Jen Black's Blog, page 71

We have a Pool!

Ironically, now the good weather has gone, the pool is open and almost ready for bathing. We've had a couple of days of thunder storms and plodding about in wellies and waterproofs but the forecast is for scorching days again starting on Wednesday. Two small frogs had to be rescued from floating gently round and round the pool on the first morning. DH's tally of mice captured and killed is now standing at six and we have not heard the patter of tiny feet nor the clang of a mouse-trap for several days, maybe over a week. At least it seems to do the job instantaneously as I haven't heard a single squeak of surprise or pain. 
Local dogs visit and play with Tim. One is Baloo, a rather large black and white collie who lives at the first wooden house up the hill. The other is a brown labrador type who is only interested in plunging in and out of the pond and the river. The other visitor is rarer but easily the most playful; an Alsatian cross of some kind I would guess who doesn’t wear a collar. He is great fun and motors around like a motorcyclist on a race track.
We’re off to Vergt in the morning as we’ve run out of food and I need to get some Activyl Tick Plus at the Pharmacie. Not chuffed that the surgery gave me the Activyl that deals with fleas instead of the right stuff, so poor Tim has been getting a tick almost every day, and we have to manually extract it which isn’t easy. Damn things don’t always come out whole. At least they sell it in pharmacies here. Back home it’s on prescription only.

A Change in the Weather

The good weather broke yesterday with thunder, lightning and heavy rain storms. From pic a to pc b in 5 minutes flat, and then the rain came sweeping in. This morning it is still raining, so we’re in for a wet couple of days. Makes a change from the blistering heat of the last fortnight. Hopefully it will take all the pollen out of the air because even Tim started sneezing yesterday. We had to bring him indoors before he stopped. Only DH is immune – not a single sneeze from him.
Partly because of the heat, which was excessive and had us cowering indoors some days, and partly because of Tim, we haven’t been out and about in the locality. He’s a good, affectionate dog but the one thing he will not do is walk calmly on the lead. However long it is, he wants to be a yard further on and investigate every smell in double quick time. He can lift me off my feet with no effort, none of which would go down well if we took him to town or anywhere there are crowds. Much simpler to walk him off-lead around the hay fields, now cut, or do the local hour-long monastery circuit where only the odd car is a worry. The other thing is that we’ve been coming here for 15 years and we’ve been to most of the local beauty spots, so there isn’t a huge incentive to drive anywhere. The downside is that it doesn’t leave me with many photographs for my blog! I may have to raid my expansion drive for pictures taken in previous years.

On the other hand, work on my re-write of my Viking story is going well. I’m experimenting with first person POV for the female character. In the previous version, now withdrawn from sale, I never gave her POV at all, which was probably a big mistake. I gave her actions and let those speak for her. That method was not a success; no one liked her and as a result no one liked the book. The beauty of Kindle is that I can take it down and re-write it, then publish it again. So, upward and onward!

Hot weather

The hot weather goes on. Yesterday there was a breeze, which made it much more pleasant to be out and about. The storms that were forecast for today have now moved back to the coming Thursday. All the hay has been cut, dried, turned and baled so now we have 17 bales taller than me in the field, and we can walk around the perimeter without fearing that we are doing damage. Tim loves it - all those new smells to investigate. I love it for that reason and also because my hay fever has vanished as if it had never been.

Rafa couldn't do it, Andy couldn't do it, so it's all down to Stan Wawrinka this afternoon. I hope he can succeed. Until then, I'll be checking The CRAIGSMUIR AFFAIR  one last time.

Hot Days

The time is 7 55am and I'm sitting here writing my blog with all the windows and doors open and the sun is beating down. Goodness knows what the outside temperature got up to yesterday - we stayed indoors where the living room temperature rose to 26 degrees C. This morning it is 22 degrees. Consider that when we arrived it was 16-17 degrees....and that the mill has three foot thick stone walls. Wi Fi is only available in the living room, (or downstairs in the mill room) because the walls are too thick. Evidently the floor is not quite so strong!

