Even more snow

 Like I said in a previous post, a little more snow and it's chaos.                                                     

A couple of photos I took this morning outside our front gate after another snowfall last night.

Let me tell you what happened yesterday.

Mrs "stuff to do" went off early afternoon to do some music teaching and whilst she was out, decided to do a bit of food shopping, in the meantime however it decided to snow a bit, very wet heavy snow that didn't stop, and it had turned very dark by the time the shopping was finished.

The return journey which usually takes a quarter of an hour turned out to be a marathon one and a half hour crawl and stop.

There are some pretty steep hills around us and there are no alternatives to having to go up and down them, so having set off from the shops up one of the heavily wooded roads through the hills she encountered two large trees that had succumbed to the weight of snow and had fallen across the road blocking it completely. Luckily about two cars behind her was a man in a van, who just happened to have a wood saw and both he and his mate started sawing through this 1ft diameter trunk taking it in turns as it turned out that it wasn't a chainsaw but an ordinary wood saw. With eventually one half of the road open she turned off onto our single track road that serves the few houses scattered in the forest, fields and countryside until sliding around rather a lot the car came to a halt, wheels spinning, going nowhere. Up comes her knight in shining armour in the shape of our friend the local farmer's son on his trusty ancient tractor replete with tow rope. After arriving on our drive and unloading we both enjoyed the beef and Guinness stew with dumplings that had been simmering on the woodburner awaiting our attention.

Tree Huggers

 I WANT TO BE A TREE..............

Um.... Ok.

Sunday again

 It was last Sunday afternoon that we had our annual visit from the local "Sapeur and Pompiers". Every year they do the rounds of the village selling their calendars to raise funds for the organisation.

That's the cover obviously for this year.

Whilst you're here, let me explain what a Pompier is. 

Every town in France has what could be loosely described as a fire station that houses the pompiers vehicles and personnel, le Bugue which is our nearest town has about 30 pompier, some full time, some part time and some volunteers. I suppose first and foremost they are firemen, but they are also first responders, they have ambulances, 4x4 vehicles, cars, vans, and of course fire engines, and respond to medical emergencies as well as road traffic accidents. 

THEY ARE LIFE SAVERS.

There are some nice photos in this years calendar, a bit different than normal, so I will upload each months photo for you to have a look at.

Stay safe.

First snow of the year

 Late yesterday evening it started snowing and whilst I was busy making our evening meal there was just enough light left outside for Mrs "stuff to do" to pop out and take a few photos on her, go anywhere, do everything with a few bells and whistles, mobile phone. The results of which are here

Don't ask me why, but Blogger doesn't want to let me put two pictures side by side so we will have to put up with what we have got. (a bit of a pig's ear)

You may or may not be thinking to yourself that it doesn't snow in south west France and generally you would be correct, HOWEVER, it does get cold in winter. We've been here now for over 20 years and we do get snow, not very often, but it is havoc when it happens as we don't seem to have any gritters or snowploughs and everything comes to a slippery grinding halt. The hill in front of our house is steep and bendy and can be impossible for some cars even in the summer.

Temperatures have been down to minus 20degC with our water pipes frozen for days on end, but as an avid gardener that's good as it kills off all the little buggers lurking in the soil. Seasonality is something I embrace whole heartily and I do intend to make it a topic in another post soon. (I bet you can't wait, can you?)

Look after yourselves till next time.

   

More Christmas books

 Seems like I always get a lot of books for Christmas, I'm not complaining, I really do like books, it seems the more I get the happier I become.

These are two that I received this Christmas, the sort of books that you don't have to read cover to cover straight away, but you can delve into when the fancy takes. I keep them handy by the side of my armchair, unlike the book on my bedside table which I turn to every night to read albeit slowly.

I always have a book on the go and it's usually fiction at bedtime and non fiction during the day (creature of habit one might say) I take ages so Mrs stuff to do says, for me to read a book and she is always right of course, it's because what for me makes a book interesting to read is not only the story but just as importantly the manor in which the words are put on the paper, or in the case of my bedtime book, the Kindle, that Mrs stuff to do donated to me a few years ago.

Both the above books are short and divided into bite size chapters, even if you don't fancy the subjects or the authors, they are both mildly amusing and on a cold wet day like today, worth picking up and wasting an hour or two reading.

A big thankyou to those who donated these books to my library.

Just a little thought

 What is it about cloud cuckoo land that makes me want to go and live there.

If you have ever found yourself feeling like that, then get yourself off to the vets.

