard
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Water water everywhere…

So the water-less day came and went without any problems. We filled every available jug, bottle, pan and bowl with water first thing in the morning to keep us going through the day. but as it turned out, the water came back on just after lunch, so we didn’t really need it in the end. Quite remarkable that something like that actually finished ahead of schedule!

Family but no fish

This week has been a bit hectic as both my parents and my sister and her two boys are visiting. We’re having a lovely time catching up – something that there wasn’t much time for at Christmas – and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for some decent weather at the weekend so we can get out and about. We were going to head to La Rochelle aquarium but unfortunately it is closed this month.  Still, a visit to La Rochelle may well be on the cards, and a coffee with the Dixies perhaps… :)

It’s a snip!

Charlie and Lola (our kittens) have now been “done” :)   They were very well behaved for the vet and coped admirably with the operation. Poor Lola was very wobbly when she came round and was clearly in some pain as the anaesthetic wore off, but after a big sleep that night she was much brighter in the morning. They are both now back to normal and up to their usual tricks!

Plotting our veg

Michel our soon-to-be-permanent neighbour called us over earlier today with some good news. he has a JCB at the moment which he is using to level a lot of his land off as part of his renovation project next=door. He is very kindly going to also level off our little patch of land at the back of the house which we have earmarked as a future vegetable plot. Wahoo! In a couple of weeks we should be able to get planting our own veg, so look out for some posts all about that coming soon. Anyone with any tips in this area, feel free to leave a comment.

And finally…

Next week I have to endure a trip back to England for a big company meeting over 2 days at the Center parcs in Longleat. Sounds nice, but I’d really rather be here with my family, drinking Pineau round the fire. Ah well, one day…

It’s a good job they’re cute…

Posted on by Richard
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Cats.

We love ours.

We love the way they come and sit on your knee at night for a sleep.

We love the way they are pleased to see us when we come home after a day out.

We even love the way they wait outside our bedroom door in a morning to say hello.

But one thing we certainly don’t love is the constant stream of mostly-dead animals they insist on bringing in to play with!

It started with just one lizard. “That’s okay”, we thought, “we can cope with that”.

Then one day we returned from a day at the beach to find the living room full of feathers. Yes, they had brought in a starling to play with and stashed it under the settee when they heard us come back home.

Lola then started coming home with what looked very much like pieces of another cat’s tail. Quite how she got those we do not know.

Then came the first mouse. I was on the phone when the cats in the other room suddenly went quiet. Worrying. A quick investigation revealed Charlie tossing the poor creature around the room. I managed to wrestle the mouse from his mouth and fling it over the fence, much to his annoyance. It was only later in the day, when the cats were sniffing around the bottom of the settee, that we realised that the mouse had actually left it’s head behind! Argh!

A series of lizards were next in line for the treatment, inlcuding one live one who really didn’t want to be picked up and rescued!

Then, while I was away in England, I had a call from Lisa. Charlie had brought in the biggest prize yet – a rat! She was shaking. Luckily the rat was dead and she managed to scoop it up with the dust-pan and dump it outside, though Charlie put up a good fight for it. I was impressed with Lisa’s bravery, but not impressed with Charlie’s increasing appetite.

And so it continues. Today saw another dead lizard and a dead mouse join the list of casualties. What are we to do? I know it’s great that they catch rats and mice, but does anyone have a suggestion about how to stop them bringing the corpses into the house? All ideas gratefully received!

I tell you, it’s a good job they’re cute…

Getting in a (cat) flap

Posted on by Richard
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Charlie and Lola, our 2 kittens, are growing up pretty fast. it only seems like yesterday that we were bringing them home in a little cardboard box for the first time and now they are roaming the garden.

With this new-found freedom came some inconvenience for us humans, as they need to get in and out at regular intervals. As is is now well and truly autumn, leaving a door open for them was certainly not an option and getting up and down to let them in and out was way too much like hard work.

So, we finally relented and bought a cat-flap.

For me, nine times out of ten DIY is not a straight-forward job. What should be a 10-minute task generally turns into a full day of cutting, sawing, sticking, drilling, cursing and swearing, punctuated by several trips to the DIY shop to buy the vital tools, screws, sticking plasters etc that turn out to be essential for the job. So I was hoping for a change in fortunes with this one…

First task of the day was to draw round the template provided.

This revealed the first fatal flaw in the plan…the door has panels, and the cat-flap was just too wide to fit inside one of the panels. So I was going to have to cut out some of the panel surround to fit it in, Now it was starting to feel like one of my normal DIY jobs…

Unperturbed, I carried on with the job in hand, drilling the holes and cutting out the space for the flap to fit into. This bit went ok thanks to the trusty jig-saw, although from now on the pressure was on to complete the job before night-fall!

Next came the cutting and chopping to make the frame fit. Generally I hate working with wood as i always seem to lose control of it and end up cutting too much off, or splitting the wood in the wrong place, or cutting at the reverse angle and wrecking the only materials I have. However, with hammer and chisel, this time i managed to avoid all the usual pitfalls and actually cut out a good snugly-fitting hole for the frame to fit into.

Okay so it may be a little rough round the edges, but aren’t we all? :)

As you can see, it was well and truly dark outside by the time I finished, but finish I did!

So now we just have the somewhat-more-taxing job of trying to persuade the kittens to use their nice new private entrance, rather than whining at the window.

