Life as we know it – Bits & pieces about life after retiring from running a chambre d`hotes & gite in the Auvergne, France for 13 years & now returning to the UK but still keeping a foothold in France

I have been writing this blog since we moved from the UK to France in 2006. I  have published a post at the end of each month to try & keep friends & family( & now lots of other folk too) up to date with all our everyday life here in Chabanol. We have now retired and have left our beautiful French house to live in Carlisle & be nearer to our family. We have decided to keep a foothold in france too though by buying a holiday flat in St Aygulf on the south coast of France. Our life will be changing big style but I hope you will all continue to read my ramblings. I welcome all readers & I love to get feedback so please leave a message for me anytime. I have all the blog( right from the beginning) saved if any new readers have time & inclination to read earlier posts.

31/01/2017   Er..2017…this was not the start we had in mind!

 

As you all might conclude from the title of this post, we haven’t had the best of starts to this new year really. In fact this January will go down in our eyes as the worst month we have ever had especially since we came here. It all started quite well but from day 3 it was downhill all the way! 

We had a very quiet New years Eve..I think we were still recovering from our Christmas trip really. We managed to get to midnight,Geoff went out (very briefly as it was freezing) to be our first-foot, we had a drink to toast the New year & then we went to bed! Real party people we are ..not! We had B&B guests – the holiday house family were spending New Year together & we had Vincent’s parents staying with us overnight as usual. They are a lovely couple & I’m always pleased that they are the first ones to write in my Livre D`Or each year as it gets things off to a good start. Happily I was able to get the room all done & the bedding washed & ironed as things went downhill pretty quickly after this. 

The Auvergne has been in the midst of a flu epidemic for a few weeks & lo & behold I soon became part of that. I rarely get ill (thank goodness) & this bug really took it out of me. I was unable to get out of bed for over a week & felt so wretched. This bug also came with a cough so bad that I ached all over, couldn’t sleep & thought I was heading towards pneumonia at times. On the days when I did manage to get out of bed, I made it to the sofa …& then usually fell asleep! At this point I should say that I am not a good patient so as well as feeling rotten, I was mega grumpy too! I really wouldn’t wish this bug on anyone…I have never felt so washed out in my life.

Poor Geoff was trying to get all his new contracts done, look after me & do all the things I usually do too, so he was getting pretty worn out! He actively delighted in having to go to his teaching sessions or any meetings he could put together…anything to get out of the house! And in the midst of all this he too had to go to hospital to have this little lump taken off his eyelid. He has always been mega squeamish about all things hospital related, so the original plan had been for me to go with him & keep him on his feet, but I just couldn’t get out of bed so he had to go on his own. Fortunately all went well & he came home safe & sound with a nice clean looking wound & the beginnings of a bit of a black eye. It has all more or less healed up now & I’m glad to say it hasn’t damaged his good looks at all 🙂  

At last I began to feel a bit better & was by this time desperate to get out of the house. We had had a bit of snow whilst I’d been ill, but it was beginning to melt leaving a soggy & icy garden in places. On almost my first trip outside for what seemed like ages, I managed to slip, fell heavily, put out my arms to save myself…& you can guess the rest! Fortunately Geoff was in the house , heard me yell & came to my rescue. After a bit of humming & hawing…I hate to make a fuss..I realised all was not well with my wrist & so off we went to Issoire & the urgences department at the local hospital where I was soon having an x-ray which confirmed my fears that my wrist was indeed broken 😦 We drove home about 2 hours after we’d arrived, with me happy on some nice strong painkillers & with my right arm in plaster from fingertips up past my elbow. The euphoria of the painkillers soon wore off & the realisation of just how difficult life here with the use of just my left arm (of course I’m right handed)was going to be, hit home. At first it was a bit of a novelty…but that soon wore off! I spent a lot of my life as a nurse looking after other people, washing them, dressing them, feeding them etc & had always known I would make a lousy patient myself. I am not keen for other people being in my personal space &  hate having to wait for things to be done, so I have taken very badly to all this. Geoff has been fantastic & has done most of what I would normally do around the house, plus looking after me (helping me to get in the shower, dress & undress myself, cutting up my food etc etc) as well as doing his own work too. Washing my hair was almost a challenge too far, but once he accepted the fact that yes, I did want shampoo AND conditioner used, he hasn’t done too bad a job really. He still hasn’t mastered the art of putting on a shower cap though…we have given up on that! Poor soul, he is beginning to look a bit frazzled now! However we have managed…so far. I have spent more time that I care to think about sitting on the sofa watching DVDs this month…not me at all. I was lucky that I had bought a 3 series boxed set of “The Good Wife” in Noz a while ago & have been steadily ploughing my way through it for the last 3 weeks! Added to that were the DVDs, books & jig saw puzzles that kind friends brought for me too. However the life of sloth does get very tedious after a while & following a return visit to the hospital last Thursday I now have a lighter resin cast on my wrist & am able to do a bit more for myself thank goodness. I go back on Monday & am praying that the cast will be taken off…but I am trying not to get too hopeful. Bones take longer to knit when you are older I know.

 I think one of the hardest things about all this is not being able to go out when I want to. I can’t drive of course & to add to my misery, the weather has not been ideal with lots of snow falling & staying for over 2 weeks, bitterly cold temperatures & then very icy conditions underfoot & on the roads, all of which has meant I’ve been going stir crazy in the house all day. Happily, the snow has gone at last & I am now able to get into the garden a bit, so that is improving too. 

Our social life has been practically non existent, as you can imagine, this month. We had a nice lunch out with Linda & Mike last weekend at one of our favourite places, La Reine Margot at Usson which was good. We also had some tickets booked to go & see a Beatles tribute group in Issoire last week, but heavy snow & treacherous roads on the evening in question, put paid to that. We were disappointed about that, but decided it was better to be safe than sorry…& frankly with our luck this month, it was probably a good decision! We did make it down to Issoire for the big Foire de Sainte Paule last Saturday which we enjoyed as usual. I got a lovely bunch of mimosa as is the tradition & that cheered me up a bit. We didn’t stay too long though as we were both a bit weary & I was not too happy about being in a crowd with my poorly arm. 

 All this incapacity has brought it home to us how difficult it would be to continue to live here when we were older & more infirm & so, much as we don’t want to, we will have to start planning for the future soon I think. We had promised to discuss this while we are travelling over Christmas but managed to drive 3,500 kms without doing so. We are great at avoiding such discussions! However, having had a little taste of being “unfit” this month, I think it has made us both realise that we need to think ahead a bit more seriously now. Geoff has a lot of work coming this year ahead & has started the procedure to apply for his UK state pension so  I think we will be OK for this year, but we need to have a big think now about the years after that. I have not been able to do any of the usual marketing of the gite & B&B which I normally do at this time, so goodness knows how well that will do this year. We will see…. 

So, January 2017, I think all in all, I will be very pleased to see the back of you! I’m hoping February will be a big improvement. A bientot mes amis

31/08/2026 …..August Antics

I have to say that August has gone by very quickly. Normally when we are counting down the days to our Autumn escape to France August seems to drag. Not this year though. I can’t believe we are off to St Aygulf on Wednesday and as per usual we have quite a bit to do before we go, even now. I think that perhaps because we have had some nice weather during the month we have done more sitting in the garden and swimming outdoors than usual and all this has made the time pass quickly.

The outdoor swimming we have done this month has been fantastic. We discovered that if we went to our favourite pool (Hunsonby) about 11am on a Wednesday morning, we more or less had the pool to ourselves. And so this has been what we have done and we have thoroughly enjoyed our swims. We only missed one Wednesday as the pool was closed for maintenance much to our disappointment. Mind you it was a bit overcast & rainy that day so we found something else to do that morning. We know that the outdoor pools usually close at the beginning of September, when the school holidays end, so we said our goodbyes to the pool last week as I’m sure it will be out of action by the time we get back from France. Sad times 😦 Of course we always tagged on a nice lunch after each swim and we will also miss going to the places near the pool, such as The Shepherds Inn at Langwathby too

Most of August has been spent doing our usual stuff really. I have continued with my shifts at Op shop, Geoff has done a lot of dog walking & playing pickleball. He has also done quite a bit of extra visits to see some friends from Church and other friends who have suffered strokes recently. One of these friends is recovering slowly at home but is a bit isolated in the small village where she lives. We have both been going to see her regularly and she is beginning now to get out and about a bit more. Not being able to resume driving though is still an ongoing problem. One of our other friends Iain, is a member of our U3A French Speaking group, and his stroke was a severe one. We have not really been able to see him as much as we would have liked as he is only receiving family visits at the moment. All of this has really brought home to us how thankful we are to have taken the step to return back to the UK when we did and to have bought a small manageable flat here, close to our daughter and within easy reach of shops and facilities. Not being able to drive would be a pain but not an unsurmountable problem for us here. It has also brought home to us that we are all getting older and more at risk of these health problems too.

We have of course done some really nice things this month. We took three of our grandchildren (we chickened out of taking the baby too this time!) to a caravan at Silloth for a long weekend. It all went very well…the caravan was nice, picking up and dropping off arrangements for Ethan and Hadley worked out well, and Layla (who would happily go and live in a caravan full time) was really happy to spend time with her cousins. The weather was mostly kind to us and the kids really enjoyed being able to get out on their scooters in the holiday park and swimming in the pool there. Hazel and Phil brought the baby out to see us ..this is the benefit of going to Silloth as it really is not far from Carlisle. The weekend all worked out really well and we all had a good time. I have to admit though that Geoff and I really enjoyed having the final night to ourselves when all the kids went off home, leaving us to pack up in peace the next morning! We were pretty tired!

