Where-ever I lay my hat

On Saturday 12 April we got in the ferry queue at 6.30 am in Newhaven and arrived in Dieppe at about 1pm French time. The crossing was four hours and was not too rough despite some good wind the day before. The drive south was easy and passed through some really pretty villages, although we hated the viamichelin directions we had printed off. We got lost in the final few kilometres by missing a sign that was only visible if you looked behind you. However we arrived and met Karen and John and proceeded to be introduced to the animals and shown around the property. They have an old stone French farm with lots of outbuildings that all need lots of work. They have been here 3 years and have only just got hot water in their house. We are living in the cottage, which is the only thing finished and we have the only shower. The stone buildings are beautiful and when its all finished it will be gorgeous. However I think we might have it easier starting from a bare field and not having to renovate constantly. We may well get there faster and easier but their end product is likely to have much more character than our modern place. We had a great dinner with them, which was a simple salad but of gorgeous fresh food and homemade goats cheese and proscuitto and fresh eggs. After dinner we went to visit the ‘children’ who were away at a scout camp for the weekend at a local chateau. The ‘children’ are Alistair, who is 8 and Grace-Alice, who is 21 and was helping out and face painting the young ones. We went to see their show and it was an interesting experience and rather fun to be in a French community even though we didn’t speak enough French to be of any use. One of the cool things they did was a Chinese whispers sort of game but with a mimed story – it was hilarious to see it changing and I had understood enough between the language and mime to follow what was going on. The weather had been a bit miserable all day but really tipped down a couple of times during the evening and we all got pretty wet standing outdoors.
Sunday is rest day so the only things to be done were morning and evening chores of tending to animals. We had a long lie then properly met the animals, helped (or probably more accurately hindered, hand milking the goats. There are 5 milking goats, 18 babies that get bottle fed twice a day, and numerous chickens, ducks, geese, sheep and 2 pigs. There are also two more pregnant goats, a very pregnant border collie, and several cats, one of whom gave birth to 5 kittens in Alistairs wardrobe during the afternoon. Lunch was leftover of yesterdays salad and still delicious. The day was very relaxing and we just orientated to the farm and chatted a lot. We went for a stroll up the road to Montigue, which is a village and chapel on a medieval hillfort, that have recently been designated nationally important. The ‘children’ came back during the afternoon and we had a full English roast dinner in the evening, followed by milking and feeding babies again. I had a job interview by phone from NZ in the late evening and it was the weirdest interview I’d ever done. I was in the kitchen of the main house, which is still a bit of a building site, having just come in from milking goats and I had a kitten with a vestibular deficit snuggled on my chest and Polly the dog needing constant reassureance because her belly is a bit uncomfortable. Everyone else was outside tending to a lamb that was poorly and we were waiting for one of the goats to go into labour. It has to be said that Physio was not the foremost thing on my mind! I’ll find out later in the week if I get it or not. It would be lovely to have a job organised for when we get back but I’m sure something will work out.
Monday was a reasonably early start and a bit stressful as we had to load the two pigs into the van so they could go off to be serviced for 10 days. The van had to be barricaded so they wouldn’t bust out during the trip and a run built from scraps of stuff from all round the farm for them to walk down and into the van. We were all very worried about it and it was crucial the pigs didn’t get stressed because they remember and would then be stressed coming back, and stress when they are pregnant means they have less babies and therefore there’s less income. The pigs turned out to be significantly less worried about it than us and one of them just strolled right on in and happily tucked in to breakfast, and although the other took a bit more persuasion they set off happily. We got on with our tasks for the day. Steve took the rotovaor to the potato patch and I dug the dung piles out of the goat yard so we can put hard-core down outside the new milking shed. Although it was reasonably hard work it was very pleasant as we had lots of wee breaks to chat with Grace or throw the stick for Samson the father collie and the goats and chickens periodically ‘helped’ us out. We finished about 3 and then chilled for a while and puttered about with a few other small chores. Grace and I collected some nettles to make tea but unfortunately they have mostly got too old to pick as we were hoping to get enough for soup as well. I spent some time sketching the goats and geese and whoever would pose for me, which was very enjoyable. Then it was dinner time and time for milking and feeding again. Steve did a fantastic job of milking a couple of the goats but I was a bit sore by then to bend for long and did miserably. I had a shower, which was one of the nicest showers I’ve had – simply because I needed it so badly, having spent most of the day in goat dung. John and Karen got back very late and tired but the pigs were fine and we hadn’t had to birth any goats or puppies while they were away!
