England

I'm visiting England for four days as the flights with Ryan air were 24€ return and I though it would be nice to spend a couple of days with my mother. The flight over here was really fine. I got to Poitiers in plenty of time and had a really good book (Patrick Graves) which Pippa sent me. What an eye opener! It was heaven to be in plenty of time and not get stressed about missing the flight. I'm going to try and get to Stansted  in plenty of time on Sunday so that I have the same ease going through to get the plane.

It's been fab to spend some time with Tana - poor thing, she's in so much pain. I really hope I die before I get to the sort of stage that she's at. She really doesn't want people to come and visit her

Jill and David's party on Easter Sunday

Well, I had to start a new post because I can't work out how to carry on on the old one. Anyway, as I was saying, some lovely people there : Rob and Karly who bought the Byron's house in Moussac, some friends of theirs called Carl and Clare who had two little children, Helen, who I adore, Hedley and Liz, who had just broken her arm the day before , so we were sling-twins! Nigel and Pauline, who I don't really know but apparently I had shown them some houses before they bought out here a couple of years ago. Karly was singing French nursery rhymes with Harriet and Freddy and they haven't stopped singing them since: bonjour Monsieur, bonjour Madame, bonjour Mademoiselle, je me presente, je suis Hélène Dupuis! A really lovely gay couple  called Nick (who Toby was convinced was not English) and his French boyfriend. I felt as though I had met them before but as it was all rather drunken I can't remember! Jill showed me their bedroom which is finished and looks amazing. Anyway, it was all good fun.

Gardening

We had a few cold nights in the last week so I had to put all my plants in the shed overnight. I'm really pleased with the progress of my butternut squash and lots of melons although I only have one honeydew and I'm not sure how successful that one is going to be. Plenty of cantaloupe and charentais and water melons though. Only one courgette plant so far, but a maybe that's good enough. Toby is growing tomatoes from slices of tomatoes on the landing windowsill. We're going to plant them out along the wall of the outbuilding with the south facing wall beside the swimming pool. It's all rather exciting but we do need to fence the chickens in before the tomatoes ripen, otherwise they eat them all. I have planted some pepper seeds indoors, really nice small red and orange peppers but they are not sprouting yet. I hope they will - I guess we should wait till after the Saint Glaces which I think is 15th May before planing anything out, but I think I might risk it and put the melons in the ground before I go to England on 10th.

I just read Still Alice, a brilliant book by Lisa Genova about a woman who gets early onset Alzheimer's disease which was terrifying and really sad. I think I'm pretty philosophical about death in general, but what is scary about Alzheimer's is the way it changes your character and you just can't make your brain work. I would rather die younger than stay alive not recognising all my loved ones and just being a pain to them. Thinking about my father, I wonder if he would have found it easier if he had known about Alzheimer's and could have recognised the symptoms he had as being a part of the disease. I think he still knew who we all were more or less when he died, although I remember Tana being very put out by the fact that he thought she was his mother sometimes! Casey said that his mother didn't know who any of them were, some time before she died. That's really sad. I think Julian doesn't recognise his children any more either. Makes it so hard to still love them. I really went off my father quite a lot towards the end of his life, and he still knew who I was, but he just became more bigoted than ever. It is such an effort to try and understand. I'm also reading Submission, a book that Alex sent me about the Muslims taking over French politics in 2022. I'm going to try and finish it today as today is the first round of the French elections and I have got to supervise the voting this evening - part of my role as conseilleur elu! I really hope Marine Le Pen doesn't get in as this could make our lives much more complicated after Brexit. It doesn't look likely but who knows? After the Brexit vote and then Trump anything is possible and these mad votes have taught us to expect the unexpected.

We went to a brilliant party at Gill and David's on Easter Sunday. Really fun and some lovely people there

Too much work

Well, it's been absolutely manic lately. Really busy with work and doing viewings twice a day at Lisa and Malcolm's house in St Martin L'Ars. I had Carl Jenkins and his wife on Wednesday afternoon who are coming back tomorrow for a second viewing. I hope to god they buy it because I am really fed up with it.. We are having to lock the gate and the key I have doesn't work from the outside so someone has to climb over and unlock it from the other side! It's a bloody nightmare. Especially for me with my arm in a sling. Toby has said he'll take me there this morning and we'll try and work out how to open it from the outside so that I don't have to ask the clients to climb over the gate. On Wednesday morning I had a wonderful couple who wanted to buy the house at Queaux that Debra and Les have just sold. They looked at the house at St Martin L'Ars and were making really positive noises, talking about adding windows and taking off the render - two jobs that would make a huge difference to the prettiness of the house, but they texted me the next day saying that they had decided to buy a tiny little house in the Dordogne from James Scott.  Meanwhile, Kate Ryle from Beaux Villages is doing lots of viewings there too so it is just a race. I think perhaps I should stop doing viewings for a while as I'm not positive enough at the moment.