Another nice thing that I did this month was to go with Hazel to a book launch event in Carlisle one evening. I really like the “Poe and Tilly” thrillers written by the author M W Craven. He is a Carlisle “boy” and so all the locations in the books are in or around this region, which I also like. The event was a sell out as usual and we both enjoyed hearing all his stories and anecdotes from the latest book…which of course I bought! And yes, I have already read it and can recommend it!

We also tried very hard to watch the solar eclipse. Geoff was very proud of his “colander & white card” contraption which he rigged up in our garden. Unfortunately the weather had not received the memo here in Carlisle and the sun was more or less “eclipsed” by cloud for most of the time. We did manage to see a very small chunk of sun disappearing but we felt a bit underwhelmed by the whole event really 😦

We have had a birthday celebration this month. Our lovely baby granddaughter celebrated her first birthday. It was a pretty low key celebration as she was at nursery for most of the day as Hazel has started to get ready for her return to work in September and so has already started M’s sessions in nursery.. However we all had a lovely birthday tea with cake and balloons…as well as a lot of toys! Her first year has really flown by…it just feels like yesterday when she arrived. She is as bright as a button but is very reluctant to start crawling as yet! I suspect that she will be doing so by the time we get back from France though.

We have been watching all the news again, about all these disasters which are happening in the world at the moment. We are very relieved that most of the awful fires in France now seem to be over (for now anyway) but the destruction they caused still rumbles on. Our friends finally got back to their house in Le Porge and as we have not heard a lot from them since then we think all was OK for them. Now we are watching all the storm damage recently in France with horror too. Geoff is regularly receiving orage (storm) alerts on his phone so we are crossing our fingers that all will be well when we get to St Aygulf. And of course we are now seeing horrific footage from Nepal. It really has made us wonder what we are all doing to our planet.. its all very scary isn’t it?

This last week has been a bit of a worrying time for us, as Geoff has had a bit of a health scare. As anyone who regularly reads my blogs will know, neither of us goes anywhere near doctors if we can help it. However Geoff was summoned for a check-up review – the first one since we returned to the UK. He has so far escaped all these reviews and so there is very little recorded on his health records. Of course one of his blood results picked up a serious anomaly …which indicated poor kidney function. A repeat blood test a week later showed an even worse result and so we were told to go to the hospital as an emergency to have all this checked out. This of course was only four days before we are due to fly to France for a month so I was already cancelling the trip in my mind as my ex-nurse brain was working overtime! I even made sure that he had very smart underwear on for this visit in case they wanted to keep him in! Happily the doctors at the hospital were not too concerned and so apart from another repeat blood test which he needs to have done in a months time he got the all clear. He even made the very nice doctor smile when he told her he has felt recently that when he plays pickleball his legs and muscles take longer to recover now! She smiled and reminded him that he was 74 years old! There was much relief as we drove back home though…and yes we did get the all clear to go to France too 🙂

Our final jaunt this month has been a trip to Grange-over-Sands where we had tickets to go and see a performance of the opera Carmen, which Geoff had spotted as being on there. We called in to see Geoff’s cousin Carole who lives in Grange and also found Carole’s sister Julia there too, so that was a nice surprise. We had a lovely lunch together and we all agreed that we should meet up more often…something we are not good about really. As Julia said…”lets not wait for the next family funeral to do this again”..a very good point!We left them and headed to the Victoria Hall where one of us really enjoyed the opera at least! I was dismayed to find that it was a concert version and although the singing was good, I was totally bored by it all. I need to see action, costumes & colour…none of which was on offer at this performance. Geoff however was enthralled by it all. Hey ho…as we say in French “nous sommes tous different”! Our evening was also a bit bizarre. We drove from Grange to Ulverston where I had managed to find a hotel on this Bank Holiday weekend, at a price which wasn’t going to break the bank. Mmm… I now know why this one was not booked up! It turns out that Ulverston seems to be the party central place of west Cumbria and our hotel was certainly being a big part of that! I had booked a “deluxe” room as advised on B.com to be as far away from the busy bar area of the hotel as possible, & that turned out to be on the top floor (3 flights of stairs up) & overlooked the outside bar veranda which was very lively with loud music going +++! Needless to say it was very very noisy…as was the downstairs bar where we had hoped to get some food! And it turned out every other eating establishment in Ulverston centre was also either packed, ultra noisy or fully booked! Eventually we enjoyed a takeaway kebab in the car down by the edge of the estuary looking over towards Arnside! We really know how to live eh? We returned to the hotel, turned up the TV for the rest of the evening to block out most of the outside noise and eventually, much to our amazement we did have a good night’s sleep after all. I somehow think though that a repeat visit to Ulverston is not ever going to happen! We drove home the next day via the west coast roads to avoid any traffic problems in the Lakes or on the M6. It had been a strange Bank Holiday weekend!

And now on this very last day of August, we are just sorting out all the last details ready for our departure to sunny climes (we hope) on Wednesday. After all the odd things that have happened this last week I can honestly say we are more than ready for our break now. I am not doing a shift in the shop this week which will allow me to finish off clearing our hall and bedroom here in the flat both of which are going to be redecorated whilst we are away. So on that note I will end here and hopefully catch you all up with September’s news from our flat in sunny St Aygulf.

A bientot mes amis…

31/07/2026….All the S’s this month

July has been a bit of an odd month for us really. For a start it has been Sunny…& warm…too. This is a rare phenomenon here in Carlisle, especially as it has gone on for quite a prolonged time too. I am not complaining mind you, as it has been lovely to be able to sit in the garden at long last. I have had to retreat into the shade several times as the Sun was too hot for me to sit in full glow. I burn, so I have to be careful. The good weather has its downsides though and I have spent several evenings lugging the watering can around the pots to make sure the plants didn’t expire of thirst….another rare event here in Cumbria, where we are not usually short of rain!

All this good weather has also meant that we have been Swimming quite a bit too. Ever since we lived in France and had the luxury of a lovely lake and plan d’eau near our house, we have been fans of outdoor swimming. There are plenty of opportunities for swimming outdoors near here…in fact the Lake District is only 30 minutes drive from here, but swimming in those lakes is not always an attractive prospect as the areas are very crowded in summer, the lake terrain is often very rocky underfoot and the popular lakes are often hit by nasty algae blooms which are not good for your health. Happily , as I have mentioned previously in this blog, we have several outdoor swimming pools near here and so we have been taking advantage of those. I have even treated myself to a new Swimsuit!! Before the schools broke up for the summer holidays we discovered one of the pools (Hunsonby) was really quiet in the mornings and so we have swum there several times, putting our fees into the honesty box as it is usually unmanned. We have had the pool more or less to ourselves which has been great. We have also swum at Greystoke pool with Hazel and the girls too, but that pool is always a bit busier. It has been lovely to swim in the fresh air again…I will find it very hard to go back to indoor pools again when the summer season finishes. On one of these trips we eventually managed to visit a local place Geoff has been trying to get to for ages. He loves to visit Stone circles and Standing stones and usually I just let him get on with it as they are normally quite a trek to get to. However Long Meg and her Daughters proved to be a good one to visit as you can drive right to it. It was also very impressive….and believe me for me to say that is very unusual! It is well worth a visit if you are in the area.

We have often combined these swimming sessions with lunch afterwards as usual. We have become semi regulars at The Shepherds Inn at Langwathby and the Sun Inn at Newton Reigny, both of which are close by the pools. We have wanted to explore more eating places but unfortunately a lot of the pretty village pubs seem not to open at lunchtimes now, which is a shame. A couple of times we have met up with our friends Linda and Mike for lunch…but I have not been able to persuade them to join us on our swims!

We have also had a lovely little break in Scotland this month. We drove up to Dunblane one Wednesday, detouring a bit to visit another place Geoff had on his “must see” list, a rewilding project {Carrifran Wild Wood) near Moffat. He enjoyed his walk into the dense wood…I did not as I got badly bitten by flying critters as usual 😦 We were warmly welcomed when we arrived in Dunblane, by our friends Ewen and Jean, and they made us very welcome in their beautiful home once again. They are wonderful hosts and they took us out the next day for a super tour of the Kingdom of Fife, visiting St Andrews, Crail, Anstruther and lots of other places before crossing the Forth Road bridge and returning back to Dunblane. It was lovely to be chauffeured and have all the history of the places explained by Ewen as we drove through them. We thoroughly enjoyed it all. And as I know Ewen will be reading this …thank you again 🙂 We drove down into the Borders for our final day away. As we passed Lanark on the way across, Geoff suddenly saw a sign to New Lanark and so off we went to have a look at this heritage site which he had read about somewhere! It was a good visit as it turned out! It is an old textilemill and the surrounding mill workers cottages, school, shop sand other buildings which were created to make the mill workers life and conditions better. It was very interesting and we we were glad we had taken the detour.We stayed in Kelso for the night at The Queen’s Head hotel. I love the countryside of the Borders so it was a nice conclusion to our little break.