Physalis

 Went for a little wander around the garden and found this. 

During the afternoon my son's friend arrived in her absolutely awful RED car, but I thought that I could take advantage of the moment and borrowed her to hold the physalis (cape gooseberry) next to the bonnet of the aforementioned RED thing so that I could take a photo.

I put the image into Paint.Net to tone down the RED then put a slight vignette on it, and came up with that, which for 5 minutes work I am quiet happy with.

More about Paint.Net in a later blog post I am sure.

The ring jet wash

 Bathrooms are the "bain" of my life. (a little play on English-French grammar there). Did you notice ?

That my friends is a cludgie. Built of stone, nestling in the undergrowth, cold and damp with spiders the size of your hand waiting for the unsuspecting to drop their trousers or hoick up their skirts to squat on the wooden plank and breath a sigh of relief, before the hairy monsters climb up from the deep and bite the unsuspecting squatter on their hairy arse. In other words, it's our outside loo it came free with the house which was comforting.

It's over 20 years ago now since we moved into only half of our house (the other half was a barn) actually not much worse than the half we moved into, it had three large rooms, one downstairs and two upstairs. As I would describe the whole building as indescribable I won't bother, needless to say it's on multiple levels, lots of passageways and it has a vaulted cave under it (which I had originally thought of putting my model railway in) got to get your priorities right!

But I digress, there were other priorities especially for Mrs "stuff to do" she was rather pregnant and needed a bathroom of course. We did actually have one and it was to be found if you exited the front door turned left and half way down the side of the house was the door to  what was described as the "salle de bain". It was built into an extension which ran the length of the building (16 mtrs.) which was of course in typical french fashion totally inaccessible from inside the house. The walls were concrete blocks, painted a delicate shade of bright blue gloss, and the floor, some sort of tiles. No heating, kind of a shower with a hole in the floor and a "broyeur" toilet technically known as a "turd whirdler" which I admit did struggle to cope sometimes, I digress yet again.

Since then I have put a shower, toilet and sink in a couple of bedrooms and after a visit to the UK recently Mrs "stuff to do" came back with one of these......

It's a ring jet washer. Apparently it is attached under the toilet seat, coupled up to the cold water supply and when you press the button 4 bar pressure of freezing cold water shoots up your jacksy.

Well everyone to their own luv, whatever floats your boat. I suppose I'd better try and fit the thing, I'm certainly not going to be the silly arse that tests it out.

A big furry pussy

 

This is Fat Bastard, he's our outside cat, been with us now for a good many years, since he was a kitten. He is quiet timid, lets me stroke him, but rejects everybody else. Every morning he arrives outside the kitchen door asks for food, flashing his plaintive eyes, always gets it and always demolishes it in one sitting, same at lunch and teatime, no wonder he is the size of small dog. I reckon he eats about as much as our two indoor cats put together.

It's difficult to say if this photo is of him, but he is certainly one of the three siblings noshing outside the kitchen door when the were just kittens. When they were young, we reckoned that they lived on our extension roof under the overhanging tiles of our main house, probably a little too lethargic to get up there now, but he manages to keep dry and warm somewhere.

Our indoor cats seem to be quiet happy today sleeping in the front room, out of the wet and cold.

On the left is the daughter.

And on the right is mum cat. 

It's a pleasant change from them

both sleeping on my model railway.

Got up this morning

 The view one step outside our living room door this morning.

One of the things I like about doing this blog is that it encourages me to take more photos.

New Year revolutions

 Or, to put it another way, going round in circles.

I sort of do and I sort of don't do these New Year resolution things, meaning I sort of do make them, but sort of don't keep them. But I thought I would make a list none the less.

No: 1  Try and keep my resolutions.

No: 2  Go for a walk more often. (Tick, had one this morning)

No: 3  Keep up this blog and my youtubey channel.

No: 4  Finish my model railway. (they do say that a model railway is never finished, so I'm in good company there)

No: 5  Take some nice photos for my blog.

So, here is a photo of my unfinished model railway.

No: 6  Finish off the bathroom. (keep Mrs "stuff to do" happy)

No: 7  Finish building all the model boats and planes and other STUFF I have started. (that will keep me happy)

To be honest, I think I might stop there, it's beginning to worry me a bit.

I've got stacks of other stuff to try and keep on top of as well of course, the things I always put off until tomorrow. If you can be bothered to read about them, then I'll be writing about them, some mundane ,some interesting and some downright odd, so until then, bye.

bear with, bear with.

