Minus Five

At minus 5, the frost is 4mm thick.
At minus 5, the cats stay in all day.
At minus 5, the foam scooter seat feels like a block of wood.
At minus 5, even warm bird water freezes in 10 minutes.
At minus 5, the stone we usually use to prop open the gate cannot be moved from it's frozen place.
At minus 5, the birds will risk coming closer for water that is not frozen.
Tuesday morning was centigrade minus 5.

Ok, some snow, but not no-go

Overnight flutters. Then warming by the afternoon- today reached nearly 10 Celsius.
A photo.

Del Zotto

No Snow still; which was good because the pastor and his family came to visit from some distance. There is snow all round - even at Barry and Pats place just 30 minutes away (they came too) - but not on the pastor's route. All clear.
We were a little surprised by the youngster, aged 3, but he fitted in very well, as often French children do. Did the food go down well? June was very 'English' for the occasion, but we have not a lot of feedback to judge it. However the 'vin chaud' was popular.
And an interesting evening which required English and French language skills to communicate fully.
Then the next day a covering of snow over, mainly, the road. We were out to collect our repaired car, and by the way, the last tiles for the rear patio, and logs from Domazan back to Narçay ('cause it is so cold and the fires are eating the logs real fast).
So now we hole-up for a while, but a thaw is forecast here over the weekend....

Sub Zero but no Snow

So this Monday and Tuesday I delivered 'pub' as usual. Yes it was cold but no snow/rain/sleet and not much ice either.
So where is all the snow? The forecast is snow for tomorrow, perhaps tonight?
Until then we will have to be content to see it on all the news broadcasts!

Wildlife

Now in France there is a lot more space. And the wildlife is rather different too.
The other day I was returning from Domazan to Narçay (about 4km of mostly country roads). There was a shape ahead like a large sleek dog. It looked in my direction and walked out into the road and stopped. It was a female deer, and a second, smaller one followed her.
When they had decided I was continuing towards them they ambled off into the adjacent field.Trees stopped me seeing them again until I drove by opposite where they had gone. There I saw 4 animals who skitted a little as I passed and then stood and watched me depart.
No wonder the French are keen on going out with their guns?

Loubigné Soirée

A snapshot during the meal. June centre-right.

Loubigné Choucrute soirée.
We were the only English there (as far as we could see). There were several people we knew from Loubillé. It was lovely to be welcomed in our new commune (where our cottage is).
It was village life as you may remember it many years ago in England. All the characters were there- the village drunk, the flirt, the young men and ladies in their separate groups, the mayor, the mayor (who hopes) to be, and us ordinary folk too. June and I, perhaps naughtily, had fun watching the antics; they were all in a good spirit and we saw nothing of anyone being upset.
We saw that the Loubigné drunk made the Loubillé drunk (also present) look quite sober! We also saw that the flirt was also 'well oiled' but that no-one took advantage of her. She chatted to men and women, young and old, and encouraged us all to dance; but mostly she related to the young men. At one point she was surrounded by 5 of them. Later she beckoned to a young man who followed her outside(?), and whilst she returned, hair ruffled, in due time; he was ages before returning. "What has she done with him?" we asked ourselves without expecting an answer.
The Loubingé football lads chanted their song, to be answered from the other end of the room by the Loubillé football lads. It was all very rowdy and good natured at the same time. [Note Loubigné and Loubillé are similar names but 2 different villages about 4km apart]
The young men of Loubigné served; which made us think that the meal was a fund raiser for their sports club.
The tables were stacked close and the food took its time in coming- as is usual in France. The closly packed tables meant that not only did the largish lady make an impression on our backs as she passed, but so did the "mini-jupe"¹.
When we had danced (that is apart from Terry's earlier excursion into the conga, prompted by the famed Loubigne drunk who seamed keen that I should not miss out), and had drunk our coffee, when it finally came, we left 'early'; "Caution, c'est glissant!"² we were warned and it certainly was. We found that the car was completely iced up and that the time was 10 minutes to 2am. Out so late, and at our age too!
A lovely French style evening.
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1.

Mini-jupe - French for mini-skirt, the point being that wearers of such are not usually large.

2.

Glissant - slippery under foot.

Frustrated with AngelFire!

If you know me you may have spotted that I now have several blog outlets, a sort of trial of each. The blog on AngelFire is managed by my MAC - the blog is created locally and uploaded to the site:
BUT
AngelFire have recently limited the depth of my entries to 4. So the MAC system, which uses 7, no longer works.
APOLOGIES
to anyone with an RSS feed for this blog that does not work. The RSS is at a lower level and so updated but the entry files it refers to were REJECTED by AngelFire.
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The entry was to have been quite simple:-

Clare, of course, has put all her graduation pictures on FaceBook. She did not put this one on though- probably because FaceBook will not accept gif files.

If the picture is static, click on the ‘play’ symbol and watch!

Oh, by the way:-

Congratulations Clare!