So I whipped out the video camera and managed to grab some photos and video of these cute little fellas.

We just hope that they stay well clear of our cats!

Sunday morning was met with bleary eyes and sore heads, but the walk round to Lynn’s to fetch the kids and the car soon blew the cobwebs away. After a coffee , then home for lunch, we finally got round to the gardening. Today’s job: clearing the brambles from around the edge of our field.

The field, which is a 1000m sq plot at the end of our lane, is not something we use very much. Molly and Joe like to play football on there, and we pick the fruit from the trees each year. But apart from that, all we seem to do is maintain it; cutting the grass and keeping the edges clear of brambles. One day maybe we’ll realise our dream of having a lovely patio and summer house on this space, though, of course, we would need to look out for flying pigs…

The plan of attack for this afternoon was for Lisa to snip the bottom of the canes from one side, while I pulled them out from the other. It was tough going, but once we get started on a job like this, we don’t tend to stop until its done. So we snipped, tugged, pulled and cursed our way through what felt like several miles of long, thorny branches. Seriously, is there anything more annoying than being hooked up by great lengths of brambles? It seems the more you try to shake it off, the more it manages to cling to you. Very frustrating!

One particularly vicious branch came lashing out of the hedge like a bullwhip and caught me square in the face, slicing my nose with one of it’s deadly barbs. The air, already a subtle shade of blue, turned positively azure and I took a moment to stem the flow of blood. But, undeterred, we slogged on.

We finally reached a natural end-point and decided to call it a day. The second half would have to wait til next weekend, weather permitting. But we were very pleased with our work, and, even though the edges are never going to be perfectly neat and tidy, at least now there are nice, big gaps where previously there was a tangled mess of branches and thorns.

Of course, the next project is to start finding and removing all the thorns from our hands, arms, legs….and, well, everywhere else…

With the predicted rain never appearing, after lunch Molly, Joe and Richard went outside to play football. The weather got warmer and clearer with every passing minute.  I finally took a photo of the daffodils which have been showing us a hint of spring for the last couple of weeks. Also the snowdrops are out, along with some lizards and the midges are dancing. A little reminder of warmer times to come.

Molly and Joe decided they would investigate the room at the back of the house that is currently just used to store our stock of Foussais apple juice. Having discussed it between themselves, they decided this would be their new den and set about clearing the room out.

Here’s where the discoveries began.

The Power

Firstly, we discovered that we actually have working electricity in the back room. Having poked my finger into the light fitting and felt the jolt of electricity zap up my arm, I figured that it was actually live and proved it beyond doubt by adding a bulb. There was great rejoicing from Molly and Joe as their den now had light!

The Eagles

Next came some interesting objects. Tucked in the corner of the room were two blocks, each carved with a picture of an eagle and the word “EAGLE” carved across the top.

These were both about the size and weight of a small breeze-block, but we have really no idea what they are for. At first they appeared to be a mould, but surely the writing would need to be in reverse if this were true. And why two the same? If you have any suggestions as to what these might be, do let me know!

The skeleton

Next came a rather chilling discovery – “We’ve found a skeleton!” yelled Joe. “U-oh” thought I, this could be trouble. Abandoning my spade in the front border, I ran round to the back room, already anticipating the police sealing off our house for forensic investigations.

“We think it’s a sea-horse” said Joe. All concerns about being surrounded by gendarmes for the next week melted away as I investigated the “sea-horse” skeleton. It turned out to be a poor unfortunate ex-mouse…

The play room

After Lisa mentioned to the kids that there wasanother room inside that needed clearing out, all thoughts of this ourside den were abandoned and this new potential space became a possible play-room.

Up they went to investigate the room, empty save for a tonne of muck and dust, at the top of our back stairs. After several hours of sweeping and clearing, the room actually started to reveal itself as a really good space.

And once we attacked the floorboards with a mop, we very very pleasantly surprised – this room has probably the best floor of the entire house!

The floorboards cleaned up really well and we decided that, with some work on the ceiling and a new velux window, this would be a perfect playroom, home for all the Playmobil currently strewn all over my study downstairs.

Another project for the list!

Luckily for us, we have very good neighbours.

I was down in the corner of the filed last week when Marisse from across the road spotted me.

“Oh, you don’t have a tractor?” she exclaimed in disbelief.

“No, just this little lawnmower,” I said, indicating the little workhorse, “but it’s OK, it is good exercise for us!”

“Your garden is too big!” she cried, and I agreed. “Next time you must use our tractor.”

Those 7 words were some of the most welcome words I have heard for a long time.

So last week I popped over to find the tractor. Louis gave me some instructions how to work it and off I rolled. It took me a couple of attempts to get it up onto the field – slow and steady lost out to full-pelt in that little challenge – but I was soon whizzing round the field, laughing at the simplicity of it all, while trying hard to avoid badminton nets, pools and pear trees.

