Pretty Purple Poppies

Last night I managed to get some pictures I wanted before it was too late.

These poppies are grown to provide morphine and other pain killers. They are also very beautiful, but only last a short while, the petals fall very quickly.

As we finished our walk at the end of a hot day, it started to rain. No surprise as the sky had begun to look very moody.

Then there was a rainbow – as always they look better in real life

Introducing Holly the Cat

... and that's all you get

Already a week has gone by since Dom, J-M and their cat Holly came to stay. Needless to say the weather was bad, but we still managed to enjoy ourselves. Dom brought a bottle of champagne with her. She’s had another paper accepted. She’s hoping to become Doctor before her 26th birthday in November. She’s also got a job next year at the university in Poitiers for a year. After that they will travel and work abroad.

J-M’s pupils are preparing for the baccalaureate in June so he’s almost at his first year’s end as a philosophy teacher. He doesn't know just yet where he will be sent next year – hopefully not too far from Poitiers.

Holly the cat? She’s gorgeous and very well behaved. Didn’t jump up anywhere she wasn’t supposed to. When we went into town for a look around the shops we left her with Rob. She spent quite a lot of time sat on the windowsill by my desk studying the hens in the farmyard below. Rob and I missed the patter of tiny paws on the stairs after they’d gone home.

On the Sunday morning we went to 4 Brocantes (sort of boot sales)in the villages around here. None of us found anything interesting enough to buy. Unfortunately, there are so many during the spring and early summer months now that real treasures are hard to find. Dom made Aubergine (eggplant) Korma when we arrived home for lunch. It was wonderful. There was enough for me to have the next day for lunch so I was very happy.

Just over a week ago Olivier had an interview with a bank and then dashed to the University in Rennes to attend some speed interviews with even more banks. He needs to find work for his month on month off university course. At the moment he’s waiting to hear so everything is crossed for him.

Stop Press One of the banks have contacted him today for an interview!
Stop stop Press He has a skype interview next week!

A little bit of family history.

For my last birthday my mum gave me a copy of a local history book of the village where I grew up. It was in the main fascinating and also sad when I learnt that some people I grew up with are no longer alive.

We were talking about the book when I phoned to wish mum a happy Easter and she told me the following story:

The maternal side of my family comes from Great Barr in Birmingham (UK), or thereabouts. The village I grew up in is about 40 miles away which was a long journey in the past. My parents arrived there in the mid-fifties and as far as I know settled in well considering they were outsiders. At first we lived in the village and then moved to farm cottages outside the village.

We have a tradition of finding graveyards fascinating in our family and of course mum did a tour of the church-yard to see if there were any interesting grave stones to read. She came across one that bore the name of her Grandmother’s family – Foden. Yes, this man turned out to have been a distant cousin who had also worked in the village on a farm. When my great-granny (née Foden) visited the cottage after we moved there, she remembered it. Not only had the distant cousin worked on the same farm, he had lived in the same cottage!

What are the chances of that happening?

A lot can happen in a month

Still battling away with the postcards. We’re using changing the images to review our descriptions and information which has changed a lot in the last 8 years. Every cloud has a silver lining.

In the last month I've had a new crown on a tooth which has been uncomfortable for years. I learnt that gold and metal crowns aren't supposed to go together but as I've been coping with gold and steel crowns side by side for nearly 30 years it was worth the risk of putting another steel crown in. no problems. There can be a risk of ‘electric’ shocks and discomfort as well as a metallic taste.

We voted for a new mayor. Went to the meetings and made some new friends. Our old mayor has retired – he has a farm to run.

Dom stayed for a couple of nights as she had a course to attend in La Rochelle. We hadn't seen her or J-M for quite a while. We exchanged Christmas presents on 25th March!

The Doctor that looks after the veins on my legs retired on April 1st (no joke!). I would never have believed she was old enough to retire. I saw the new Doctor a couple of days ago. She’s very nice – her technique is different so it will be interesting to see the results after a few sessions.

Our Doctor will be retiring in July, not sure that a village as small as ours will find a replacement. Again, I didn't think that he was old enough to retire…

By the end of this year Dom will be Doctor Dom!

We've had the most gorgeous weather over the past few days. Lots of daisies popping up and flowers and blossom… blue skies.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

This post will appear on more than one of my blogs.

For quite a long time now we framed the scans of our postcards sold on ebay.  It made them stand out and we thought, looked more professional.  We were told that we would have to stop doing this about a year ago; so we stopped.  Now we have to take the remaining frame from cards online.  Several thousand need to be changed before ‘the spring’.  I’m going as fast as I can (re-scanning about 30 a day) but I won’t get them all.  I know that ebay can ‘disappear’ announcements. 

There is a service provided that can make the changes for you, but we can’t afford it. 

So for a while I won’t be blogging or visiting or surfing much.

From this:

To this:

Which do you prefer?

2004 revisited

Looking back on my blog 10 years ago (I do it because I can), I came across a post referring to a blogger who had written  about a letter written by the Smithsonian institute to someone who had discovered a Barbie skull in their backyard.  

I looked the letter up again using Google and discovered that there are now a couple of footnotes to the story….  If you never got round to reading the letter it is a must!

The Bob Dylan dream

A few nights ago I dreamt about Bob Dylan.  We were both young and I had a French accent (!).  He was very thin and we were cuddling which was nice.  I was caressing his hands, they were very bony and the skin was soft and smooth.  I was feeling for the calluses on the tips of his fingers.  There weren’t any.

Yet another birthday

Olivier came home this weekend to celebrate his 23^rd birthday.  Christian was 4 years and two weeks old when Olivier was born.  Struggling every winter with two indoor boy’s birthday parties sometimes had me asking “Why me?”  Fortunately, today they are both grown up enough to sort out their own celebrations.

I can’t believe that February is on its way out already.  Like almost everywhere else we’ve had non-stop rain.  Though we did have a couple of days of sunshine, but usually with a cold wind. There are one or two violets in the garden and around the village quite a few daffodils in flower.

Just before Valentine’s Day I had my monthly Glossybox with a rather interesting make-up pencil that I never thought would have such an interesting effect.  Those who have followed my blog for a while will know that my eyebrows dropped out about 7 years ago.  I learnt how to draw them in, but they do tend to look as if they’ve been drawn with a crayon.  I had a clear wax crayon which normally you use to slick down your natural eyebrows.  I was a little disappointed that it wouldn’t be much use to me… or so I thought.  A little bit of wax picks up and emphasizes the one or two hairs that I have and makes the overall effect more natural.  So now you know.

A bit older than 6, but still a birthday

Happy Birthday to Christian who is 21 years older than this picture of him on a birthday long, long ago...

My new toy

Our beloved HP PSC 2350 died on Wednesday.  It was with us for over eight years and only started causing problems since the New year.  

I installed a brand new HP deskjet 1510 yesterday evening, all by myself, except I couldn’t work out where the downloads were disappearing to.  Rob showed me, I must look and see how many other lost downloads are lurking there since I had this computer in 2011.

The new machine scans really quickly which is just what I need for eBay.  I’ve also written to my Mum and Olivier to check how it prints and that is fine too.  I’m so glad I haven’t had to learn how to do things differently, it’s the same and in the places where it is different, it’s easier.

Image taken from the HP site