Tuesday was mostly finishing off the yard outside the milking shed, Steve rotovatored it and we moved all the excess soil and muck off it. That took most of our working day, again helped out by goats. Tommy, the buck is a real boy goat and just adores following Steve or John around and sticks his face in whatever they are doing. He’s as docile as anything and just likes to be close to you, including sometimes just resting his head or horns on your leg or back as youre trying to dig – very helpful. We went into Bais with Karen to the boulangerie for bread and got a grande boule which was huge but we ate at least half of it for lunch with salad, eggs, cheese and ham again (all homegrown). I helped Karen to start of the next cheese, which is actually very simple and after a bit more work we chilled out for a while then went for a jaunt to Gie de Selle, which is a leisure lake along the road. Steve ran and I cycled and it was about a 6km loop. After that I went down to the local ruined chateau with Grace and Alistair and painted. It was really nice to stroll down a beautiful French country lane from the house, past stone farm houses and down to a lake and round the corner to a chateau ruin. It was at most a ten minute walk and Sam the dog came with us and we sat on the grass in the sunshine chatting and painting before strolling home for dinner. This really is living.
Wednesday started as usual with breakfast and feeding babies and getting on with the yard clearing but got interrupted abruptly by a ewe getting in trouble with her lambing. That occupied all of us for a while and she lost both lambs – actually they had clearly been dead in the womb for some time by the smell and look of them and the placenta. We were lucky not to lose the ewe too as it was a bit of an ordeal for her, however she made it and was happily eating fresh grass an hour later. We moved the electric fencing on the top field to give the sheep some good new grass so she could get some good nutrition and all the sheep and geese were quite happy about it. The third death of the day was a cockerel who is destined for dinner sometime soon. Then the cheese had to be put in its moulds and we all needed tea. We finished off the yard finally and moved a hay bale and I tried to organise the chickens so we wouldn’t lose so many eggs down the back of bales. Lunch was lovely salad and bread again accompanied by a glass of local cidre which they send apples for and in return get a supply of cidre for virtually the cost of the bottle, and its delicious. Steve and I headed out exploring a bit and went to Jublians which is the largest Roman ruin outside Italy. We went to the museum and round the fortress then strolled through town, past standing stones, to the thermal pools under the church (!) and the theatre which is on a natural slope so the spectators have a great view of the stage and the whole valley behind it. We also went to the temple which was in a big open area just outside town and the old roman roads were marked out on the field as well as by paving through the ‘modern’ parts of town. It was all very well presented and very much a small town venture, which was really nice. We were both pretty tired and just chilled out after dinner and got an early night again.
By Thursday mornings chores we were getting a bit more independent and got a few bits and pieces done including baby goats fed, then started on moving the big pile of rubble from the yard into the goats yard. That was fairly back-breaking work but didn’t last long because we went off with Karen to the market at Evron. It was a lovely market with nice seafood and cheese (including the lady Karens goats came from, who sells cheese there – we bought a bit of her cheese for comparison). We also got a few fresh scallops for a treat for dinner and had a galette for a snack, which was delicious. One of the stalls had old fashioned wooden butter moulds that were really beautiful but the one I liked was €35, which was a bit expensive. Grace had made fabulous pizza for lunch when we got back and we did a few more hours of shifting rubble and general chores. My favourite chore is collecting the eggs and I got over a dozen. That’s a big improvement on the previous few days but still not great considering there are about 50 hens. We’d found rather a lot behind hay bales when we were moving the bales but we can’t reach them and they are probably very old anyway. After dinner we opened up one of Johns experimental blue cheeses and it was really good (although the outer rind looked pretty terrible and the smell was rather strong). It tasted a bit like a blue parmesan and got given the name “stinking John”.