In other news, Theresa May has called a snap election on 8th June. She thinks she is strong enough to win by a landslide, and listening to Any Questions yesterday, I suppose this could be the truth. I was hoping that the Lib Dems would come out all guns blazing and have a manifesto based on putting a stop to this whole Brexit nonsense, and winning! But I think that's wishful thinking and it doesn't look as if they've got the balls , and perhaps now that article 50 has been triggered, everyone is resigned to Brexit and the people wouldn't vote against it anyway. So we need to get on with getting French citizenship. I need to find my parents' birth, marriage and death certificates when I go back to UK to see my lovely mother in the middle of May. Also, something rather exciting about that trip is that I have arranged to have dinner with Dave and Fiona and Alfie on the Saturday night. I haven't seen Dave for about 13 years so that really is exciting. I do need to lose some weight though before then as I can't get into any of my clothes . OMG, it is so awful. I hate being this fat. I must get on to a more positive plain and I think this is one aspect that is really important.

Harriet and Freddy are on holiday at the moment. Freddy went to stay with Gus for a few days and they ate nothing but takeaways! Oh, la honte! Harriet was really pleased when Freddy got home, although she and Toby have both had a headache for the last few days - maybe it's a bug.

Wonderful family

It's been a lovely weekend. Beautiful weather and I got sunburnt today, it only 9th April (Tilly's birthday) I potted up 5 butternut squash, 6 watermelon plants, and I think 12 cantaloupe melons. I've left them all outside so I hope it's not too cold over night. That's fine -I've just checked the weather and it says a low of 9 degrees tonight.

Fenella and Ben came back and Gus came just for the night and we had a lovely dinner last night. I made chicken with apple and chestnuts again as I had half a jar of chestnuts that needed finishing up. I also made my chocolate tart again which was yum and we had a really good laugh. I love it when they all come home. Harriet was not here sadly as she had gone to Paris with Matt to see an All Time Low concert. Ive been trying to remember what the jokes were as we really laughed and laughed - especially me and Fenella.

I weighed myself this morning: 76.7 kg! OMG! It really is time to do something about this. And my legs don't work either- I really struggle to stand up from a crouching position and obviously my arms don't work. Oh, I did make a poultice out of comfrey today and put it on my arm for about four hours and it feels better so I think I'll try and do that more often. I saw loads of YouTube videos about comfrey and I put it all around the feet of the fruit trees and in the compost. Then I moved on to watching loads of YouTube videos about permaculture, some of which were quite interesting.

Gutted

Today was the day of my X-ray. I woke up excited as I have been looking forward to the result of my X-ray for ages. Toby and I drove off to the hospital and everything went as normal. Booked in; sauntered off to corridor 4, waiting room 1, or whatever. The radiologist was a little boy who looked like Nicholas Lyndhurst as Rodney in the very early days of Only Fools and Horses. He tried to speak English which was sweet but as my French was better then his English we ended up speaking French. Anyway, he didn't seem to know what he was doing on the X-ray machine but after 3 or 4 tries seemed to think he had a good enough picture.  So off I went to see Rolland. The X-ray pictures weren't very good but anyway, you can see the bone graft linking up the two bits of bone so I was happy enough. Then, in time, in came Rolland and someone else, a nurse perhaps. They confirmed that the Graft they had put in was in the right place and then told me that I have to keep wearing the sling until the bone is fully grown as  last time the plaque got broken and they are blaming me for taking off the sling too early. So now I have to wear the sling day and night, I'm allowed to take it off to relieve the ache or stiffness but only if I am resting. Not to pull my pants up or do anything. I've got to be really careful not to break the plaque so I'm not allowed to swim, drive, or do anything that might risk the breakîng of the plaque by imprudence ( or impatience!) He said it is a bigger plaque than last time covering half my humerus but I must be very careful not to lift anything heavy or do anything basically.  I'm allowed to  go for walks as long as I promise not to fall over!

So I'm feeling very disappointed as I really thought I was going to be back to normal life today and the way they said "it's much to early for that" I think I'll be strapped up in the bloody sling as an invalid for another three months at least. Ehue! So I really need to see the positives - I'll try and rest a lot more and enjoy the summer. Spend time in the garden (although what I can actually do with one arm is quite limited ) and design the garden for the future. On a brighter note the seeds are really sprouting now and we are going to have a fantastic number of melons this summer. I think I've got 5 butternut squash, about 5 or 6 watermelons, a few cantaloupe and a few charentais but the honeydew are the only ones that haven't started sprouting yet. I bought some courgette seeds but I haven't planted them just yet. That's a job for tomorrow.