45 minutes. That’s all it took. A measly 45 minutes. There were still some little areas that needed the old tondeuse, but I class a 75% reduction in grass-cutting time as a huge success and leaves us much more time to enjoy ourselves.

Job’s a good ‘un

This big fella was hiding behind the breeze-blocks piled up next to the garage. I’m reliably informed that he’s a toad, not a frog (thanks Susie for clearing that up )

After watching him amusing himself by poking his head into every crack in our wall, I rescued him and released him down by the lake.

Surprisingly, none of the ladies of the house chose to try their luck and kiss him, so I guess they may have missed their chance to find a prince charming…!

We finally made it back to Foussais on Saturday night after 14 hours and 1100km travelling. We had had a strange week back in England – it was lovely to see our family and friends again, and especially for the kids, but it all seemed very strange. Like we now have 2 lives and they very rarely meet. Back in the UK we were part of a circle of friends families that all knew each other and now we have that life, but also another over here. We have some great fiends and a while different way of living, but it hasn’t replaced what we have in England, but the 2 lives co-exist. When we returned to Grimsby we just picked up where we left off 5 months ago and I’m sure we will again, although quite when that will be I don’t know.

The journey back home was pretty easy and uneventful. After driving up to England in 2 cars, it was nice to all be together for the return trip (having left the Picasso in the hands of my folks – it’s being picked up any day now) and it meant that we could share the driving. So I had the job of getting us from Grimsby to Dover, then from Dunkerque to Rouen and Lisa got us home from there. On the subject of Dunkerque I have to speak up in praise of Norfolk Line ferries. The return journey cost us just £38 which we were amazed by. The ferries are fairly modern and well stocked, although the port at Dunkerque felt a bit like we were going to be lifted onto a container ship rather than a car ferry – very out of the way in the middle of an industrial estate! The 2-hour journey was just long enough to have a meal and stretch those cramped legs before embarking on the 2nd leg of the journey. Altogether a grand experience.

Upon returning to our house we were excited to see how the builders had got on with finishing Rosie’s bedroom. What a great job they have done. We are all hugely impressed with the work. Having never really done any renovation before, it’s hard to believe that our cold, dusty loft, with holes in the floor and roof, has now been transformed into a large, cosy bedroom. It really is quite a stunning transformation and makes such a difference to the upstairs of the house. If anyone is in the area and looking for good builders, I would certainly recommend them. We will have lots more building work coming up – I need a study, the kids need a play room and Lisa wants her new kitchen! – and they will certainly be top of the list to do the work. The only downside was that they cleaned us out of tea, coffee and milk! On our departure I had said “Help yourself” and they did…emptying the box of milk from the fridge AND the 2 from the store. Not a huge problem – a quick trip to St Hilaire des Loges on Sunday morning did the trick – but would have been nice to have breakfast in the morning without having to go for a drive first. But hey, they were a great team and I can’t grumble.

Our other surprise was not quite so exciting – we had had visitors while we were away…Ants! The kitchen was awash with the little blighters. I set upon them with the kitchen spray to stem the tide and managed to clear most of them away, only to find them back again in the morning. All part of the fun of living in the countryside I guess… A kettle full of boiling water over their entry point on the outside wall seems to have slowed them down for now until I can get out to buy some proper stuff… Anyone got any tips for shifting Adam and his mates?

Of course, having been away for about 10 days, the grass, of which we have plenty, had grown rather substantially, so I tackled that little job next. The grass by the back-door was first – rather quickly done due to the multitude of buzzing insects round there. I fear we may be providing bed and board for the local populations of bees and wasps in our un-renovated rooms. That’ll be more fun to come. Although I did spot a rather interesting looking red beetle tightrope walking along the washing line, who didn’t buzz and stoood nice and still for a photo…

Anyway, the grass got half-way cut when suddenly with a loud TWANG the mower stopped. Somehow the drive belt had snapped!

So much for our nice short grass – I hadn’t even got round to the front yet, which was the bit that really needed doing. And of course, it being Sunday, there was nowhere open to get a new one, so the now-useless machine went away and we sat in the sun and drank wine and beer with Peter and Judith instead…a much better prospect. I do love Sundays over here…

On Saturday it was cutting-the-grass-on-the-field day.

My mission, should i choose to accept it, was to mow the grass on our 1000m2 field with just our little mower (sadly no sit-on loveliness for me…). I attacked the task with some vigour, taking the ever-decreasing-circles approach. I got into a good rhythm with it, emptying the grass box after each circuit. It is a pretty depressing task at first, as there always seems to be SO MUCH left to do. but I stuck with it. It was a lovely day and I was enjoying being out in the sun for once, after all the rain we have had. Having passed the psychological barrier of getting to the other side of the fruit trees things really accelerated. Finally, 3 hours later, my mission was complete and I have to say, although it may be “undulating” to say the least, it does look good when it is all freshly cut.