On Friday morning we got stuck in to the rubble pile again and Steve also did some work on the wee tractor and rotovator on the tattie patch. We just carried on till it was time for baked tatties for lunch. In the afternoon I did lighter chores like painting the base coat on some slate tiles to use as potato labels, making up the pineapple relish to try with cheese, setting up the goose eggs in the incubator and collecting eggs, of which there were very few because the wind had blown down the cover for the bales and upset all the chicken nests. I also had my own batch of milk to make up into chees on my own and experiment a bit with, so I got that started. We went for a walk up Montigue again to get some exercise and check our phones (which only work up the mountain). The view from the wee chapel at the top is fairly impressive too and we can see for miles and orientate to the area a bit better. The bluebells are coming out along the lane and its really pretty to stroll along. We spotted some more fresh nettles and collected some pine cones from the wood for starting our fire. Its still quite cold in the evenings and the cottage doesn’t warm up much on its own (which would be a great thing in summer) so we are lighting a fire most evenings, especially since the whole family eats dinner at the cottage. We looked at our pictures of our land and NZ after dinner and convinced more people to visit NZ.
Saturday was a fairly relaxing start with usual chores and a bit of work on the rubble pile while Steve took the rotovator to the tattie patch again. Then we went with Karen and John into Mayenne to run a few chores (unsuccessfully as the crucial shop had changed its hours) and have a bit of a look around. We went to Fontain Daniel where there is a tuileirie with elaborate woven silks and furniture and in a very pretty town. It was nice to just have a bit of a look around the countryside too. We had soup for lunch and did a few more chores and I put my cheeses in their moulds with various different flavours to experiment. We are getting a lot of attention from the cats as they can apparently smell the “stinking John” from miles away every time we open it up and they come begging – they go nuts over it even though they only get the rather yukky looking rind parts. Grace and I went for a walk up the lane and collected more nettles and looked for escargot as Steve had seen lots in the morning and we thought we might make a meal of them. We only found one as it had dried up a lot so we decided to collect them another day. Somehow by then it was dinner time and we went for a wee walk to look at the moon over the ruined château, which was rather lovely although the photo didn’t quite do it justice.
Sunday was our day off and we had failed to make plans to go anywhere in particular and it was raining and horrid so we stayed in bed till we managed to make a decision (with a bit of help from the Rough Guide) and headed for Le Mans. It was a nice drive through pretty villages and countryside and Le Mans itself was gorgeous. We parked down by the river and strolled along the old Roman walls and ruins by the river. The walls were very impressive with big round towers and lovely intricate designs in the stonework. The old town is on the hill behind the walls and is a really pretty mixture of Roman, medieval half timbered and gothic architecture all side by side in a big patchwork. The stone and plaster on some of the houses is gorgeous and we found a few places that are the colour-scheme I’ve been looking for to do our house. There was a market on which was pretty big and had some nice food again and we bought some fresh white asparagus and some strawberries to try with goats cream. The market had a lovely backdrop of the cathedral which made it feel quite grand too. We had a look around the cathedral and its architecture inside is stunning. It has a huge height to the central vaulted ceiling and then two further lower levels of vaulted ceilings at either side. There was also a section of ceiling that was medieval murals and gorgeous. The outside of the cathedral was less stunning but its flying buttresses were fairly impressive. After a bit more of a stroll around the old town we headed south towards the famous 24 hour circuit. We discovered part way there that there was a motorcycle race on there but thought we’d drive by anyway. I’ve never seen so many motorbikes in all my