Today started off really well as before I even got out of bed Toby gave me a massage with coconut oil which was sheer bliss! Chris and Paul who are buying the house at Fougeret wanted to go over there and take some more measurements etc so they came to pick me up. I'm still not driving, which is awful.  The garden was lovely and we walked around identifying trees but the grass was very wet and soaked my shoes and my feet have been cold all day. Alexis is panicking about the longhorn beetles (capricorns in French) but I haven't rung her back yet.

The pudding I made last night was a chocolate custard tart on a base of crushed praline and cornflakes - an experiment for me as I just though it would be yummy. It was okay last night - still runny as it was just out of the oven but today it was amazing, so now I know that I need to make it in advance and let it cool completely and then chill it in the fridge. Also, I think it would be better in a wide shallow spring-form tin as I did it in a small one and it was too deep. The base was a bit crumbly but I think some melted butter and golden syrup would hold it together better .

The plants are great! There are about 5 butternut squash and a couple of melons. No charentais melons showing their heads yet. I bought some courage tote seeds yesterday to I'm looking forward to planting those too. And I need to finish weeding the herb garden and plant a load of coriander and rocket. Everything takes time. Tomorrow I have my X-ray in Poitiers so I really hope my arm is knitting this time. I really need to get fit and skinny as I'm feeling old, old old and really fat. Still, I will. Probably this time in three months I'll be closer to where I'd like to be.

I've booked flights to England to visit my darling Mummy on 10th May which is rather exciting.

Dinner..

The hens are laying like mad! I picked up about 17 eggs this morning and a short time later I went into the hen house and there were four hens all laying in the nesting boxes and several others queuing up!  Billie and Cliff came for supper and we sent them away with a whole tray!

We had a really lovely supper with Billie and Cliff. I did duck patė on English toast, chicken breast with chestnuts and apple and chocolate tart with a praline and cornflake base. I should have made the tart earlier as it was still warm and would have been better if it was cold. Oh well! It was a lovely evening - Billie and Cliff are very easy and nice. Poor Billie is knackered - she's had a really stressful time doing the accounts and with being overdrawn and problems with their internet and carte blue machine and she fell asleep at the table. Very flattering that she felt relaxed enough to sleep like that.

My plants are doing well - It's a week ago tomorrow that I planted them and there are 6 butternut squash showing their heads already and a couple of water melon. None of the other melons are really coming up yet, but nevertheless it is very exciting.

Coach lunch

Toby took me and Ali to lunch today after our coach meeting which was lovely. We popped in to see Nick Perry on the way home. Then we went to take photos of Chez Renard in the sun. After we got home Tobes opened the pool for the first time and cleaned it and I sat in the sun and read my book. Real heaven. I made pasties for supper and watched telly all evening when I meant to write my description. There's a new series of The Good Wife called the Good Fight. It's brilliant we both loved it.

Sowing

Today was another lovely day. We took the rubbish to the tip and bought two bins of compost so this afternoon I sowed 86 melon seeds of different varieties: I think it was 48 charentais, water melons, honey dew I think and one other type. also eight butternut squash plants. I hope they work. I really can't wait to do some more gardening - I really love it.

