Spring is on it's way in Brittany

 Thursday 09/02/22

In spite of the dramatic sky, we've not had much rain recently

Having spent the first couple of week in Brittany watching the rain falling non-stop, we've recently had a good run of drier weather, albeit much cooler at times.  

This has given a much needed crack at getting the garden ready for spring and we've settled into a nice routine.

The panoramic pic distorts the foreground before but we love this view from the bedroom!

Jess has slowed down a lot but still loves a bit of sunshine.

The setting moon doing a Christmas tree impersonation.

Spring is on it's way.

We spend most of the mornings indoors - doing a few chores, trying to improve our French (c'est dificile; très, très, dificile!), Toni does the day's cooking while I usually head out for a pre-lunch chore session outdoors.  After lunch, weather permitting, we head into the garden until we are either bushed or it gets to supper time after which we watch a little television and read until bedtime. 

I caught a few newts while clearing algae from the pond.

And a huge swimming beetle.

Toni keeps the feeders topped up and the bids love it.

They do need to keep an eye on these characters, though...
So do we as they have a bit of a reputation, French hunters.

We try to plan our work with the weather and also have the odd day away: we have been to Questembert for shopping, walked to nearby La Guerno for fresh bread from the boulangerie,  and tomorrow plan on cycling to Noyal Muzillac for coffee.  

We've settled into a nice, gentle rhythm at LBC.  We are enjoying watching the bird and animal life around the area - nature seems to be gearing up for spring, which is not too far away!

We've also been invited to our French medical examinations, part of the 1-year visa process, so we'll have to go to Rennes in March; all the more reason to improve our French!

Bonus pic: 

Learning to use the supermarket bread slicer - we had a 50% chance
of getting it the right way around.  😀

Back in Brrrrittany!

 Friday 20/01/23

Icy pond

It's hard to believe we've been back at the Brittany house for two and half weeks; time has flown by in spite of most outdoor activities being hindered by the weather.  

The incessant rain has finally stopped but it has now been replaced by very cold conditions so, while outside gardening isn't out of the question, it is best done in short spells - for our fingers' and toes' sake!

Having said that, we're thrilled to be back at base, reunited with Jess and Jasper and looking forward to the next three months here.

Some videos:-

We've noticed that often, when the wind blows very strongly, flocks of seagulls take to the skies and swirl around in the eddies as though they are enjoying a giant roller-coaster.  We're not sure why they do it but they seem to be having fun!

I had some trouble getting water to flow from a watering can that had been standing outside and when I blew out the blockage, it turned out to be a mass of rat-tailed maggots, the larvae of hover flies.  Gross-looking but very beneficial to the garden.

RIP Shadow.  Charmaine's beloved cat passed away very unexpectedly and is already missed hugely by all of us.  He was a character and shared our lives for almost 10 years!

Hornfleur - at last!

 Tuesday 03/01/23

One of our favourite aires, overlooking the Seine

We had four days of seemingly endless rain at our campsite on the hill but the upside was a quiet, firework-free New Year's Eve!  Perfect!

As is our tradition, we set off early on New Year's Day, travelling down to Canterbury on the quietest morning traffic you could imagine around the M25.  

Canterbury has a nice paid motorhome aire (a rarity in the UK) which is cheaper than the campsite we usually use for our crossings.  It is an easy walk (there is a free bus available as well) into Canterbury and, as an added bonus, is only half an hour or so to the ferry port or Eurotunnel station.

The White Horse of Folkestone, one of the more modern white horses

On Monday, we made our way to the station and were lucky enough to get an earlier crossing and, even though it was delayed, we still got to France earlier than expected.  It was clear when we set off that there had just been a major downpour although the sun was out.  We spent the afternoon either driving though rain showers or squinting into the sun, which is very low in winter and seems to shine much brighter in France.

We stopped at an aire in Yvetot but found it a little noisy as it was in the middle of a bustling town, so decided to press on to an old favourite of ours, a secluded aire on the banks of the Seine.  There was only one other motorhome and we sat in awe of the pretty view of Caudebec-en-Caux on the opposite bank.  We had a peaceful night in spite of the heavy rumbling of the occasional freighter heading up-river.

'Pretty France' indeed

Hornfleur, artist's delight

This morning we popped into a Lidl for some grocery shopping and stopped off in Hornfleur, a lovely village on the south bank of the Seine estuary.  We've wanted to visit here for ages but always seem to be in a hurry to catch a ferry, so it's nice to stop off at last.

Motorhomes along the quayside with the magnificent Pont de Normandie in the background

We can't believe that, even in the middle of winter, there must be over 100 motorhomes parked here.  It is a lovely place, full of character.

If you think your house is looking a bit weathered, 
take a look at this one.

We are absolutely loving being back in France!  Tomorrow we head down to Noyal-Muzillac to start our three month sit, and are looking forward to seeing the owners and Jess & Jasper again.

Bonus video:  Watching the huge ships pass up the narrow river was amazing; we would hear the rumbles coming from some distance away and watch them  through the window.

Confused at Hill Farm

 Thursday 29/12/22

Even though the snow and extreme cold has passed, there is still ice about.
These are the swirling patterns on a cover outside.

As 2022 comes to an end, we have completed our final house sit for the year and returned to our campsite at Hill Farm.  

When we arrived, the wind was howling from the South and is expected to blow until we leave so we decided to reverse into our parking spot.  We usually park facing the field for the view but prefer to take strong winds from the front of Bokkie as the vents then face out of the wind and the bicycles and bike cover are protected by Bokkie.

However, this caused an unexpected problem - confusion!  We have stayed here quite a few times recently and, for some reason, it felt completely wrong to be pointing the wrong way.  We thought it would improve when darkness fell and we lost our outside references but once Bokkie was all closed up we could hear the occasional car coming past on the road.  The only problem was, they kept going past on the 'wrong' side and sounded to us as though they we going straight through the campsite.