life but it was quite interesting and cool to see the bits of the circuit that we could. Next we drove north again to Saulgers, had a picnic lunch in a rest area and then visited the gorges and caves at Saulgers. We didn’t actually do the pay tour but had a stroll around the valley and peeked inside a few other caves. The gorge is really pretty with a nice river meandering through it and a wee spring and lots of lovely green pasture all around. If I had been Neolithic I would have loved to live there. We had seen a brochure for a medieval chevaliery centre but had thought it was only open in summer. As we passed it we decided to have a peek anyway and discovered that they do a show every Sunday at three so we had missed it and they were just closing up. The guy let us in quickly for a look and there was a great garden and a cool keep that they had built and then an indoor and outdoor jousting arena. The baker was just selling the last of his medieval cakes and we got a few to try. We had tiny tastes each of a saffron cake, spice cake and macaroon, which was delicious. We passed by St Suzanne, which looked like a gorgeous town and decided not to stop so we would go back there another day. Dinner was a full roast again – this time pork that was left over from the bacon that we have started curing.. after dinner I was tired and headed to bed to read and relax for a while but got rudely interrupted by steve shouting that there was a fire! The stack of logs next to our fire had caught fire and Steve managed to get rid of the offending log outside pretty quickly but it gave us rather a fright because we usually go to sleep with the fire on and a fresh log on it to keep warm for the night. We won’t be doing that any more! We’ll wait till the fire is out before going to bed. In the process we discovered the smoke alarm is kept on a shelf and the fire extinguisher has gone missing! The house was a bit smoky for a while and there was no wind so it took a while to clear from the upstairs bedroom even with the window open.
Monday morning was back to regular chores except the baby goats had been weaned to one bottle a day. It was a wet and miserable day and we got covered in mud by baby goats jumping all over us then added to it by finishing of the moving of the rubble into the yard. I was very happy to see the last load of rubble go. Most of the rest of the days work was indoors and I had a go at making a Caerphilly cheese which involves the very therapeutic art of mixing the curds by hand and then pressing the cheese. I also painted more slate potato labels and Steve set to work on making a gate for the milking shed. The weather cleared up a bi tin the afternoon so a bit of ploughing and rotorvator work got done but mostly we just puttered away at small chores all day then had a Chinese banquet for dinner made by Grace.
Tuesday was still grey but it was dry and mild so we decided we should get some exploring done in the afternoon. Steve finished off his gate and I planted some vegetables in the greenhouse before lunch and then we head north towards the cidre museum. On the way we stopped at Lassay les chateaux, which turned out to be a good decision because it was really pretty and I decided to come back later and paint the chateau. The cidre museum was fairly expensive so we didn’t do a tour (which was only in French anyway) but had a tasting and spent our money on some cidre and Pommeau de Normadie to take away. The lady doing the tasting spoke only about 6 words of English (apple, juice, pear, dry, sweet, percent) but was great to listen to in French because she spoke clearly and slowly and we understood most of the details she told us about what we were tasting. Pommeau is a mixture of cidre and calvados and is very tasty. we also liked the calvados with pear but it was a bit expensive for us on our current budget (with no income for 6 months we are being pretty tight with our money). The stop at Lassay to paint was lovely and relaxing, Steve had a stroll around town and found a medieval garden, which was really gorgeous and had a lovely view of the chateau behind it. Back at the farm I started another batch of cheese and just about dinner time Polly the collie decided to have her puppies, which slowed things up a little. By the time we finished dinner she’d had 7 but one had died (despite resuscitation attempts). The others all looked fine and were busy drinking.