Sport has also featured heavily during this month….on TV that is! We have been bombarded with it really! Wimbledon , of course, was great…although I have to admit I don’t enjoy much women`s tennis these days as I am totally at sea with who the stars are any more. The Men’s tennis was good but once again I get disappointed by these hard hitting, ace after ace matches. I missed the finesse of Roger, Rafa & Carlos very much. And then there was that football tournament in the USA. I really can’t believe my family actually ended up supporting Spain (which is unheard of here) in that final. Nuff said about that! Then we had the Tour de France, which much to Geoff’s disappointment, had been relegated to a one hour highlight slot on terrestial TV, and has lost a lot of its excitement for him as Pogachar has dominated it from the word go. And now, we have the Commonwealth games taking place, only a short train ride from here, but practically non existant on TV unfortunately, since the BBC lost the franchise. That is a real shame as we really like to watch athletics. However we have now discovered we can watch the games on the Alba channel. It is a Scottish channel and there is good coverage there. The only downside is that the commentary is all in Gaelic…which makes interesting viewing I can tell you! We don’t understand a word of it!

We have continued to do all our usual stuff…church activities, Pickleball for Geoff, charity shop shifts for me all month. We have had a few little walks locally too as Geoff has missed his usual walking companion, Xena, who has been away on holiday! I have also had my annual diabetic review and was advised to start taking a new medication to try & get my blood sugars down again. However this hasn’t really agreed with me and so after discussing the situation with the nurse I have decided to stop taking these new pills and will try and sort things out by myself yet again.

I cannot end this post without writing about these terrible fires in Spain and more relevantly for us, in France. We have been watching all the news footage with horror, as we know some of these areas well. We drive through many of those terrains in the Var when we visit St Aygulf and have often said that fire would be dreadful amongst all the trees which cling to the hillsides there. And now we see that very event happening ….the destruction is horrific. So far St Aygulf on the coast has not been involved and we are thankful for that. We have also often watched the Canadair planes practising scooping water and releasing it from the beach in St Aygulf and now seeing them doing this for real on the Lac St Croix, which we drive past often, is a sobering sight. We have good friends (Marc and Michelle) who retired to live in Le Porge…one of the places evacuated this week as the fires in the Gironde get closer and closer to Bordeaux. Fortunately, they are in Brittany just now visiting Michelle’s mother, who is ill, but it is a very anxious time for them as they have not as yet been allowed back to see the damage. So far, their neighbours and friends have reported that their house is OK, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for them. We still think they have not yet been allowed to return to their house and we are still awaiting the next update at the time of writing this. It must be terrible to be in that region just now. Again it is an area we know quite well and we often camped in those woods with our kids. It must have been terrifying to be told to evacuate in the middle of the night. Geoff and I were talking yesterday about what on earth you would grab (family, pets etc aside) in that situation. Doesn’t bear thinking about does it?

And so July is at an end and on into August we go. We have several things on the calendar already for August …including a weekend away with our grandchildren in Sunny (I hope) Silloth yet again. We have some final preparations to sort out for our now, fast approaching trip back to our second home in St Aygulf….where I am hoping the canicule will have ended by the time we get there. We are also just about to buy a new computer in the next few days and so we are hoping all goes smoothly with the changeover and I do not lose all my hard work on this blog! We will see my friends, we will see! For now though

A bientot mes amis…

30/06/2026…. Mid summer …deja??

I am finding this year is just running away with me and I can’t believe we are at the end of June already with Midsummer day already fading into my memory. I have to say that until the last week or so I found it hard to believe it was summer at all as the weather was pretty dire really. I found myself reporting each morning to my friends on twitter ( I still can’t call it X …sorry!) that our patio was wet yet again. However happily we have had some good weather during the last week or so, although thankfully here in Carlisle we have not broken any heat red warning barriers, but it has at last been quite hot. We have even been able to eat in our garden, which is something we really like to do and at last we have been sitting on our garden chairs. We have even been forced to sit in the shade at times…happy days! We have been in touch with several friends in France though and frankly we are very happy we are not there just now. I am fine until the temperature reaches 30C but anything above that is not welcome at all. Our friends near Bordeaux reported temperatures of 44C the other day…absolutely not for me at all. I really hated having to close all the shutters and windows when we did get high temperatures in Chabanol and sitting all day in the dark never did appeal to me one little bit. I get very amused though here, at how badly we Brits cope with these hot sunny days. I never heard of them closing the schools in our part of France even when the tarmac was melting on the roads! We seem to be over the worst now …until the next time I suspect!

So, what have we been up to then this month? Well I’ll start where I left off last time with my birthday on the last day of May. We had a very nice day all told with a meet up for brunch in Kendal, with Hazel, Phil and the girls who were en route homewards after a wedding in Liverpool. After they departed ( Layla’s social life interfering yet again as she had a party to go to!) Geoff & I found a lovely garden (Holehird) to visit and we wondered why we had never visited it before as it was fantastic. Then we checked into our hotel (the Damson Dene), had a lovely swim in the pool there and later ate dinner (watched by some resident ducks through the restaurant windows) and had a walk round the grounds before returning to our comfy room with a view for a really nice sleep. A perfect way to spend my birthday really.

The next couple of weeks were quite busy with all our “normal” things such as Op shop shifts, pickleball sessions and church commitments as usual. Op shop and Cornerstone held a gathering one day, as it was volunteers week to say “thank you” to all of us volunteers who man the shop and the cafe. It was nice to meet the people who work on different days who we hear about, but never really meet! Our church also held its anniversary service that week and we all enjoyed sharing lunch together afterwards. I have done another stint reading some pretty dire articles for the Talking Newspaper for the Visually Impaired from our local newspaper. It really is hard trying to find stuff which is interesting to read for these sessions! Our recording studio has moved into another building in Carlisle and it was fun trying to find our way through the labyrinth of corridors of this old warehouse! We also attended the annual AGM of the Mills Management committee which oversees the management of the complex where we live. It was its usual fun! We like to go though each year to see where all the money we pay in service charges goes. It’s an endless problem maintaining the upkeep of these old mill buildings and we say every year we don’t envy those guys who volunteer to stand as directors of this committee.

I have had several appointments to attend this month too. I have had my annual diabetic review and the results of the blood tests etc look OK to me. I have also been to the opticians where the news was not so good as my eyes have deteriorated yet again. I am now becoming increasingly depressed at the lack of treatment at the eye clinic for my condition as my new consultant does not seem to want to continue with the injections as before. My eyes are really not good at the moment which is truly depressing 😦 . Geoff and I have been trying to visit a lady from church who had a stroke a few weeks back and is now at home spending a lot of time on her own. We took her to an appointment she had at the eye clinic the other day and it was very odd sitting there and not being the patient myself!

We have done some nice things too this month. We have had a couple of great swims in the lovely open air pools near here and have really enjoyed those sessions. We took Hazel with us last week as the baby has just started one full day at nursery a week to get her ready for when Hazel goes back to work in September. She really enjoyed her first child free swim for quite a while I can tell you! We have had a couple of really nice lunches out too, eating for the first time at The Leeming House hotel with its wonderful views of Ullswater and a return to one of our favourite pubs near the pool at Hunsonby. Geoff enjoyed a lovely day celebrating Fathers Day. He spent a very happy day eating lunch in the garden at Hazel’s and then sitting under the apple tree in the garden playing with his granddaughters! He got some great presents including a book from Hazel which he has been wanting to read and some tickets to an open air event at Lowther castle…but more about that later. We also enjoyed a visit to our local theatre last week to see one of my all time favourites, “Under Milk Wood” by Dylan Thomas. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen but it was good.

Sport seems to be domineering our TV at the moment. I have been very happy to be able to watch some tennis from Queens before the start of the real tennis fest that is Wimbledon, which has now just started. Of course, there is rather too much football on screen just now and happily so far Geoff has not been really interested…yeah! However I suspect that might change soon. Geoff is really disappointed not to be able to follow Le Tour in great detail when starts next week. I am not so bothered…it means no clashes with Wimbers for me! He will of course be able to watch the highlights sessions each evening but reckons it is not quite the same as spending lazy afternoons watching the lycra clad speed through the French countryside!

Talking of France I am delighted to say that we have booked our flights for our return in September. I wonder if we will get our biometric stuff done when we arrive this time??? We have also sorted out a little break to Scotland in July to visit our friends Ewen and Jean for a couple of nights and then staying in the Borders for a night on the way back. I am always astonished by the price of BandB accommodation these days mind you! I nearly skipped that night when I saw the costs! While we were in the planning ahead mood we have also booked a caravan stay for a weekend in August to spend some time with the grandchildren as usual. I have been very busy as you can see…and the credit card has been hit hard this month!

Now we come to the last outing we have had this month…that Father’s day gift I mentioned earlier in this post. On Sunday afternoon we set off towards Lowther castle, complete with picnic to go an outdoor cinema event there, clutching tickets paid for by our son. The journey there was not a smooth one, as we sat in an almost stationary traffic queue for a good mile before we could exit the M6 at Junction 40 – a notorious exit at the best of times but now enhanced by yet more lane closures than normal. We eventually arrived at the event with 10 minutes to spare, but we still had time to unwrap our picnic before the 30^th anniversary concert of Andre Bocelli began on the big screen. It was fantastic, with a lovely blend of different music and guest appearances by a variety of people such as Ed Sheeran, Shania Twain (two of my all time favourites) as well as others from the film and operatic worlds. We loved every minute and of course we both ended up in tears when Con te Partiro ended the show. As well as being a beautiful song, that brought back memories for us both, of cruises we had been on when it is often played as the ship leaves a port…and we always cried then too! We are of course, a pair of romantic softies at heart! It was a great way to spend a summer’s afternoon and Geoff reckoned it was one of the best Fathers Day gifts ever 🙂

I’m going to end now with some really good news. Our daughter-in-law, Susie, has now finished all her follow up chemotherapy and after scans last week, was given the “all clear” results. It has been a tough six months for them all and so this news was extremely welcome as you can imagine. Our son Matthew starts a new job this week and hopefully now the whole family can now get back to living their lives again. So off we go into July which already looks quite busy according to our calendar. Hopefully we will also get some more summer weather too. We shall see…

A bientot mes amis…

31/05/2026 A Month of Celebrations

May has always been a month full of celebrations in our family with three birthdays and one wedding anniversary, but this year we have also had a few “mini” celebrations too. I shall share all as this post goes along, but first, let us go back to the beginning of the month when we were still in La Belle France.