The farmers work early, knock off in the middle of the day and start again about seven in the evening and yesterday they had my sympathy because it was still too hot to sit out even then. I felt some sympathy for the tennis players, too. Though I have to say that Serena gave a most convincing display of being about to faint away until she needed to hit a convincing shot and then all her reflexes kicked in and the most complicated shot was executed with ease.

I have been diligently working away for a couple of hours every morning on The CRAIGSMUIR AFFAIR and have reached the last stages of publication via Kindle. Things appear to be going well and as long as the Table of Contents comes up as I expect, then I'm done. Publication Day is the 20th July.

Howling gales

Howling gales blowing down greenhouses back home while I enjoy wonderful sunshine here in the Dordogne. I ought to feel guilty, but I don't because we're highly likely to get the same winds at some point in the next month or so.

The farmers are busy cutting hay here, so the air was full of pollen yesterday. From a distance it looks as if the tractor is surrounded by a golden cloud and very romantic until you get up close. The tractor comes within twenty feet of the house at one point so for me it is imperative to dart inside and close all the doors and windows. This time I forgot to get the washing in as well, so had to dash out again and clear the line of a the few garments that were there. Then we stood inside and watched someone else working hard for a couple of hours while the kites circled overhead and dived down on unfortunate creatures whose home was being destroyed.

Fortunately while we were in Bergerac I visited the Pharmacie next to the Intermarche, bid everyone Bonjour, which is very important in France and in my halting French explained that I had hay fever - les rhume des foins. The lady guided me through purchasing tablets and eye drops and this is the third day I've taken the pills and they work very well. The itchy eyes are almost worse than the sneezing, so I'm very glad she guided me to the right products. I don't get this in England unless the pollen levels are exceedingly high, but here I do, every year.

Time flies

Here we are at Sunday again, our third here and it hardly feels like that at all. You may find it hard to believe but I was up and out with the dog by half past six in the morning yesterday; also today, but today I cheated and we both came back to our respective beds after he had relieved himself. Twenty minutes past eight we finally decided it was time to rise and shine. Consequently it is ten past eleven by the time I sit down at my computer. Time flies! 


The mousetrap went off with a clatter while we watched tennis yesterday. So that's mouse number two sent on its way. A third one has nicked the dog biscuit without setting off the trap, so no doubt this war will go on for some time.

The forecast was for overcast and cloudy today, so we had planned to drive down to Bergerac. But the sun is shining and it is very warm, so we are still at the mill. Tomorrow the forecast is for rain, so we will see. Maybe tomorrow it will be Bergerac.

Meanwhile, we'll keep watching the wildlife around us. Dragon flies are hatching on the pond, hanging over the  water in jewelled clusters. Tiny frogs abound, literally, in the grass and reeds. DH says he is constantly seeing them leap out of the way of the tractor when he cuts the grass. The little one on the right is hovering on the top of the water, with his shadow on the stone beneath and he has adopted excellent camouflage. He looks exactly like the stone beneath him.  If I hadn't seen him jump, I'd never have spotted him. (Sorry, no pun intended.)

The squirrel has made two appearances, both times galloping over the house roof and then down to the bolly rails. Our wildlife camera has recorded two white eyes in the darkness, presumably Monsieur Reynard doing his rounds. No more sightings of the coypu, though something is leaving tracks into and out of the pond. There are definite trails now. Mallards, perhaps as we often see them fly off in the early morning, and Tim has routed them out from the river.

Death in the house

No need to get alarmed. The death I refer to was a mouse, caught in a mousetrap last night. DH set out the trap, not me. I'm far too squeamish to do that. I may not be happy about them running about indoors, and I know they're a health risk, but that's me. Squeamish.

We've had two splendid days with clear blue skies and full strength sunshine, and today there is a fine cloud layer and hazy sunshine. They've begun to cut the hay around us, and for me they can't do it soon enough. Once it's baled I might be able to walk out whenever I please without sneezing and wanting to scratch my eyes.

We've discovered a new way of exercising Tim. We ride the little bike up and down the drive with him running beside it. He barked at it the first couple of times but he's stopped that now. It's an easy walk around the property now all the grass has had a second cut - almost like lawns! I can walk around in my slippers after the dew has gone. The cows stare at us across the fence, and Tim barks at them. I'm trying to stop him, because they're awfully big beasts and they have calves to defend. No way do I want one of them chasing us across the field.