Mrs "stuff to do" has gone out this afternoon with our Ukrainian friends to help with a bit of translation whilst they haggle over the purchase of a new car, soooooooooo I thought I'd have another go at mastering the art of this blogging lark. It's not the easiest thing to do (for me that is) MY BRAIN HURTS. Why is it so many other blogs look so good, and I end up making one that looks like an explosion in a mattress factory. Bear with me, I'm sure to get there in the end.

It's not that I don't like or don't understand technology, it's more like I keep forgetting how it works, every time I used to use Photoshop for my photo editing I'd spend two hours re-learning the procedure, needless to say I now use Paint.net, does what I want it to do with far less hassle.

Now, if I can remember correctly I did say I would show you what I got for Christmas. After having put a few things on the dinning room table and after having nearly fallen off a chair trying to take the photo, I came up with this.

I also got the slippers of course and a couple of nice jigsaws, should keep me going for a while.

I am an avid collector of books, hence the old model railway manual (from my daughter) and the perpetual calendar from my other daughter. I've made one of these kits before, it was a clock, and I must say it was brilliant to build and it worked well after I had finished it, highly recommended. The latest copy of the Railway Modeller was from Mrs "stuff to do" after a recent visit to the UK. I do subscribe to a model magazine online but nothing quite like holding a paper copy in your hand is there?

Whilst I remember, I have put a couple of links to other blog sites somewhere on this page (I hope) so if you happen to be a model nut check them out, even if you're not, Chris Nevard's blog has a certain sense of humour you might enjoy.

We must not forget of course Mrs "stuff to do" and what she received for Christmas.

 Usually it's Lego but this year it's obviously not. She said she loves it and it is about three quarters finished. !!!!!!!!!!

Green tomato chutney.

 I admit, I do grow rather too many tomatoes, and last year was no exception. I had about 18 plants of 3 different varieties (6 of each),taking over the poly-tunnel. What I didn't have was my favourite variety "Gardeners Delight", just couldn't get hold of any seeds here in France, next year (which of course is this year now) I should be ok. as Mrs "stuff to do" brought some back with her from her last UK. trip. Take my word for it, they are the best tasting heritage tomato around.

After freezing some, bottling some, giving loads away, I was still left as usual with lots of green ones which I managed to pick before the first frost, which was early this year.

So, chutney it was. I usually make Hugh Fernley Whitinstall's Gluttney but still having some of that left from last year I decided on something different, something more simple, so I gather together the following ingredients.

1kg green tomatoes

1kg onions

a few cloves of garlic

about 1tsp each of cayenne, salt and pepper.

500grm brown sugar

1ltr cider vinegar

chopped everything up into pretty small chunks and brought it up to the boil. Luckily I had lit the wood burner fire so I transferred everything over and sat the pot on top just to keep it at a slow simmer, it probably took about 3 hours to look like chutney should look (brown and most of the liquid gone). Just keep an eye on it and give it a stir every now and again. I then put it into jars, printed off some free labels from the internet (couldn't find the exact ones, but I know what it is!!) and put them in the cellar until next year perhaps when I find them again.

Made about 5 and a bit jars. Already given one to a friend and the "bit" is in the fridge being slowly noshed with some lovely French cheese. All I have to do now is think of something to do with the remaining 2kg.

ENJOY.

Stuff I might do today

 I was thinking that I might make a "Toad in the hole" for dinner tonight, some mashed potato, onion gravy and garden peas, why not? Toulouse sausage because that's the region we live in, and onion gravy because I like it.

 I have already lit the living room fire and done the washing up whilst "Mrs stuff to do" is out giving music lessons to some nearby french families. Here in our little rather rural bit of France we do actually have electricity, water and the internet (for most of the time) but we don't have gas, unless it's bottled and it was only two years ago that we had mains drainage, so every morning in winter the fires have to be lit in the house, and I have to admit that despite the work involved in cutting and stacking the wood watching the flames dancing and flickering inside the wood burner is very therapeutic and comforting.

I don't do well with deadlines, I was hoping to start this blog thing before, not after Christmas, it's not my first blog but I had completely forgotten how to start a new one, Christmas and New Year just passed in a haze of wood smoke and brussel sprouts. The one thing I must learn in this new blog (according to Mrs stuff to do) is to keep each post shorter than I used to do, so here is a photo of my new Christmas slippers which someone thought I needed and I'll tell you what else I got in a while.

Couldn't actually see what was wrong with the old ones.