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Autumn 2004

Well he's finally here! After 4 and a half months of Simon living and working in England and travelling over to see us when he could, he arrived with his last van load of tools and materials from his English workshop on 23rd of October. He finished off several small jobs and brought several large items (chests of drawers and dining room table/chairs) with him to restore over here. Simon's busy setting up his workshops and is beginning to feel 'at home'.

Conor's doing really well at school now. It only took two weeks and the tears stopped, to my relief. He's really loving it. He stays for lunch now so he's at school from 9:15 to 4:30 four days a week! At first it was a very long day for him and he would be exhausted and very grumpy when he came home, but now he's really settled into the routine. The 'maitresse' (teacher) has told me that he's beginning to speak a little French at school and she thinks he's really beginning to understand well. It's so sweet he's begun writing his name in joined-up French style lettering and he's asking how to write 'curly' letters (as he calls them). I've had to go and by a book for pre-schoolers to teach myself how they construct the alphabet joined-up because some of the letters are quite different. I'm quite sure Conor will be teaching me in a few weeks time.

Although Simon has only just arrived on the 16th November the boys and I are spending a week in England. As I've been here since June I'm now really looking forward to seeing as many friends/relatives as I can. Our friends' twins, William and Harriet's fifth Birthday party was the initial reason for going over but I'm also looking forward to taking the boys up to London for the day with Simon's Mum. It's funny isn't it. I never bothered when I lived an hour away, but now it's really important to me that the boys don't miss out on London and all our English heritage!

We've got roadwork's surrounding us at the moment while new water pipes are laid. It's great fun as the workmen are great and are quite happy having two little people watching their every move! The boys (and Simon) would like you to think that we have our very own 'Scoop' (from Bob the Builder) The men are so kind (in exchange for a few beers) they're going to dig our new vegetable garden in two weeks time with this huge digger. Well it beats doing it with garden tools doesn't it?

M y Dad and Pamela arrived two days afterwards for their first visit over here, which coincided with Conor's half-term holiday. They've been living in Spain since March so the Normandy weather (similar to UK) was a shock to the system! They stayed for 5 days and enjoyed seeing our farm/home and the surrounding areas. My Dad enjoyed speaking French again as he spent time working in France when I was younger, but he did manage to slip into Spanish a couple of times which was amusing!



Yesterday was fun. It was the day when the cider press came to our neighbours' house. Marcel had asked Simon to help (well he is 84) so we all went along. Simon helped shovel tonnes of apples into the machine. It was attached to the back of a tractor and the apples were chopped up and then wrapped in cloth and stacked up. Then a hydraulic press squashed all the juice out. It was then pumped into Marcel's barrels in his barn. Nothing at all is added to the apples not even sugar or yeast and in two weeks time the cider will be ready to drink. Then if you want you can bottle it, but by far the best thing you can do (if you can wait without drinking it!) is to leave it for two years and then it can be distilled into Calvados. It's a delicious apple brandy like drink that is famous in this region.

Calvados production is now heavily controlled and unless you have already been producing it for 50 years it's now illegal, therefore we've been told that mobile distillers arrive in the dead of the night to the small farms and it's all very hush-hush!

We had harvested the apples from our trees in our field that Marcel had asked us if he could graze his sheep in, as apparently it gives them an upset stomach if they eat the fallen ones. We gave those to Marcel and he said he'd give us some cider in exchange as well as to say thank for us having his sheep. He has 50 trees and does this every year. As it happens he has lent us a huge 120 litre barrel and yesterday it was filled to the brim with cider. We're really chuffed as we feel we are really joining in with and being accepted by the locals.

We've stocked up on logs ready for the winter. We have central heating but nothing beats a roaring fire. We took Simon's van to our next door neighbour, Patrick's who very kindly in exchange for grazing his cows on another of our fields, gave us half a van load of logs for free. We filled up the other half for only 40 euros which was a good deal.

We hope you all enjoyed bonfire night. It's not something that is celebrated over here. I guess the French aren't that interested in Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the houses of parliament... well they might celebrate it if he had succeeded!!

Anyway, onward we go, heading rapidly towards Christmas.

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