At the moment, we have to come to the door to hold the flap open as they haven’t yet figured out that they can open it themselves. And the noise it makes as it swings shut tends to scare them off…but they are starting to get the hang of it. Hopefully they will soon be coming and going without any assistance, and then we’ll never know where they are!

Getting in a (cat) flap

Posted on by Richard
Reply

Charlie and Lola, our 2 kittens, are growing up pretty fast. it only seems like yesterday that we were bringing them home in a little cardboard box for the first time and now they are roaming the garden.
Charlie and Lola
With this new-found freedom came some inconvenience for us humans, as they need to get in and out at regular intervals. As is is now well and truly autumn, leaving a door open for them was certainly not an option and getting up and down to let them in and out was way too much like hard work.

So, we finally relented and bought a cat-flap.

For me, nine times out of ten DIY is not a straight-forward job. What should be a 10-minute task generally turns into a full day of cutting, sawing, sticking, drilling, cursing and swearing, punctuated by several trips to the DIY shop to buy the vital tools, screws, sticking plasters etc that turn out to be essential for the job. So I was hoping for a change in fortunes with this one…

Cat Flap

First task of the day was to draw round the template provided.

This revealed the first fatal flaw in the plan…the door has panels, and the cat-flap was just too wide to fit inside one of the panels. So I was going to have to cut out some of the panel surround to fit it in, Now it was starting to feel like one of my normal DIY jobs…

Unperturbed, I carried on with the job in hand, drilling the holes and cutting out the space for the flap to fit into. This bit went ok thanks to the trusty jig-saw, although from now on the pressure was on to complete the job before night-fall!

Next came the cutting and chopping to make the frame fit. Generally I hate working with wood as i always seem to lose control of it and end up cutting too much off, or splitting the wood in the wrong place, or cutting at the reverse angle and wrecking the only materials I have. However, with hammer and chisel, this time i managed to avoid all the usual pitfalls and actually cut out a good snugly-fitting hole for the frame to fit into.

Cat Flap

Okay so it may be a little rough round the edges, but aren’t we all? :)

As you can see, it was well and truly dark outside by the time I finished, but finish I did!

So now we just have the somewhat-more-taxing job of trying to persuade the kittens to use their nice new private entrance, rather than whining at the window.

At the moment, we have to come to the door to hold the flap open as they haven’t yet figured out that they can open it themselves. And the noise it makes as it swings shut tends to scare them off…but they are starting to get the hang of it. Hopefully they will soon be coming and going without any assistance, and then we’ll never know where they are!Cat Flap

From doors to paws – Its our weekly roundup!

Posted on by Richard
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Here’s another round-up of what’s been going on with us just recently.

More fun with friends and families

DSCF2037

Last weekend was another throroughly enjoyable one.

Saturday was spent entertaining some friends who have a holiday home near Cognac. It was a beautiful day so we erected our big old makeshift table alongside the normal one to make a long surface for Lisa to fill with a wonderful French-style feast.  When we discovered the old wooden door we envisaged it being used as a table for such an occasion and it was nice to finally make the most of it.

We had a really excellent day with great company, lovely food and brilliant Vendéen sunshine.


Then on Sunday we took my parents, who were staying for the week, across to Ile de Re for the first time. As chance would have it the Dixies were also entertaining parents at the time and we ended up meeting them on the beach and having a great day together. The respective grandparents got on just as well as the parents and children do, which was really good to see. The kids were especially impressed with Kevin’s dad, who showed great creative flair in building a landspeeder and a pony out of sand. Very impressive and far more than Kevin or I could be bothered to do could hope to achieve :)

Ile de Re 

Our favourite felines…

 DSCF2032Lola chills out

Charlie and Lola continue to entertain us. In the last week or so they have been exploring the great outdoors, having finally had their injections (thus leaving us another €100 worse off!). They are thoroughly enjoying themselves chasing around the garden, climbing the trees and hiding under the cars. We do really need to get a cat-flap though. The days are still pretty sunny but the autumn winds are getting chillier and having the door open half the day is making the house feel like an ice-box! I feel a trip to the pet shop coming on.

A room with a view

This week I decided to rearrange my “office” (I like to call it that but really its nothing quite so grand). Some friends very kindly gave us a corner desk that they no longer needed and very nice it is too. However, this has meant that I have spent the last 6 months facing the corner of the room, which is not particuarly interesting or inspiring and made me feel rather like a naughty schoolboy! So now I have taken command of the room by rearranging things so my desk looks out of the window and I have the whole room in front of me. A much nicer arrangement which allows me the chance to appreciate the fine view out of the window and down the lane to the lake.

The only downside is that now I look rather like a receptionist. Not physically of course, but the arrangement of the desk is such that Lisa feels like she has come to make an appointment when she comes in the room!
Would you like an appointment?

Preparing for Paella

Tomorrow night is paella night – a big social event in the village organised by the school. Everyone will gather in the salle polyvalente for paella (or chicken if you prefer) and a disco afterwards. This marks quite an occasion for us as it was on the eve of the paella night last year that we first came over to see the house with the kids. We met Marion, our estate agent, the morning after and it sounds like it was a pretty wild affair. This will be 2 new firsts for us – our first French disco and our first taste of paella.  Fear not, I will be posting a full account of the evening in due course!

Get in touch

Finally, you may have noticed I have added a “Contact Us” tab to the top of the site. Here you will find details of the various ways in which you can get in touch with us. Feel free to connect with us using any of these methods and say bonjour!