PS Remember if you click on the pics, you get a larger version!

Houses and homes

There are some very attractive houses in this region. Some of them make me briefly envious, Some just make me smile. We have a whole range around us, from the chateaux with the guardian dogs, live, who race along the fence barking until you are safely out of their sight, right down through the small farmhouse to the caravan in the field, and even better, the caravan on stilts.
If you build in the local style, and some do, then a square tower rising out of the body of the building is a must, and the 4-sided triangle roof can be seen peeking out of the forests for miles around. (I'm sure there's a name for a 4-sided triangle, which obviously isn't a triangle, but I don't know what it is.) I'll add a few pics of examples over the next few days.

Some look very old, and it is easy to imagine they've been here from medieval days. I have no doubt they have mice too, because they're built of rough stone which makes it easy for those little feet to climb and get in through the roof. I know snakes live in lofts - we hear horror stories from our rellies in Australia where people are very wary of entering loft spaces because they never know what they will encounter. Last night when I was drifting off to sleep I imagined a war one in the loft above me - mice versus snakes and lizards, and it made me feel sorry for the mice.

 I encountered one in the laundry room yesterday. It shot across the floor and out where the water pipe comes in through the wall. DH has caught one on his wildlife camera while it was running across the living room floor during the night. Odd that Tim doesn't seem to have noticed them yet.

The Mice are back!

Roland Garros has started today and I'm watching selected matches courtesy of UK ITV 4 relayed here to France. Technology is wonderful!

The weather is still not brilliant. We get snatches of sunshine and relax but then it clouds over again. I saw a deer in the field yesterday, around midday, no less. We both saw a fox running across the road as we walked Tim, and DH was startled by the appearance of a mouse almost in front of his nose as he sat at the big desk! The little blighters have had a go at breaking into Tim's sack of biscuits so we've put half in a red metal container - I think it is actually a bread bin - and the other half safely locked in the boot of the car. It seems you can't avoid mice if you live in farm land in an old house with cracks and crannies where they can squeeze in. The other day as I sat reading I heard the click of claws in the loft above the balcony room, but it may have been the lizards - though I don't think lizards squeak. I imagined battles going on up there - mice against lizards. DH assures me the main loft is cut off from the new loft above the balcony room, but he knows very well that mice and lizards will squeeze in anywhere.

Finished reading JoJo Moyes The One plus One - enjoyed it. Also read a Joanne Trollop since we got here - Balancing Act, but I honestly now cannot remember what it was about. It obviously made a great impression on me though I enjoy her style while I'm reading it.

The picture is one DH caught of me whistling for Tim - and the clothes will tell you how warm it is!

Hay Fever

A brilliant sunny day yesterday, so not much work was done, but I did get a wash load dried, ironed and put away. There's not much work involved in putting  a washing machine on, and apart from that, we downed tools and soaked up the sunshine.
 Today it is me who has the odd problem - one of my eyes has swelled. Not the eye but the socket and lid. It's either a reaction to pollen, of which there is a lot drifting about on the wind, or some tiny insect has bitten me.

I shall be relieved when the farmer has cut all his hay because only then will my nose stop prickling and filling up. In England I don't suffer from hay fever, but here, I do. The cutting is partially done. I watched the farmer cart away about a dozen plastic wrapped bales this morning while I gave Tim his early morning walk around nine o'clock. That was quite late for Tim, but then I'd been out earlier, too, for he woke me just as it was getting light with a plea to go outside. Every bird in the locality was singing in the greyness and I was glad Tim is mostly white, for he showed up in the gloom no matter how far he wandered!

The final edit of The Craigsmuir Affair is ongoing. I have cut chunks of "local character" which gets in the way of the story. I don't suppose anyone would be interested in it but me.There are no signs of it being available as pre-order yet on Amazon. There must be more I have to do before that happens.
The irises are blooming everywhere around the lake and nearby damp fields. They look beautiful.