Wednesday started out wet and we put in some fence posts using the posthole rammer which is very effective but rather hard work. Then steve started on another gate and I got on with some more planting in the greenhouse. We made omelettes for lunch to try and use up some eggs because we are collecting over a dozen a day now and barely even eat one each between 6 of us. We also tried out the bacon we have been making and it was a bit salty but very very tasty – made form happy pigs who’d been fed up on milk and acorns prior to becoming pork. We put in another bit of bacon to cure in case we run out!!! Everyone had bacon and stinking john cheese in their omelettes so we got through a fair bit. We also tried my experimental cheese with lunch and the pineapple relish was a major hit. We also liked the nettle, the pineapple and the sage and the rest were ok but nothing to rave about. After lunch, the weather had turned lovely and sunny and hot so we went up to Bais and I painted the chateau there, then we went for a cycle (me) and run (Steve) round the Gue de Selle again before dinner. By the time we finish dinner and get cleared up its usually my bedtime and we are both fairly tired as well so evenings are for collapsing. My tooth has been sore for a few days and that’s making me a bit tired too. Bedtime reading is various farm books from their collection, of which I’m writing down ISBN numbers of anything that’s useful, and I’m getting quite a list.
Thursday was a wet start again and stayed grey all day. Steve finished his next gate which meant the milking shed was about ready to use and I planted more in the greenhouse, which now has no space left in it at all. We carried on till 3 then just chilled ofr the afternoon and played with the dog and I did another painting of the chateau. Unfortunately the milking machine didn’t work when it came to use the finished milking shed so theres still more to be done. I had a hot milky cocoa before bed since I’ve discovered I can drink goats milk without feeling ill, and it was lovely.
Friday started off a bit grey but was gorgeous by the afternoon and after our mornings chores and working on clearing up the cottage garden and Steve helping with fencing we headed off exploring for the afternoon. We started in St Suzanne which is a medieval city – the French have this cute classification called little city of character, which suited it well. The buildings were gorgeous and there were lots of shops exploiting the medieval image with fabulous signs and medieval costumes (really gorgeous and amazing costumes) and art (we bought postcards of our favourites to copy later) and bits and pieces. The chateau was beign renovated and consequently entry was free and it was only the modern bit that we couldn’t go in, which didn’t bother us at all. The town is on a hill with great views of the countryside all around and presumably fairly easy to defend. We went for a walk around the edge and sat for a while looking at the countryside, which was really gorgeous. It was almost like looking down on ‘the wind in the willows’ with a lovely river running through farmland and beside a line of poplars, through an elegant farmyard, down a weir and through a wee town. The cows were all grazing contentedly in the shade of the poplars as it was too hot in the sun. A fisherman was on the riverbanks as well and a white pony was playing in a nearby field. You almost expected Mr Toad to come along in a loud automobile and crash into the cow field to spoil the peace and serenity. We discovered there was a dolmen nearby so went for a drive there and it was a very spectacular one and thought to be one of the older examples in france. Then we stopped at another site which turned out to be where William the conquerer had laid siege to St Suzanne for four years – clearly it was easy to defend because the siege ended in compromise. The earthwork they had created was pretty impressive and had bluebells growing on the banks and some lovely views to St Suzanne. We carried on to the canyon at Salges again and had missed the last tour of the caves so just sat on the riverbank and relaxed and sketched and read and looked at the WWOOFer book to try to plan where we want to go. The canyon walls are fairly popular for rock climbing and we had a great view of the climbers to entertain us too – some of them were pretty impressive. We had taken some ham and cheese from the farm for our dinner and picked up a couple of sweets in St Suzanne for dessert and we had a picnic dinner watching the rockclimbers. It was a very relaxing and peaceful afternoon and makes us really appreciate the lifestyle we have at the moment. We are working only moderately hard when we are working and its enjoyable work, and we are eating really well on almost all homemade food and experiencing life here as well as being tourists – it’s the best of all worlds and we are pretty happy to have this opportunity.
Saturday was our last days work and I finished off the stone walls I was repairing in the cottage garden and did general tidying with Karen. Steve made a new gate for the garden and in the afternoon I painted signs for various things. The milking machine finally worked and the inagural milking was completed. We ended up not getting our own chores done – like packing – but had a pleasant time. The cottage garden is rather lovely and we had a bbq dinner in there and sat around drinking wine and pommeau till dark as it had been a very hot day and it was lovely to be able to have some shade to work in in the afternoon and to relax in in the evening. We said our goodbyes to John, Grace and Alister as they get up late in the mornings then got a bit of our packing and organising done to get on the road to the Dordogne tomorrow.