Aren't our brains funny things?

We had deliberately planned to fill 2022 with house sits for various reasons, and ended up doing just that.  We completed 11 sits, sitting 294 days in total and looked after 18 dogs, 5 horses, 4 cats, 7 birds and 10 other little furry creatures.

Although we both love dogs, looking after other people's dogs can be quite difficult and we are definitely ready to go dog-free (and dog-hair free!) for a while and are looking forward to our familiar Brittany with the cats, Jess and Jasper, starting in about a  a week.

Possibly the cutest - definitely the noisiest birds we looked after.

It was a pleasure looking after these two over Christmas.

The rough plan for 2023, with our shiny new French visas, is to spend three months in Brittany,  then a short trip to South Africa and finally to travel in Europe until October-ish when we will head back to Brittany if all goes according to plan.

We are now staying at this campsite until New Year's Day and will then travel down to Canterbury for a night before taking the Eurotunnel across to France on the 2nd.

We hope you all have a sensible New Year's eve and a fantastic New Year ahead!

Bonus pic:  We have spent so much time at the Brittany sit, that Google satellite has captured Bokkie parked on the property so we are now a permanent fixture there!

You can get an idea of the size of the garden / property.

Snowy Little Chalfont

 Tuesday 13/12/22

We woke early yesterday morning to sound of snow falling on Bokkie's roof, hoping that it would just be a light dusting as we needed to move on to our next sit.  

When it got light, we could see there was a dense covering of around 3cm of snow - I felt it shouldn't present too much of a problem.

We woke up to a rather white scene!

We had to get our of our parking spot and drive a short way up a hill to get to the main farm driveway, from there it was another short, downhill drive to the tar road which would hopefully be clear by the time we needed to move.  Our neighbour also usually left in the mornings so we could check to make sure he got out okay.

The frost has now been covered by snow

Well, sure enough, he packed up mid-morning, reversed out of his spot, pointed his nose up the hill, gunned the engine...  and slid backwards down the hill.  He swung back into his parking spot and tried to reverse up the hill, with the same result.  Except this time it was even worse and he was getting rather close to Bokkie's backside.  Eventually he realised it wasn't going to work and he got the aged farmer to pull him out with his 4x4, in itself a scary manoeuvre, which we watched in trepidation.

I was determined to spare Bokkie the indignity of being towed out, so we waited until a bit later (and there were no witnesses) before trying it ourselves.  By then all the tracks from the other attempt had frozen making it even more treacherous.  Toni chipped away at the worst bits with our tiny recovery spade (slipping and falling on the ice while as well), and soon it was time to test Bokkie.

I reversed out and she spun a little so Toni chipped some more ice in front of the wheels, I put Bokkie in second gear and she chugged cheerfully up the hill at an idle.  What a superstar!

The snow has turned the garden into a winter wonderland

Tiggy, Bramble, Orio, Sprite and Blue

We took a slow drive to Amersham to do some shopping before heading to the final sit for the year.  It is a lovely warm house with an elderly Jack Russell / Norfolk Terrier cross, a Golden Lab and three (noisy) budgies to look after.  

The owners kindly put up a Christmas tree for us as well, and they have now headed to sunny Antigua with their kids.

The snow looks like custom cushions on the patio furniture

We're staying for two weeks so will enjoy Christmas here with Charmaine, and then head off again on the 28'th.  Hopefully there is a slight thawing of the weather after this icy blast! 

Frosty walk to Tring

 Sunday 11/12/22

The cold snap continues here on the hill and the weather alternates between crisp, clear skies and a freezing fog.  Frost has been a permanent fixture since we arrived with temperatures rarely getting into positive territory.

A frosty, misty start to the day.

We've managed a nice long walk every day and decided to try to get to Tring.  Although it is a 6km drive away, it looked like the footpath network would get us there in only 3.5km so we set off.

The frost is absolutely amazing here!

Crispy leaf litter, Mother nature's art

The sun put up a valiant fight against the mist but ultimately lost.

It was a lovely walk with amazing views on the way there, although the walk back was much more misty.

Tring church

By the time we headed back the mist had really set in for the rest of the day.

Bokkie is doing an amazing job of keeping us and our water system nice and toasty and the dry weather means we have managed to get out enough to keep cabin fever at bay.  And before you think we're 'roughing it', there is a gentleman staying here in a tent until Christmas eve...  Then he moves to Snowdonia - he must be made of tough stuff!

Freezing at Hill Farm campsite

 Friday 09/12/22

We handed back the Stoke-house and animals to the owners and have headed for the hills - back to a now-familiar campsite near Wendover Woods.  The UK is experiencing a bitter cold-snap at the moment with temperatures plummeting to 6 below at night and by Sunday it will only get up to zero during the day.

Wendover Woods looked magical in the morning light

Not ideal conditions for camping but luckily Bokkie is very capable of keeping us toasty warm while we are inside.  Of course, going for walks in the icy conditions means taking extra precautions like making sure you take all the right gear, but we're enjoying it and had a lovely walk into Wendover today (8km round-trip).

Heavy frost

The condensate from the boiler freezes as it drips down on Bokkie's wheel arch

Bokkie had a few neighbours overnight but they have all left now.

Most of the campsite's water supply has frozen but luckily we have everything we need on board so should be fine.

We are here until Monday and we then tackle our final house-sit for 2022; two dogs and three budgies in Little Chalfont over Christmas.

Bonus pic: this house in Stoke Poges take the prize for best Christmas decorations we've seen to date, an entire elf village complete with railway.

Not happy with a just few fairy-lights, this owner has gone all-out!