The dappled light through the poplar trees plays on the rippling water, as the bright turquoise flash of a kingfisher startles a heron who lifts himself gracefully into the air and glides off along the river with long beats of his elegant wings... Yes, it is that peaceful most of the time but sometimes being … Continue reading Oh, the romance of an old water mill – not!
Google is your friend During the confinement, at the start of my search (and not really knowing what I was looking for!), I got a bit bored and started googling the name of the mill/ the river we’re on/ the name of the village in various permutations. Once I had got through several pages of … Continue reading Tracing the history of our French home – Part 5
Local historians, past and present You’ll have seen from my last post, Thank you Abbé Toublet, that one particular local historian has helped me to trace our mill back a thousand years. Yes, you read that right – A THOUSAND YEARS! Read about it here There’s no doubt about it. Local historians, past and present, … Continue reading Tracing the History of our French home – Part 4
Although sitting doing nothing isn't normally in my nature ( I drive Colin mad by endlessly compiling and working my way through self-inflicted lists of 'things-I-just-have-to-do') I did spend some time this Christmas just kicking back, reading books, catching up on interesting websites I'd bookmarked about the local area and I fell to pondering. This … Continue reading Part of history
At 3 am on Thursday morning the alarm on my phone roused us to start ‘Operation Kitchen Collection.’ I’m really not bad at getting up early in the morning (just don’t ask me to stay awake after 9:30 pm!), which is just as well as we were booked on the 8:15am ferry from Caen to … Continue reading Operation Kitchen Collection – and it’s ‘Go’!
Now, those of you who live in France will know that the French protect their work-life balance quite jealously. Thus, if an organisation or business is open on a Saturday, not only will it almost definitely be shut on Sunday, but quite likely at least part of Monday will be taken as compensatory leisure time … Continue reading Operation Kitchen Collection 3 days away…and no van!
The time has come. We’re ready to tackle installing a new kitchen at the mill. We’ve found the kitchen we want, designed it all and ordered what we need. That took quite a while in itself, but that was the easy (and fun) bit. Having looked at furniture and appliances in France, investigated the choice … Continue reading Take delivery of the new kitchen – sounds simple but…
For some people it’s crosswords, for others it’s Sudoku. Apparently problem solving keeps the old grey matter in tip top condition and keeps you young. I can always do with some of that, but our latest brain-teaser was a bit more involved. One large tree trunk + unusually low river levels = severely damaged water … Continue reading If at first…