Mayday (Le premier Mai) is always a big public holiday in France and one which is very strictly a non-working day for most of the population. We were very sad to be packing up to leave our flat on Mayday and although I did get my traditional sprig of muguet, I was not really in a good mood this year. Somehow this visit seemed to have gone by very quickly and neither of us was really ready to go home at all. Also I was a bit anxious about our proposed bus and train travel along to Nice as we were not totally convinced that the buses & trains would be working as usual. However all went well, the bus turned up (late, but that is normal!) and we got a train without any bother. Unfortunately, I realised just after the bus set off out of St Aygulf that I had left my lovely jacket on the bench at the bus stop. However, yet again, there was a happy ending to this disaster, as I had recently made a new friend on Facebook, due to this lady finding one of my painted stones, and when I sent her a message, she very kindly agreed to go and get my jacket and keep it for me until our return in September. That really made my day and now I have someone else to meet up with when we go back to St Aygulf. Our overnight stay in Nice in our usual hotel went well, except that there were no trams working and so we were unable to go into Nice itself in the evening to eat as we normally do and so we had to make do with a bit of a walk around the quite boring area near the airport and ate in a nearby hotel instead. The flight home the next day was fine, and once again, although we had arrived at the airport very early as advised, there were no queues at passport control, and no fingerprinting going on. All the machines are in place though. In fact this time we didn’t even get an exit stamp in our passports. It’s all very strange. We arrived in Edinburgh early and I got royally soaked due to my lack of jacket! Hazel and family were all in attendance to meet us from the train in Carlisle which was lovely, and then we were back to normal things once again…and Carlisle weather too which took us a bit of time to adjust to!

We did return home to a very nicely redecorated bathroom which was lovely. We had arranged this to be done whilst we were away and we were very pleased with it. Since then I have been busy buying some new towels and have also made a couple of pictures to go in it using some of my sea glass collection, so it looks very swish at last. We are not good at changing things or redecorating…that is the understatement of the year really… so getting this done was a big step forward for us! We have also had to get our computer sorted this month when it had a hissy fit, reverted into original French settings, demanded passwords (which we had no idea about) in French using a French keyboard (which we don’t have) and basically being a total pain. Happily, we have a great computer place in Carlisle and they fixed it…but did say that it was a temporary fix and that we need a new PC as ours is ancient apparently! We will get on with that next month I think. And because we were now on a roll with changing things, we decided to get on with getting the new mattress for our bed we have been talking about for ages. It is now in situ and is very comfy, apart from us having a bit of a struggle to get in and out of bed as it is much higher than our old one! I regard all these changes as mini celebratory events by the way!

Our first week back at home was quite busy really. We met up with our friends Mike and Linda and enjoyed having lunch with them and then going to look at the fabulous bluebells at Rannerdale in the Lake District. Linda was doing well following her gall bladder operation which was good. We are hoping to resume our swimming sessions soon. I also had an eye clinic appointment and a discussion /review with the consultant at last. He was quite pleased with how my eyes were and has decided to pause the injections for a while and review again in three months time. This was a pleasant surprise for me as I had expected the injections to continue. Another mini celebration then 🙂

I have resumed my usual shifts in Op shop and have been tempted yet again to part with some cash especially as we have had an unexpected mini heatwave recently here in the North West and I realised that a lot of my sunny weather clothes are now residing back in France. It’s a good job we get a lot of discarded sun tops coming into the shop! Geoff has also resumed his regular dog walking and pickleball playing activities. His shorts are now a semi permanent feature for the dogwalking. He also has been heard to say that playing pickleball here, is not the same as playing pickleball under blue skies with a blue sea background…but unfortunately there is no solution to this! We have also been eating lunch out on Wednesdays again and we even managed a few meals outside in our garden during the hot weather. Again though the view is not as good as on our balcony in France! And we managed to fit in our first outdoor swim of the year at Greystoke swimming pool last week. Hazel and the girls came too and Layla & the baby were in their element. We really love this little pool although due to the school holidays and the good weather it was quite busy that day. Hazel is going to get a family season pass so I suspect this will be the first of many visits this summer.

We did have a night away in Durham too, which was nice. We met up with my two ex-midwife friends, Rose and Madeleine and enjoyed a performance of The Gondoliers at the Gala Theatre in Durham. This meet up is becoming an annual event mainly due to Madeleine’s continued work with the English Touring Opera company and her delight in trying to get us all to go and see more opera. I really do not like high opera, but as this year’s offering was a Gilbert and Sullivan opera (which I love), Rose and I were persuaded to attend too this year. It was very good and we all really enjoyed it. And of course, any visit to the wonderful city of Durham is an added bonus. It is great that Rose, Madeleine and I remain friends after 50+ years too 🙂

Our daughter-in-law, Susie, has now completed all her scheduled chemotherapy and so we have also celebrated that achievement too. Hopefully, after she has had her final follow-up scan and consultation we can put that episode behind us. Chemo is never easy and Susie has not always had a great time with it, so now it’s fingers crossed that the rest of the year will be much better for them all. Susie’s sister Alix, has also completed her treatment for leukaemia and the bone marrow transplant seems to be working well. She left her isolation ward last week…several weeks earlier than expected which is good news. Everyone is now just hoping and praying that both these ladies can get back to their normal lives again.

We have celebrated those birthdays too during May. Hazel’s celebration was a bit lower key than Layla’s, of course, but we did enjoy a lovely meal with them on the day. Our friends Rose and Robin were there too for a while, as Robin needed to collect the keys to our French flat, where he was about to stay, whilst he assisted a friend who was taking part in the Rallye d’Antibes the following week. Layla’s birthday was on a school day, but we were invited to a “birthday tea in the garden” (her request) on the actual day and so we were able to see her open her millions (or so it seemed) of presents and share her lovely Unicorn birthday cake. Her actual party was the following Saturday at a local soft play centre…which is my idea of Hell really…but everyone else (including the birthday girl) thoroughly enjoyed it! So now we have a 5 year old granddaughter…where does the time go?? Hazel and Phil celebrated their 11^th wedding anniversary too yesterday. They did so in style at a friend’s wedding, by chance. It really does not seem like 11 years ago that we were all rushing around trying to sort out this wedding. We were still living in France then and planning things at that distance was not always easy. We did all have a fantastic day in the end though and we all have many happy memories of dancing the night away to a ceilidh band in the Tithe Barn here in Carlisle. It was a wonderful day all round 🙂 There is one more birthday to celebrate….mine! That is actually today and after I have opened my presents we are off to meet up with Hazel, Phil and the children and maybe Matthew and our other grandchildren for lunch. Geoff and I are then going to stay overnight in the Lakes and I am hoping to have a nice relaxing day, followed by a swim in the hotel pool and a lovely meal before returning to normality tomorrow 🙂

All that rounds May off nicely and so it is now off into June. Flaming June we hope…although there is no guarantee of that up here in NW England! At the moment our calendar looks pretty calm but as I know all too well, that can easily change! We will see and watch this space my friends 🙂

A bientot mes amis…

30/04/2026 …Ciel bleu, soleil et repos total!

Bonjour a tous, from a sunny France which we will be leaving unfortunately in a couple of days’ time. As the title of this month’s blog says it has been a lovely restful few weeks under blue skies (most of the time) with a lot of sunshine and also a lot of doing very little! Just what we needed and just what we wanted. It will hard to go back to our sometimes-hectic life in Carlisle!

Before I get into what we have actually been up to here in sunny St Aygulf, I have to remember that April actually started off in not so sunny Silloth, where we spent the weekend with our grandchildren, and Hazel and Phil in a caravan enjoying the delights of Storm Dave! The weekend actually went well and the kids all really enjoyed it. Because the holiday park swimming pool was not open, the park gave us vouchers for the children to do various activities, meaning that they could take part in things which might have proved very expensive normally. So, they did rock climbing, art stuff, zorbing and generally kept busy going to the playground on their scooters. Layla loved being with her older cousins, Ethan and Hadley and they were great with her and the baby too. They only drew the line at attending the children’s disco, which Hazel and I took Layla to on her own! They did get to swim too, at the pool in Wigton with Hazel and Papi whilst Phil and I looked after the baby. The weather wasn’t good, but it didn’t seem to spoil their fun at all. Even Storm Dave came and went with virtually no problems apart from a bit of rocking of the caravan and the sound of torrential rain on the roof…neither of which disturbed the kids at all! We managed a little walk on the beach at Allonby and celebrated Phil’s birthday with a nice meal in our favourite Jack’s Surf Bar there. It was a good weekend and it was also good that Matthew and Susie had had a break too, especially as Susie had not been well after her previous bout of chemo.