Work in Birmingham for the last 3 days was fairly busy but fine. I had stayed on the extra 3 days to help the transition with 2 people leaving and 2 new starting so I had my own work to do as well as helping settle them a bit. I always find it difficult to hand over my patients to a new therapist and this time was no exception and it was fairly sad saying goodbye. I’ve also really enjoyed some of the staff I’ve been working with and hopefully there will be a few people that I’ll manage to really keep in touch with. Its been a really interesting experience working here. I’ve learnt heaps, particularly from working with Lynine – she really is a very amazing therapist and her skills underutilised and not adequately valued there. However for a regional brain injury unit I think they still have plenty of room to improve.
Its very exciting to be moving on to the next chapter of our lives, and it really feels like this is the beginning of the rest of my life. We are now on a mission, with nothing in the way of the step by step plan to setting up our own place. This last bit has been about funding the next stage and I’m very excited and slightly anxious about whether I will love it as much as I want to.
On Wednesday 9th April, our last evening in Birmingham, we had a take out curry with Lynnie, Steve and Barney and Ali. We also had some lovely sweets and Ali gave me a recipe for one of them, which was a swirled orange sticky deep fried thing. The next morning we got packed up and left Birmingham with great delight. Although we had both been sad to leave some of the people we’d worked with, it was good not to be living in the city any more. Birmingham is a really interesting place. Its road and transport networks are really good but the drivers are lousy. People will just pull out in front of you without any warning, stop in front of you to chat with someone, overtake in the worst places, almost never let you out into traffic and get really grumpy with you if you are considerate to another driver, who invariably doesn’t thank you anyway. The pedestrians are just as bad – one day we followed two men, a child and a baby in a buggy down the road for about 50m because we couldn’t get past them for traffic coming in the other direction. They were walking along the road when there was a clear footpath immediately beside them! Lynnies and my drive to work each day can best be described as hazardous.

We went to Welford overnight and got all our bits and pieces organised and the car properly packed for France. We had a quiet evening in with pizza, chips and garlic bread for our dinner and an early night. We had been planning to go badger watching again but it was a miserable night and I decided to do as I believed any sensible badger would do and stay indoors. On Friday morning we got the car all packed, helped Pauline dig her vege patch over and then got on the road. The journey was mostly ok apart from slow road works on the M1 and awful rain and thunderstorms on the M25. We drove down past Brighton and stopped for a look around in Lewes, which has a pretty castle and some good bookshops including a really quaint 15th century one with nice but overpriced books. We also found a nice cook shop and started exactly as we had not intended by buying cookie cutters! This time it was a nice moon and a wee cupid and heart with an arrow through it. After a bit of grocery shopping in Lewes we carried on down to Newhaven, checked into the premier inn and headed out sightseeing. Our first stop was the Long Man of Wilmington, which is a chalk figure on the hillside. We had a stroll up to his feet and he is pretty huge. We drove a wee scenic loop up there and then out to the coast at Birling Gap. We nearly didn’t stop but thought we could walk the 10 yards to the coast and were stunned. We then climbed down the stair column to the beach and strolled along looking at truly stunning views of huge white cliffs and chalk boulders on the sea edge. It was really beautiful and pretty wild with the wind howling but the white of the cliffs again the blue sky was gorgeous. Further along the coast we stopped at another viewpoint 10yards from the cliff edge and when we walked 5 meters from the car a stunning view of Beachy Head lighthouse appeared that was incredibly easy to miss despite being within a few feet of it. The lighthouse was one of those classic red and white ones and with the white cliffs, green grass and blue sea and sky it was just amazing. It really was a very scenic drive and lots of the little villages we drove through were really pretty with gorgeous flint barns and houses. It was a very worthwhile and relaxing afternoon out for our last trip in England for a while. We had a quiet evening and a fairly early night before an early start.