So, after my mornings toiling in the field, I just had time to scrub the chlorophyll from my fingers before taking Joe to his first French birthday party. We bought a present and a card, but needn’t have bothered with the latter – cards are just not done in France. It has taken quite some getting used to, as we have always sent cards on special occasions. But here we have really struggled to find any. In the UK you can call into any corner shop and you’ll generally find a selection of averagely-decent greetings cards. But here in sleepy Vendée it seems the locals have no need for such frivolity. Now, I am personally not a great fan of cards anyway, especially Christmas cards. I’m no Scrooge, but I think generally Christmas cards contribute so much misery and bring very little joy. People tend to spend weeks finding the cards, buying them, writing them, finding people’s addresses, buying stamps, sticking them on, posting them, waiting to receive them, wondering why they haven’t received one from so-and-so…..I really can’t be done with the hassle.

Although now, being in a different country, I think maybe they have a better purpose. As we won’t see the majority of the people who normally send us cards, it will make a lot more sense to send a greeting. Compare this with the normal situation when we send (or even worse, TAKE) cards to people who we see several times a week, it just seems ridiculous to me.

Anyway, I seem to have veered off the subject somewhat. Christmas can wait!

Back to Joe’s party – he had a great time. We went to pick him up and the very friendly (French) parents invited us in for “quelque chose a boire…”. Very nice it was too. We chatted over a coffee (tell me why, somebody, do French people not own electric kettles?) and we got to practice our French, as they spoke no English at all. This was great – just what we need – a friendly young French family to have a conversation with. All the people that we generally have cause to converse with are, shall we say, at the higher end of the age spectrum compared to us. It was a refreshing change to speak to someone of a similar vintage.

All hopes of a long-term friendship were quickly shattered though when they told us that they were moving away from Foussais in August due to work. Drat and double-drat! Ah well, the quest continues!

Our busy weekend didn’t stop there, oh no. On Saturday night we sat down to enjoy episode 2 of Doctor Who (Catherine Tate is growing on me…) and then it was the annual “Bal Folk” in the village – a folk dancing evening organised by the local school. We were determined that we should go as it was an ideal opportunity for us to introduce ourselves to some more of the local community and a rare chance for us to have a night out. So we arranged to meet some friends there at 9pm (quite why we said 9 I do not know…it only “started” at 9, which generally means 10). 9pm came and we arrived in the car park of the Salle Polyvalente. No sign of our friends as yet – no doubt they had added the obligatory hour to the starting time. So we sat and waited…

One by one, the cars arrived and out climbed a collection of people who I would have identified as folk dancers, even if I didn’t know that’s where they were going. A varied mix of ages (mainly from 50-80 needless to say) and various different dress codes. Some were clearly professionals in their full skirts and sensible dancing shoes. Some looked like they had just got out of bed and had not had time to change from their pyjamas.

We sat for about 20 minutes….no sign of our soon-to-be-former friends…if they didn’t come soon we would have a big decision to make. Do we go in, risk being the only non-French, non-folk-music-groupies, non-geriatric people there? Or do we go home and watch the next round of “I’d Do Anything” with several glasses of wine?

We progressed to the path outside the hall, from where we could see the professional dancers doing their stuff – it all looked quite complicated. Our procrastination was put to an end however when the school headmaster arrived. “Are you coming in?” he asked (in his rapid-fire French, so we assumed that was what he said…). Under such unbearable interrogation, we finally caved in and joined in the fun.

And what fun it was! We had the idea of just sitting and watching for a while to get the feel for it, but our fellow dancers had other ideas. We were dragged up to join in the dances, passed from person to person in a state of merry confusion. It took us a while to get the gist of each dance, but we made the best of a bad job and let ourselves get carried along by the rest. We had a whale of a time… even Rosie, for whom the whole parents-folk-dancing thing was just too much of an embarrassment to comprehend, managed to have a fairly good time. The people were great, we met lots more folks, spoke plenty of French (although “Zut! C’est difficile!” was quite a mainstay of the night) and had ourselves a really good night out. Although we left at just gone midnight, the dancing was due to go on for another couple of hours – us young’uns just couldn’t stand the pace!

Sunday came far too early and we spent the morning preparing for the arrival of some friends from England. They have a holiday home near Cognac and were over for Easter so they said they’d pop in to see us. We had a great time with them and it was nice to share experiences of the house-buying process.

So eventually our busy weekend drew to a close. We watched Tara hang up her Nancy necklace – a wise decision i think – and had a decent night’s sleep. All in all it had been a great weekend and we all felt rather proud of ourselves for our achievements.