The next few days were a bit hectic as we sorted out all our usual “going away” stuff. We also had our bathroom to empty, ready for it being redecorated whilst we are away. It will be nice to see the redecoration when we get home. On the 8^th April, a week later than planned, we made our way up to Edinburgh and flew out to Nice. We were a bit apprehensive about arriving there and being stuck in a long queue at border control, due to the new entry regulations which involve having biometrics (fingerprints and eye scans) done for entry into the EU, but no…it was straight through and stamps in the passports as usual this time. We suspect it will be more problematic when we leave, but we will see ☹

We stayed overnight in Nice as usual and then got the train along to the flat, which we found in good condition and we were soon sorted and off to the hypermarche to stock up with provisions…at great expense as always! Our next-door neighbour was in residence for the first few days…normally her flat is rented out as a holiday let…so it was nice to chat to her for a bit, until they set off home. We had a little drive along to St Maxime one day just for a bit of a walk around but really did not do much that first few days.

Our first weekend here was quite busy as the “Eco” event was on in Frejus on the Saturday and so we went to see all the fun …although looking at all the tractors, animals and children’s craft stuff was not quite the same without Layla in tow, like last year! On the Sunday, we had a quiet day until the evening when we went to a really good concert in the church here in St Aygulf, given by a Gospel Choir. It was packed …and very lively and we really enjoyed it.

We ventured out and about a bit more during the next weeks. We returned to St Maxime for the Marche des Fleurs there which was very small but very colourful too and we enjoyed all the fun. Another trip out saw us going to Grimaud, which amazingly we have never really visited before…not entirely sure why! It is a nice little medieval village perched up high with some stunning views over the Gulf de St Tropez, and once again we enjoyed our visit very much…apart from the traffic jams on the way there and back. That road along the coast is always a nightmare traffic-wise, even this early in the year. We would never use it in high summer! One of our other days out was a trip to Gourdon, somewhere we have been before, but it really is a lovely drive up there and back along the Gorges de Loupe. Gourdon itself is another old village perched up high and after we had had a little wander round, we ate our picnic in a flower filled meadow just at the edge of the village. This is what holidays are all about for us!

Our other big new adventure this time was taking the Bateaux Bleus ferry from St Raphael to St Tropez one day to meet up with a couple (Alex and Alison) who I have known virtually for many years, but this was the first time actually meeting them face to face! They were on a cruise and were visiting St T that day, so we met them up for a coffee…which turned into lunch as we were talking so much! Alex was a big help to me when we first set up our gite and BandB in France years ago, giving me lots of advice and tips they had learned from running their very successful gite business. We had a lovely day and it was great to meet them at long last. The boat trip was also something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and although it was a bit expensive, we really enjoyed seeing all the places we know and visit often along the coast from the sea! St Aygulf looked really good although we struggled to identify our apartment building, even though we often watch this boat going back and forth from our balcony!

Speaking of meeting up with friends, we enjoyed a nice lunch with our friend Gisele one day too. We sat in her little garden in the sunshine and again caught up with all her news. Last Sunday saw us meeting up with our old “cruise pals” once again too. Mandy and Carolyn live near here but Jean and Ewan had come across from Scotland for a few days’ holiday this year and so it was great to reunite our old cruise dinner table once again! It has been 9 years since we all met up on that cruise and it is lovely to have kept in touch all that time. We also met up with Jean and Ewen in Antibes on Tuesday and thoroughly enjoyed our walk around the old town and lunch together once again.

We have of course had several trips down to the beach while we have been here. We started, as always, going to our favourite beach here in St Aygulf, but as there is often a cool wind blowing there, we have discovered that the small beach near the harbour is more sheltered and so we have been going there more this year. The sea is still quite cold but Geoff has been enjoying his swims a lot. I too have ventured in a few times but have not stayed out there very long! It is, shall we say, “refreshing” in that sea just now! Needless to say, there are not a lot of folk actually braving the water and our French friends think we are totally crazy for venturing into the sea at all this early in the year! We have enjoyed our beach time though but, as always, an hour or an hour and a half is enough for us. We often marvel at all those people who spend the whole day there….we would get terribly bored, not to mention burnt to a crisp as the sun is very strong here, even now.

We have eaten out quite a bit this time. We went along to our favourite place Bistro l`Antre-Potes in Les Issambres, where we ate well as always and enjoyed chatting to Eric and Magali. I eventually got to eat some moules frites in St Raphael one day, but this was done indoors as the weather was not good that day. Our other main activities have been mooching around the markets on Tuesday and Friday mornings and we have eaten some great “take-aways” from there too. The Thai lady and the Tagine lady do some fantastic food! I have to say though, we have really spent a lot more time “at home” this time than we usually do…just sitting on the balcony reading, knitting (me only that one!), watching the boats go back and forth on the sea, watching the swifts swooping around the courtyard and just generally relaxing. This was absolutely what we needed to do and we have enjoyed it very much.

I’m happy to report that all is still good with our little Sylvie car. She is beginning to show her age a bit now & is just about to pass the 200,000 km point. This means that she needs a new timing belt…whatever that is! Geoff took her to the garage to discuss this being done but was told to bring her back in September as he was too busy just now. However, Geoff did manage to set up a meeting with someone from a Peugeot 206 FB page he follows (I know…it’s sad!) in Le Muy one day, and got a new gear stick lever, as Sylvie’s had disintegrated last time we were here and the remnants were being held together with gaffer tape! He was very pleased with himself for doing that! Whilst we were in Le Muy, we had a little walk around and I can safely say we will not be going back! We do worry a bit about our little car though, as if anything drastic happens to her now we doubt she will be repairable and judging from things we read on the internet, we doubt we would not be able to get another car to leave here now. We don’t use her a lot but it is nice to have the freedom of having a car here really. We need to take care of her 😊

Being back in France is always a joy for us. We slip back into our French life so easily.  We have of course also been watching French TV again…which we really enjoy. One of our favourites this time have been Le Meilleur Boulanger de France. I always marvel at just how many different types of bread there are here and the stock that these boulangeries keep! Who eats all those lovely cakes and loaves they all have?? I have also been wallowing in my favourite French soap opera, Plus Belle la Vie which I loved when we lived here and which I still enjoy watching whenever we are back. It, like most soaps, is total tosh but I love it! Unfortunately, having just caught up with the present story lines and new characters, we are about to leave it behind for another 4 months ☹The other totally toshy programme, which Geoff loves, is Camping Paradis, which seems to have a permanent slot on a Tuesday evening, where endless re-runs are on every time we come here! Geoff says it makes his holidays watching it…because there is always a happy ending!

Now, alas, we are making our pre-departure preparations to go home and we are hoping all goes well with the journey back. Unfortunately, we need to travel along to Nice on Friday, which is May Day, a jour ferie and a very strict no working day in France. We are struggling to get any information as to whether the buses and trains are working normally. We already know the trams in Nice are definitely not working, which means our usual trip into the old town to eat there, on our last evening in France, will not be happening this time. It’s going to be a bit of fingers crossed time until we get to the airport on Saturday morning I suspect, and again we are not entirely sure what will await us there with all this fingerprint malarky that is supposed to be happening just now. I will update you all on all that next time! But for now it is…

A bientot mes amis…

31/03/2026…. A very mixed March

I was hoping to start this blog post by saying that we were about to be in France tomorrow…but things have changed a bit since I last wrote. We are of course still heading to France, but a bit later than originally planned. More about that later. This month has proved to be a bit up and down in many ways and we are feeling a bit tired and very ready for a break now. So, what exactly has been going on in our lives to have brought all this about…

A lot of the month has been about doing “normal” things…well as normal as things ever are here! We have been busy with church activities, as always, including a very hectic Mothers Day café church session, which went very well but was quite a marathon! We also had our Easter Fair last Saturday, where I “chickened” out of knitting little chicks this year to sell and instead bought some Easter bunny soft toys from the shop and paired them up with small chocolate eggs instead. They sold well, so I was pleased with that idea. I also helped the Guide troop who meet at our church, to make some really pretty floral arrangements for Mother’s day, one evening. That session went very well and the posies they made were really lovely.

Mother’s Day was a bit strange for me this year as I had no children with me on the day to help me celebrate it! I did get some really nice gifts though, including some flowers, a great pussycat mug and a book from Matthew for me to complete. The book will eventually tell the story of my life and will help my children and grandchildren to know more about my family in past times. It will contain all the sorts of details I wish my parents had written down before they died, which would have made my construction of our family tree much easier and would have allowed me to know more about my grandparents too. However, it will take me quite a while to fill it all in! I will take it with me to France so that I can make a good start on it. Hazel & Phil made up for their absence on the actual Mother’s day (they had to go to Somerset for a family funeral) by making lunch for me the following Sunday, which was lovely.

We have also continued with our childminding activities with me looking after the baby each Monday morning allowing Hazel to complete her course and Geoff taking L to the school Breakfast club each Friday…a firm favourite activity for them both now! I’m beginning to think that Geoff has started a new “networking club” of other dads and grandads. There is always lots of stories and contact details of others to tell me about, when he gets home each Friday!

I have managed a few swimming sessions too this month with my friend Linda which has been good for us both. It had become very complicated trying to fit these sessions into both of our schedules lately, so it was nice to be back in the pool again. And, of course, sharing a cake and coffee afterwards to catch up with all our news! I am still hoping we might get a bit of swimming done when we get to France… but suspect the sea might not be that warm so we will have to see! We did manage to meet Mike and Linda for lunch one day too during which they received the news of the birth of their ninth grandchild! All of those grandchildren has been one of the reasons Linda has been so busy of late!