Estate agent day

I had a lovely day today. Mme Remblier picked me up and we chatted about the world, the people on the dole and the French workers who are more interested in their pay, holidays and knocking off work at 5.30 than in doing a good job. Then she told me about her childhood in Les Petits Plats -she was the youngest of 11 children and has blissful memories of her childhood - putting on plays in full costume no less on the high ground behind the two lime trees. She said she saw that the hook for hanging the wire that held the curtain is still there, and the whole village came to watch! And there was an old man who had a hangar full of toys, enough for all the children: bicycles, scooters, go-carts, see saws, swings and roundabouts, all of which he had made himself. There was enough for all the children in the hamlet. Then as we got closer she started pointing out "this is the way we used to go the long way round to collect chestnuts and arrive at school with our pockets bulging!" Then she rather wistfully said what a shame it is that children today don't have such opportunities. I spent the rest of the morning with Dawn and Joe Rogers, who have lived in arid Spain for the last 11 years and in their early 60s feel that they have one more adventure left in them. They loved the countryside and the lush greenery and were really sweet. she'd like to have a horse so they need a bit of land. they liked Les Petits Plats but would prefer a house that was detached, and they also liked Viviers but the field was a bit too far away and they were worried about the cost of clearing it and fencing the whole thing. Then they brought me home and Richard was here- he is Alan's brother-in-law and our latest recruit so I took him with me this afternoon to do a mandate. It was for Mavis in Chez Renard and when we arrived Gill And Mike were there. Anyway, it was quite a sweet little house in Chez Renard but the granny annex in only half finished as poor old Bert dies of cancer before he could get it finished - She said at the beginning that Merry had been there this morning and she didn't like her, but after I had given her my price I found out why: Merry had told her 40,000€. I told her that I couldn't put it on for more than 50,000€ and she just shook her head. Poor thing, it is such an emotional investment for her as her lovely husband has done so much work but they bought in in 2011 for 30,000€ And I explained that I had lots of properties for 30 and 40,000€ that were just as good or better. I asked her if she ever wanted to come back and she said no and her daughters didn't want to come for holidays either so I said that in that case she would be better off just putting it at the right price and getting shot of it. Anyway, it is in Bert's name so Robineaud needs to do the succession and I think another good reason for fixing the Price low is to avoid inheritance tax. I think that the threshold is 50,000€ so that's in our favour. The problem is that Gill had said 80,000€ ! No way! Tonight I watched a documentary about Rio Ferdinand being Mum and Dad to his three kids after his wife died of breat cancer which was very thought provoking.

Why am I an estate agent?

When I first started it was fun, interesting to be nosy to see inside lots of different houses and meet lots of different people and help make their dreams come true and share my beliefs about France. Now that the novelty has worn off and he legal requirements have become so onerous it brings me less joy than it used to so I need to analyze everything about myself and find something to do that will bring me joy. Also and obviously it is for the money. We all have to earn a living and this was a way of doing it that was largely enjoyable, and maybe it will be again.

So am I grown up yet?

Forty six years old, and I'm still waiting for grown-uppedness to strike. Perhaps it will just be a quick swoop from a prolonged adolescence into unremitting old age. I think my father never felt grown up. I remembering him saying that you keep moving the goalposts, and then a couple of years ago, approaching eighty, he suddenly seemed ready to drop of the perch.

As Helen Keller said "Strength of character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." My life has thus far been too quiet and easy, and while it seems mad to wish for trial and suffering, how is my soul to be strengthened otherwise? Where will the inspiration for ambition come from if not from tribulation? Not from watching Britain's got Talent; that for sure.

Not that I feel my life, thus far, has been squandered. I have a wonderful family, live in a beautiful place, have a great job (not completely free from the occasional trial)and really good friends, but somehow I can't seem to get away from the nagging conviction that there must be more to life than this.

All the people I know who have been through periods of immense suffering seem to me to be the strongest, most well-balanced and most of all, genuine people. Perhaps there isn't more - it's just that the suffering makes you appreciate the calm, undemanding, pleasures of good friendships, a nice glass of wine and decent conversation. Blimey, this is one from six years ago. I'm 52 now and don't feel any more grown up, though I guess this car accident and subsequent handicaps could be called a tribulation, I don't think it can really be seen as a period of immense suffering. However, I'm rather hoping that it will lead me to find my strengths and change my life in some small way and make me a better person.

so is life about growing up, getting a job, getting married and having kids of your own?

As a child I had two uncles: my father's sister's husband, who came into my life quite late(my aunt was almost 40 when they married)and quite soon afterwards got a brain tumour, went mad and died so I never really got to know him; and my mother's brother, who was a glamourous, drinking, swearing, dashing and artistic man whom I adored. Sadly, he also met an untimely death - drowned sailing off the coast of Brittany in 1980. He had six children (that I know of)who are all adorable

It was his father, my maternal grandfather who was everyone's darling and who had the confidence to know that he brightened the room, without being conceited or arrogant. My brother has this gift and so, I dare say, does Lily Blue whose career in fashion is sky-rocketing in California; I am slowly coming to the conclusion that if you believe it, it can be true for you too, and me, and all of us. I think Freddy has it, and Gus too, to a slightly lesser extent as he is very prone to blushing! Gus is very like Markie in so many ways, but physically especially. It's quite like having Markie here when Gus comes home for the weekend.

