Blog in France

Gigi decided to sit in one of the shopping bags as we were getting ready to go! It was food shopping day today, ugh. Not something I look forward to particularly, but tough, because it has to be done. Our current favourite hypermarché is the new LeClerc at Montluçon, so...

I’m aware I’ve been rather quiet this last week, but it’s been hunkering down weather. Winter has swept in with a vengeance into Creuse. We’ve had snow and icy north winds so we’ve been concentrating on keeping ourselves and the animals warm. The grues (cranes) have been taking advantage of...

This weekend saw the great Cow Fest in Boussac. Every November there’s a big Charollais cattle reproducteurs show. You get to see rows and rows of spotless, coiffured bulls and cows ranging from huge to ginormous in size. There are also Charollais sheep and an assortment of hens, turkeys, pigeons...

Living in a foreign language inevitably brings confusions and misunderstandings, and today we had our biggest one. 800 kg worth in fact! We buy blé (wheat) for the pigs and chickens in 25kg sacks, getting four or five at a time from a small feed store in nearby La Cellette....

It’s been a busy 24 hours for cranes. They’ve been migrating past in numerous skeins, always a fabulous sight even though it presages the start of winter with a vengeance. Whilst popping in and out yesterday evening to listen out for the next approaching wave of grues cendrées (grey European...