 One of other things we have done this month which we haven’t done for a while was to go to the cinema one afternoon. We rarely have the urge to go to the cinema, as a lot of the films these days are not really to our taste. However, our neighbour kindly gave us some tickets which he had won in a draw, so we went to watch Mothers Pride….and really enjoyed it. It was one of those lightweight amusing films like the Full Monty & we left the cinema with smiles on our faces. It was a nice way to pass a rainy, cold afternoon 😊

I did my talking Newspaper for the Visually Impaired session again this month. It will be the last one in our usual premises as that place is being sold. It will be difficult to have to move all the equipment to a new venue as there is a special little recording studio, expressly set up for this activity. Hopefully it will all go well and when I next go, they will have it all up and running smoothly.

I mentioned at the end of last month’s blog, that I was about to compete in the Carlisle Music and Drama Festival again. I had a bit of a panic the week before I was to do this, as I lost my voice but happily it was “alright on the night” as they say, and I won all the classes I had entered and came home with four trophies once again. I got invited to the Gala concert, which closes the Festival, on the Saturday night, where I read one of the poems again and was awarded another trophy for best performance in my category of classes. It was very flattering. Now though, I have the task of getting all these trophies engraved yet again. That gets expensive!!

The other big event of this month was the annual meet up with the Old Boys of Hutton Grammar School and Preston North End football fans in Preston. This year the organisation of this meet up has been a bit of a nightmare, as the football match they all go to after lunch on the Saturday, kept being moved to the Friday night and it was not possible for everyone to make that! Eventually, the “boys” agreed to meet up as usual on the Saturday, but not to go to the match. It is quite important to everyone that this gathering goes ahead each year, as one of the attendees is now 101 years old, she loves seeing us all and we all really want to see her! Geoff and I made a nice trip out of it, by going down to Garstang on the Friday night and driving through the Trough of Bowland to get there. Geoff’s parents loved that area and Geoff really enjoyed visiting a lot of the places he knew from family trips out. We drove down via a lot of very dodgy narrow lanes through some very pretty countryside and had a nice night in a hotel in Garstang. The next morning, we had breakfast at Barton Grange Garden centre…and spent a fortune as always on plants! I love that place! The lunch meet up was good, although several people were not there this year…I told you it had been a nightmare to arrange a date! Betty (the 101year old lady) was there however, and we all enjoyed all the chat over lunch in the sunshine. In the afternoon, Geoff and I headed off to Southport where I spent a great afternoon with my childhood pal, Jennifer and Geoff met up with a friend from Cambridge days. All in all, we had a really good couple of days 😊

What was not so nice was the letter Geoff received a couple of days later informing him that he had committed a traffic offence whilst driving through Preston. We had taken a route through the city, which he has taken since he passed his driving test many moons ago, but it turns out it is now a “bus gate”. Apparently, there is a blue sign at the roadside which tells you that this street is now only for buses & cycles…something that we missed completely! We had wondered as we drove through it why there was absolutely no traffic…not a car, bus or cycle in sight! The camera evidence was clear, he had been a naughty boy and he had to cough up the fine. He also did some research and discovered that this road is a major money earner for the county netting a grand total of £1M+ per year.  Needless to say, we will be finding another way through Preston when next we visit!

And now we come to why we have had to delay our departure to St Aygulf. As you know, if you are a regular reader of my blogs, our daughter-in-law is having treatment for cancer at the moment, and our son asked if we could take the grandchildren away for a few days over Easter, to give them all a bit of a break. So instead of spending Easter in the sunny climes of the South of France, we are off to sunny (??) Silloth instead, for the weekend in a caravan! I’m just hoping the weather picks up a bit as it has been awful this week. Someone told Geoff the other day that it was a “Spring of Deception” which sums it up beautifully! Hazel and Phil are coming to Silloth too, so there will be all four grandkids there! We managed to get our flight to Nice changed (at a cost!) and to change the hotel booking for a week later, so we will be off on the 8^th April. It has made all our arrangements a bit complicated, but we are almost there now. It has given me a bit more time to rearrange hospital appointments, to get my hair cut, and I am getting my nails done this week so all has not been lost entirely.  

And so, March is at an end. The clocks “sprang” forward on Saturday night which always upsets my body clock completely…and we will have another clock change next week too so I’ll be totally up the creek by the time we get to our flat in St Aygulf! However, I’m hoping April will be a month of sunshine and relaxation…we both really need both of those things now!

A bientot mes amis 

28/02/26 February – a month of visits & lots of Olympics watching!

I often say that the only good thing about February is that it doesn’t last long, but this year it seems to have gone on for a while, but is that because we have been busy yet again and so haven’t noticed the time passing? We have managed to cram quite a lot into this short month really…too much I think at times. So, what exactly have we been up to then?

The month began where January left off with the baby catching chickenpox from her sister. Whilst L had been fine with a few spots, poor M ended up absolutely covered in spots and very grouchy as she hasn’t really got to the stage where she can reach areas to scratch away the itchiness (which is good news) and so just found it hard to get comfortable. There has not been a lot of sleep being had by anyone in my daughter’s household for a few weeks now and everyone is looking a little worse for wear! The worst is now over which is just as well as I have been on call for babysitting quite a bit due to Hazel having to go on a course as part of the adoption process and I have been in charge each Monday morning as she is not allowed to take the baby with her! All has gone well so far thankfully! I also found myself agreeing to help out our son-in-law one Saturday whilst Hazel took a day’s break to meet up with her uni friends, and Phil’s puppy dog eyes became impossible to ignore as he planned to take both children on a visit to Walby Farm Park. It was just as well I was there as it turned out, as M needed feeding as soon as we got there and L needed the loo in a hurry! He would have struggled big time on his own! He was heard to say that he didn’t know how Hazel coped every day…Mmm!!

We also had another visit to Manchester at the beginning of the month to allow our son and daughter in law to go up to Edinburgh for a couple of nights to see Susie’s sister (who is undergoing chemo at the moment) before Susie herself began her own course of chemo. We managed to collect the grandchildren from school, get them to various activities and off to school again in the mornings without too much trouble. We also took the opportunity to meet up with some friends, John and Elizabeth, from when we used to live in Marple which was nice and we enjoyed a good catch up with them. We had intended to have a longer look around Marple but the weather that day was dreadful and so we called a halt earlier than intended and headed back to Matthew’s house. We celebrated our successful couple of days with a nice ride home through the Lake District which is always a bonus!

Our other nice visit also took us to the Lake District where we went to celebrate Geoff’s birthday and Valentine’s Day (and yes I did get some beautiful flowers for that) with a night away in a lovely little hotel (The Damson Dene) which had a pool and a spa so Geoff was able to fulfil his birthday request for a swim, sauna and steam room session. We also spent a very pleasant time in Kendal, somewhere we rarely go to. It is a very interesting place it turns out and we enjoyed our walk around it and a visit to Abbot Hall art gallery. His actual birthday had been earlier in the week and although it was pretty low key, he did get some good presents and we had a great meal cooked by our daughter in the evening. And of course, there was a cake…a dinosaur one to compliment all the dinosaur gifts our granddaughter had “bought” for him (or were they really for her???). I just hoped she doesn’t see him as a dinosaur…although mind you he is getting quite old now! I can only say that for 3 months until I catch him up! He also got a rather puzzling T shirt as a gift from our son. It took us quite a while to figure out the motif on the front but when the penny finally dropped it turned out it had been specially chosen by Matthew as a reminder of a football programme that he and his dad used to watch every Saturday where a guy sat in an Italian café discussing the football headlines from Italian sports newspapers. Geoff was very touched by that (a few tears were shed) as it had obviously been a special father and son time and one which was remembered by Matthew even today and he is wearing that T shirt with great pride now 😊

We have been out for lunch a couple of times too this month enjoying a last, as it turns out, visit to the tea rooms at Lanercost where we heard the sad news that the tea room and gift shop there were to close. That is such a shame as both places were great and we often enjoyed going there especially in summer when it was lovely to sit outside and eat. We also revisited another of our favourite haunts at Talkin for lunch one Wednesday. As always at this time of the year we have really loved seeing all the snowdrops which grow in abundance around here. They are a magnificent sight forming beautiful white carpets and really lift my spirits as I regard them as a true harbinger of spring.

My brother Brian paid us a visit last week too. He came across from the NE by train along with my niece Clare and her daughter Eloise and we all spent a good day with them visiting Tullie and the cathedral. Hazel, Phil and the girls joined us and we all had a really nice time. Fortunately, L and Eloise got on well (I had worried a bit about that as they are both very strong-willed little girls!) and it was really good to spend time together. We don’t do these family gatherings often enough really…something to be rectified in the future methinks. Hazel and Phil have rediscovered Beamish Outdoor Museum over half term and as Brian and co go there often, that could be a good place for a family get together in the future.

There have been a couple of not so pleasant visits made this month too of course. Geoff finally gave in and went to visit the GP (a very rare event!) to get some treatment for a skin problem on his legs and happily that seems to be working well. That is good news as shorts wearing time is fast approaching again!  Not to mention the leg exposures which will be occurring once we get to France! My visits to the eye clinic for the injections have continued too…I am thinking of getting my name put on one of the chairs soon! However, they too are going to be put on hold for a while now until I next see the consultant to discuss future treatment, and that will be after we get back from France, I fear.

 We have been paying a lot of visits…albeit virtual ones via the TV…to the snowy slopes and ice rinks of Northern Italy these last two weeks. Yes…we have loved the Winter Olympic coverage along with millions of other people. I particularly have loved the curling events although I found the last men’s team match almost impossible to watch!  Talk about high tension! I have also enjoyed the commentary from the two guys on the snowboard and half pipe events, although I have to confess, I still have no clue about what they were talking about most of the time! Their enthusiasm was enough to make it highly enjoyable and was in sharp contrast to the commentary by Steve Cram on the curling which I found to be very pessimistic a lot of the time. The ice skating events were also great to watch although again I miss the grace and elegance of the ice dancing we used to watch in days gone by. All in all, it was a good Games and we are missing our daily visits to Italy very much now that it is over. I’m not sure about the Para Olympics. Will it get the same high level of coverage? We will have to wait and see I suppose.