Spring

Yesterday the clocks went forward and it was a lovely spring day. I spent a lot of time pulling out last year's rasberry caned and weeding the herb garden. It was wonderful but I'm not feeling my usual chirpy self yet. Still having trouble sleeping due to the pain, and last night I started to get into a panic because I thought I had done something to my arm because it is so much more painful than it was before as it has been getting better and better. It was also Mothers'Day in England yesterday and I was so busy in the garden and hanging out the washing that I forgot to ring my mother. Well I'm just going to have a little siesta and then I'll ring her. I'm getting a bit fed up of being an estate agent and fancy finding something else that I can do to earn a bit of money and fulfill myself. It's partly the coaching as I feel that some of my coachees are particularly resistant to being coached, but it's also that I haven't been doing very sell lately although that is mostly because I can't drive. I need to find out what my strengths are and find something to do based around that. Harriet and Freddy are both learning to drive. Freddy loves it and is keen to drive everywhere all weekend. Harri is more nervous and hasn't actually done any driving with me yet.

Frusration and frenzy

I've been out of hospital for four days now, following a third operation to try and fix my bloody broken arm. I was under the anasthetic for about 7 hours and Dr Rolland (my surgeon) said they took much longer to do the operation than he thought it would. They have taken a chunk of bone from my hip, so now I can't walk well and my right arm is useless and it is all incredibly painful. When I move my legs at all it feels like someone is trying to saw off my leg with a burning bread knife, an absolutely killing, searing pain in my crotch. The only thing to do is lie very still and take lots of deep breaths and after a while it becomes bearable.

I'm determined that this time it is going to work as I'm fed up of being an invalid. I hate feeling invalid (interesting- I hadn't put together the two different meanings of this word). Yesterday morning I  sent Toby a text asking for some breakfast in bed and he rang up saying that he was half way to Poitiers so no! I  had no idea that he was going to Poitiers yesterday and it felt strange given that he had only left the bedroom a few minutes earlier (okay, it may have been more than a few minutes!) but I think I just feel very out of the loop and being a control freak, I find this disempowering. I don't really know what I expect as I do need to stay in bed and get lots of sleep and I can't have everything.

Some time later: I went downstairs to get my breakfast myself. I'm having honey, lemon, hot water and turmeric every day as I have read a lot about the wonderful healing power of tumuric. Also freshly squeezed orange juice as that must help with everything. Harriet cut the lemon for me but the kitchen was so disgusting I started to clean it up. Debbie rang while I was doing some washing up (not very well due to only having the use of one arm) and I had a winge to her about having to clean up. She said Andy is just the same, leaving jammy knives lying round in the kitchen, etc. Well, obviously Toby feels that he is doing everything fine because he then had a go at me for moaning to Debbie - I must admit it was very disloyal to Toby as he is doing so much more than he usually does, but it wasn't a massive moan.

A bit later on I was still cleaning the kitchen and as I was putting something away in the fridge the cheese box fell out and went all over the floor. It was just that, had I had two arms I would have easily caught it, but it was the final straw and  I was already stirring myself up into a frenzy with dangerous self-talk and I just lost it, screaming (literally, no words, just a scream) and swearing. He came and tried to give me a hug and I pushed him away, with some catty remark. Oh god, I'm so horrible. It's just so frustrating not being able to do anything and being in constant pain. I'm feeling miserable and useless and I took it out on him, the one person that I should be supporting verbally more than ever, as he is a star and is being so wonderful.

The next day I apologized and he said "I'm still really livid about it. You've got no idea how much I'm doing and yes, perhaps some of the housework is slipping but I'm really really annoyed with you. " Oh dear. I feel even more guilty now. I just hate not being able to do everything myself.

New Year

Oh dear, Christmas has been and gone. It was lovely - we had two as Gus was working on actual Christmas day (at Futuroscope) and Fenella went to spend it with Ben's parents. So Toby, Harriet, Freddy and I had fun on Christmas day and had a delicious Boeuf en Croute very late and opened a couple of presents from each other. I got a new music system that is Blue tooth and does everything - very fancy. I can have Spotify or You Tube on my computer and have the music coming out of the speakers. What with scientific! Then we had stockings and turkey on 28th. Fenella had a sick bug so it was not very much fun for her - and everyone else was paranoid about catching it but we didn't - made of sterner stuff.

I have just converted my weight (77.8 kilos) to stone and OMG - it's 12 stone 4! That is so fat! It's so dangerous weighing in kilos because it just doesn't mean anything. I should be 10 stone - that's 63.5 kilos. On LIFT weight loss get fit support group I have set myself a goal of 65 kilos by 1st April which should not be too difficult but I do need to start being sensible. Yesterday I tried to fast but by midday I was famished, started with some lettuce (okay) but then woofed a piece of chorizo, and then it all just went out of the window and I finished by eating Christmas cake, Ferrero rocher, a huge helping of risotto and lots of chocolate!  Even though I felt sick I didn't stop! What is this self-destructive behaviour all about? I know it's a mind-set - just need to get the right one, and I think a bit of progress will set me back on the right path.