And so, into March we go now. Looking at the calendar it looks as if it could be another busy time ahead and so we will be more than ready for our escape to St Aygulf, by the time April 1st comes round. March starts off with the Carlisle Music and Speech and Drama festival where I will be competing yet again. I really need to start doing some practice for that now, if I am to do myself justice and replace the trophies I have recently had to return! We also have a yearly football (or not…wait until next month for details of the problems with that!) meetup with Geoff’s old school pals in Preston to sort out. But again I’m getting ahead of myself so I will bid you all farewell for this month.

A bientot mes amis

31/01/2026…. I don’t like January…

The Boomtown Rats once sang “I don’t like Mondays” and I could happily sing my own version of that entitled I don’t like Januarys! Looking back through the years I have been writing this blog I see that it seems to be a recurrent theme too. I’m afraid that January hasn’t really floated my boat for quite a long time now. I suppose it comes as an anticlimax really after the Christmas period, the weather is never very good, the mornings and evenings are dark, and it seems to go on and on. This January has lived up to its normal self and although we have been pretty busy as usual, I am more than ready to see the back of it.

OK…after that cheery start I suppose I should go back to the beginning then. We just about managed to stay up on New Years Eve to welcome in the New Year, but were soon in bed after we had done that. We had a nice day on New Years Day with Hazel, Phil, Layla and the baby here for lunch and a bit of fun afterwards playing games for a while. The next day Hazel decided to try and take Layla and the baby swimming and so we tried the pool at The Sands Centre here in Carlilse for the first time. It all went well and although I thought the water was a bit cooler than I would have liked, the baby seemed to enjoy it too which was surprising as she is not that keen on her bathtimes really. It was deemed a success and we repeated the experience again the following week. I have not been swimming regularly for a while now as my swimming pal, Linda hasn’t been well or has been on Granny duties a lot lately so it was nice to be back in a pool again.

We have met up with Linda and Mike a couple of times this month for lunch and to catch up with their news. Linda is having problems with gall stones and her gall bladder will eventually need to come out. The two of them had had a nice Christmas in Wales with all their family…until she ended up in hospital for two nights! Hospitals have also loomed large in our family news this month too as our daughter-in-law, Susie, had her big operation for colon cancer early in January. All went as planned and she was discharged home after four days, much too early in my opinion, but she was glad to get home and has been recovering well since then. We travelled down to Manchester on the day she was discharged to help with collecting the grandchildren from school and generally lend a bit of support to them all. We only stayed one night though, as I had to get back in readiness for my own hospital visit the next day to have an angiogram done to see the state of my eyes. This all went well too. I was a bit apprehensive about it all but it went smoothly and as it was done in the eye clinic where I usually go to have my injections, I felt as if I was amongst friends! I am now waiting to see what the outcomes of this will be. I was glad though, that just as an afterthought really, the nurse did warn me about having fluorescent yellow pee for a day or so as the dye is flushed through my system. It was very fluorescent I can tell you…talk about glow in the dark… and would have been very alarming had I not been warned! I was in awe though at how quickly this dye got to my bladder! At least my kidneys seem to be in good working order! We did have some more news form Manchester later in the month which is not that good. Susie needs to have some follow up chemotherapy which we were all hoping would not be necessary, and that came as a bit of a shock. They will find out soon how much and what the schedules will be soon and then we can all make plans accordingly.

We have continued with our usual meetups and activities throughout the month trying to keep the gloom to a minimum. My shifts at the Op shop have been very busy and although I still enjoy doing them, I do get very tired sometimes. Geoff is still playing pickleball regularly and is beginning to get fed up with his pals in France sending him photos of them playing outside under blue skies, whilst he is playing indoors under grey ones! Our little trusty car passed its MOT once again which made us happy…although we are now beginning to wonder if we can actually get another car seat in the back to transport the baby should that ever become necessary. We love our little car and will be sad if she has to go ☹ Our activities at church have continued and we had a good café church service last week. Mind you, I have said that we are not doing bacon butties again for a long time. We served over 60 of them which was a bit tiring!! I have done my Talking Newspaper for the Visually impaired session again and I have to say finding “happy” news in our local rag proved to be very hard as usual. Having a six-page supplement in one of my editions for bereavement advice and counselling, did not help with the happiness factor! Our first Speakers Club session of the year went well too and it was lovely to see some new faces there. I was the chair for that meeting and I made sure it was a fun session, so I hope they all come back next time and maybe bring a friend or two!

We also had a nice “post Christmas” lunch with our U3A French speaking group which was good apart from the venue putting us in the exact same spot under the leaky roof where we were last year. And yes, the roof is still leaking! We complained again but were not met with a lot of sympathy I’m afraid. We were not impressed and I think we will definitely be changing the venue next year. All the secret Santa gifts went down well though and I was pleased with my angel ornament as was Geoff with his book “The Debateable Land” which discusses the history of the area around here and Scotland.

I am happy…yes, I know, I am not supposed to be happy in January, am I?… but at long last we have managed to find an electrician (the fourth one we have tried) who stuck to his word and we now have a lovely warm bathroom courtesy of a heated towel rail. It was installed without fuss one afternoon and we are very pleased with it. I can now luxuriate in a warm bathroom and better still can have dry towels all year round 😊 Which is just as well as the weather here has not been wonderful all month and getting those towels dry has been a big problem! Although we seem to have escaped a lot of the storms which have battered the UK this month, it has been pretty wet and windy at times. We have not seen any snow in Carlisle though.

This last week has been a bit full on yet again, just to round off the month in style. Our little granddaughter has chickenpox. Fortunately, she has not been too poorly with it but has driven her mummy up the wall as she hates not being able to go to school, play with her friends or get to all her activities such as gymnastics, swimming or Rainbows! We have helped out whenever possible to try and keep everyone sane and we are now just keeping our fingers crossed that the baby doesn’t catch it. I have had my eye injections again – I am thinking of asking for a chair in the waiting room with my name on it as I seem to have been there quite a bit recently. We have just had a message from our son telling us the schedule for Susie’s chemo so it looks like we will be making a few more trips to Manchester in the next few months starting with one next week.  However, there is brightness on the horizon as we get to the end of this dreary month – we have booked our flights to France for our usual April trip…and frankly it can’t come soon enough. My lovely kind pals in France have been sending me loads of photos of all the fabulous Mimosa which looks beautiful as always. I can almost smell the scent! Roll on April I say! We have also just booked a night away in the Lakes in February to celebrate Geoff’s birthday so that is also something nice to look forward to in the near future.

And so, on that somewhat brighter note I will say farewell to dreary January…

A bientot mes amis…     

31/12/2025 …all the “Cs” this December

When I was wondering what to write about this month, I realised that a lot of our activities had started with the letter C …hence the odd title of this post! Firstly of course was the big day…Christmas of course! I hope you all had a wonderful day. We certainly did, spending the day itself with Hazel and Phil where we were well fed, had fun playing, watching Layla open her multitude of presents (and many of her sister’s presents too!), and talking to my brother, Alan. It was a lovely family day and Geoff and I loved every minute. Spending time with the family is what Christmas is all about after all, as far as we are concerned.

We have of course done quite a lot in the run up to Christmas of course. Church activities have once again taken up a lot of our time…there is that pesky letter C again. We have sung so many Carols this year…more than I have done for many years. We went out carol singing around the streets near our church on two evenings, which was good fun but a bit hard work as there were not many of us. Thankfully our friend Gordon was with us and his playing of his baritone helped us to make a bit of noise! The people who did answer their doorbells appreciated our efforts, so we were happy. Once again though I was sad that none of the children who came to the door, could name a favourite carol…except Jingle Bells or Rudolf the Red nosed reindeer. Carols it seems, are not sung in schools any more and not many of those kids come to church, so I shouldn’t really be surprised. But it is a bit sad though. We had a nice session singing in a care home too where the residents and staff appreciated our efforts, and we all appreciated being in the warm that day! We also sang carols at Layla’s school, when we went to see her being a splendid Camel in her nativity play. Her baby sister went one better in the playgroup’s Christmas nativity, as she was chosen to be baby Jesus and was laid in a manger where she gazed around and loved all the attention! And, of course, we sang again at our church’s candlelight carol service, which was lovely.  Our monthly Café Church session was also fun as we all made an Incredible Edible Crib out of Matchmakers and icing, complete with Shredded Wheat hay and a Jelly baby Jesus! I am proud to say that ours is still complete today… although I suspect it will not last for much longer. I am a little reticent about biting Jesus’ head off I have to say!

Other pre-Christmas activities this month have included buying and decorating our Christmas tree and buying and writing lots of Christmas cards. I still love receiving cards and so despite the astronomical cost of postage these days, I am not going down the “giving to charity“ route any time soon. I have also thoroughly enjoyed assembling my rather ancient Advent Calendar (it is now over 50 years old) once again. For the first time ever, two people responded to my posting photos of this calendar on Twitter, to say they had the same one and asking for photos of their missing pieces. I was very happy to oblige with that and was very happy to know that this old calendar crib scene is also loved by others.

One of the not so nice things that happened this month was water coming through our ceiling on a couple of occasions, which got us a bit worried. We live in a ground floor flat and tracing the source of this leak was not so easy. The guy who lives directly above us was very helpful, but it soon became evident the leak was not from his flat. Eventually our site manager traced it to a leaky bath/shower and helped to renew the seals around it. We are hoping that this will solve the problem …so it is fingers crossed time. We have also had a problem this month of sourcing an electrician to do a small job in our flat…I want a heated towel rain put into our bathroom …and frankly trying to get people to actually do the work is proving to be impossible. They come, measure up, talk the talk and then vanish! It is very annoying!

Not all of our activities this month have had the letter C in them! I helped Hazel one Saturday morning with an Amnesty “Write for Rights” event, where we asked people to sign cards which will be sent to prisoners of conscience in various countries. Geoff has continued to play pickleball regularly and thoroughly enjoyed handing out his “Golden Ball” awards at the last session. Its amazing what I can do with a bit of gold tinsel I can tell you! I have been kept very busy in Op shop in the build up to Christmas too. There have been some afternoons when I did not sit down once! I did enjoy the volunteer’s Christmas party though, one evening at Cornerstone. It was good fun. We haven’t really done much eating out this month…we haven’t been able to fit it in!

Boxing Day here was a lovely day. We started off the day by reviving an old tradition of ours, of doing an “open house” event where we invited a few of our neighbours round for coffee and mince pies. Before we left the UK to live in France, we had done this wherever we lived and although this gathering was a lot smaller than the ones we used to do, it is still a good thing to do. Living in this flat complex here means that not many people ever get to know each other and so we invited some of the neighbours from this building who had never met, to come and chat. It was really nice and we think they at least now know each other’s names! I then went on to share the rest of the day with my daughter at Armathwaite Hall Hotel, where we had a fabulous spa experience afternoon. We ate a fantastic afternoon tea – which was so copious I brought some home with me! Then we had a massage, swam and sat in the outdoor hot tub watching the sun set over Bassenthwaite Lake. Hazel had a sauna, and I relaxed on a lounger reading until she was done. It was a great relaxing afternoon for us both and it was wonderful to have some real “Mother and Daughter” time, just chatting and putting the world to rights. It was a great treat 😊     

We also made a trip down to Manchester last weekend. One of the not so good things which does include the letter `c` that has happened to us this month was the news that our daughter-in-law, Susie, was diagnosed with colon cancer a few weeks ago. It has all come as a great unpleasant shock as Susie is one of those people who runs 10kms for fun and is very fit. She is due to have a big operation in January and so we went down to their house to look after our grandchildren, so that Matthew and Susie could have a night away in Chester. We had a nice time with the kids, went out for pizza and then took them to a pantomime on the Saturday night. M and S also had a nice relaxing night away and enjoyed doing a bit of shopping too. We are now just waiting for this operation to go ahead and then we will be on call to go back if they need us for anything else.

Well on that “not so great” note, it only remains to bid farewell to 2025 and head into the New Year with hope and faith. A quote from Julian of Norwich which became the “go to” phrase for our family a while ago, when the college the kids went to used it as their daily motto, keeps going through my head at the moment. “All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well” I am intending to make a couple of NY resolutions and hope that I manage to keep them this year! Last years lasted 3 days! Whatever you all have planned for 2026, I hope that everything you wish for will come true. Have a Happy, Safe and Healthy New Year my friends.

A bientot mes amis…

30/11/2025 November – a month of appointments

This month has been ultra-busy as predicted at the end of the previous post and frankly I’ll be glad to see the back of it…although I suspect next month will be busy too as we head towards Christmas. Talking of Christmas….it seems the build up to that starts earlier and earlier. Already I can see Christmas trees twinkling, Christmas wreaths on doors and don’t get me started on all these Christmas adverts on the TV at the moment, although they do make a welcome change from the funeral plan adverts, I am sick of them already! Needless to say, I haven’t had much time so far to start any of my preparations…although I will confess to having bought a few Christmas cards last week! Yes, I still send cards my friends, even if it costs me a fortune! Before I get too “Bah Humbug” on you all, I’ll get back to telling you all about our busy month!

It has been a month of lots of appointments for us both and our family. Some of these have been pleasant and some not so nice. My first appointment was to get my hair cut. I had meant to get this done before we went to France in September but never managed to fit it in somehow and I was beginning to resemble a shaggy dog! However, despite having it all done, lots of hair cut off, and parting with mega bucks for the privilege, not many folk noticed it! I give up! Later appointments towards the end of the month have included a much-dreaded trip to the dentist (I’m dentaphobic remember) where I escaped yet again without any treatment (youpi!), but a lot poorer, and another long overdue visit to the eye clinic this week where I had my usual injections and actually met my new consultant at long last. He has scheduled a whole raft of further appointments over the next few months as he is not happy with progress (or lack of it) with my condition. Not entirely happy with it myself really, but hey ho!  Our family have also had appointments to fulfil over the month. Hazel has continued to travel to Penrith three times a week with the baby but we are hopeful that this will slow down or maybe even stop very soon. I did get to go with her one day and we had a nice mother and daughter lunch together. Our son and daughter in law have had some not so pleasant appointments recently due to a health problem and we are still waiting to see how that progresses.

Before you all start thinking that all has been doom and gloom this month, we have had some pleasant “appointments” or rather meet-ups throughout the month too. I spent a very happy afternoon with friends at a nearby church where we made up lots of shoeboxes for the Operation Christmas Child appeal. I still love doing this and am always amazed at how quickly all the stuff, which we had bought with donations from our churches disappeared into those boxes! The pile of completed boxes at the end of the afternoon was very satisfying and I was very pleased to get my living room at home back to its normal state!

We enjoyed going to a fireworks display at our granddaughter’s school where all the children (and adults too!) had great fun oohing and aahing and eating hotdogs 😊 I also enjoyed attending a rather fun, if a little messy, crafts afternoon with her, at school too one day. We have had a couple of nice meals with friends during the month. We were invited to lunch with some friends from church one day… (and got totally lost getting to there house as usual), and we enjoyed eating with a couple who we know who live in our flat complex one evening. It is nice to have others cook for us! I met up with my nursing friends one day in a pretty snowy Corbridge, which was lovely. 55years on for us first meeting up, our friendship is as strong as ever even if we don’t see each other so often these days…grandchildren tend to take up a lot of time it turns out! Geoff also enjoyed meeting up with someone from his old college who was visiting Carlisle one day. We were a little worried that he might be expecting Geoff to give the college some money (not a chance!) but it was really just a friendly coffee to say thank you for the books which Geoff donates to Freshers each year…something he has done for ages and really likes doing. Phew!

I did my stint for the Talking Newspaper for the Visually Impaired one Monday. Our local newspaper is not very enthralling really and trying to find “happy” news to read proves to be very difficult…especially when one of my days includes the paper covering all the houses for sale supplement! Fortunately, it’s only once a month that our group does the session.

Geoff really enjoyed being Santa at our church’s Christmas Fayre once again and was ably assisted by Hazel as his lovely little elf. The three dozen mince pies which I had made sold very quickly as did Hazel’s lovely reindeer cakes. The church has taken up a big chunk of our time as usual and we had a very good turn-out for the last café Church session where we managed to feed about 90 people with hot dogs during the relaxed service! These sessions are really winning in the way they are getting the families to come along with all the cubs, beavers, rainbows and brownies to this parade service, so we will continue with them, but they are hard work!

I had a great night accompanying Hazel and Phil to a very hard Rotary Quiz night at the Fratery in Carlisle Cathedral. It was a good night but that room is always freezing! Our team came an honourable 5^th out of 25 teams so we were pleased with that. Geoff was left in charge back home with the 2 little ones…and he coped very well 😊 That was just as well, as two days later we both were left in charge of both Layla and the baby for the whole afternoon and evening ( 2pm until 1am) whilst Hazel and Phil went to Leeds to meet up with some friends and attend a concert, which had been booked for ages…well before the baby arrived! They had a great time and so did we…until the baby decided to wake up in the evening big time! It turns out that she does not like being put down and so we spent a lot of the time walking around with her! Somehow this all seemed to be a lot easier when we were younger than it is now! Anyway, both children survived and so did we…but we were pleased to get into our own bed that night!

Both of us enjoyed attending a talk by Jenny Uglow as part of the Borderline book event, which takes place each year in Carlisle. She has written a biography of Gilbert White, a vicar who wrote a book many years ago about a year studying nature in and around his home in Selbourne, a book which Geoff has always loved. It was a very interesting talk, which we both enjoyed…and yes, we did end up buying the book! It has been confiscated for a Christmas present!  Geoff finished off the month with a trip to Sheffield (not an easy train ride from Carlisle I have to say) to go to a football match with a couple of his old school friends. He didn’t get home until after 10pm though, as the train trip home turned into a total nightmare, with cancelled trains, missed connections, packed trains and no seats, so he had to stand for the vast majority of the trip. The British rail service at its finest!  Personally, I thought he was mad for going in the first place, as it was a very wet day but the boys all seemed to enjoy it, (Preston won btw!) but given the train chaos I don’t think he will repeat that match again! I am hoping I can have a reciprocal day out with Hazel soon in recompense!

Well as another busy month comes to an end, I suppose I’d better try and stir up a bit of Christmas spirit now. Looking at the calendar for next month it looks like being lively again, as we organise carol singing sessions, church events, Santa gigs and other meet ups with family and friends. I realise that the next blog will be posted after the big event so I’ll wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas and I’ll “see” you all at the end of December.

Stay safe and happy

A bientot mes amis 😊