Miracles........

So this morning I was feeling as if my mind was in some sort of fuggy fog, which is not a desirable state to be in because it can lead to the day descending into a downward slide.  

To try and coax my mind to be positive and actively engaged into it 'being a good day to be alive' I pulled a divination card out of my set of tarot cards. 

And 'A Miracle' came up. Oh, I thought, perhaps the house in France is going to sell, perhaps the buyers already interested in purchasing it are going to go through with the sale, perhaps the house we saw at the weekend could then become our new home,......and so on through all the list of things I would like to happen via 'A Miracle'. 

It was early in the day, about 6am. I had time to meditate and send out healing prayers to everyone in my Healing Book, and it came to me that perhaps I had not been wise in assuming that 'A Miracle' deserved to be thought of in such a way, that I didn't need any more miracles happening in my life, because my life was full of miracles....

- I am alive, which is a miracle.

- I have a good partner, and feel it is a miracle that we have come through so much together.

- We are living in a lovely cottage, in a lovely village in Shropshire, which is a lovely county of England, and were greeted upon arrival from France by a landlord  who welcomed us with much warmth. That we even got out of France was a miracle, as was the welcome we received here at the cottage. 

There were a lot of other miracles that occurred to me as I went through the morning, not of what I wanted as future miracles, but what miracles I had in my life right now. Not to be selfish with wanting the acquisition of more miracles to come along, that other people are perhaps more deserving of miracles in their own lives and if there was a certain amount of miracles to be had, then perhaps it would be best going to them. That was my thinking as I flitted through the hours of the day. 

Had a look at my emails, and surprise surprise! There was an email from France saying that the potential buyers of the farm were proceeding with the sale, and could we please send the current Taxe Fonciere (land tax) form to their Notaire (solicitor). Perhaps there was a spare Miracle coming our way, after all, I thought. 

However, although it had the hopes of being a potential miracle, I am having to unravel the nuts and bolts of it. But even as I write this, all of the miracles which have occurred in my life have always held the potential for disaster when they first arrive, and it is only by working through the miracle that I realise that it was indeed a miracle even if I did not at first know that it was one. 

So no great flash, bang, and wallop for me when a miracle arrives. It is just 'Here you go, another challenge for you, and you earn the 'miracle' when you have seen it through'. 

The nuts and bolts of today's miracle are...... yes, the sale is going through, but the barrier between the UK and France is widening now that Brexit is nearly done, which means that our French bank will not allow us access to it because we are now living in the UK, so we either have to go back to France to live, or write the farm off. And then if we do go to France again, our UK Bank will not allow us access to it either, and our incomes will diminish into zero. 

Ok, so not to worry. I keep thinking of the 'Miracles' card, which is reminding me of everything which had turned out alright in the end, thus rendering me awash with miracles which have only occurred to me in hindsight.  

Perhaps you, too, might have some miracles in your life, which are hidden to you at this time and just need seeing the light of day.........

Blessings to you, 

Bye for now,

Vx

  

 

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Pond update, and the bowl......

The Pond..... and it is good news, although not so good as to have the origination of the pond dispensed with, so we still do not have central heating. However, a plumber has been to 'access the situation', with the good news that the emersion water heater is alright to use, so hot water can now be had. And the pond? It is now spreading out into a very damp patch, which unfortunately is oozing itself into the vicinity of the stairs. I did put a towel on top of a plastic sheet in front of the bathroom door when the pond was in its earlier stages of sogginess, but towels on top of plastic sheets at the top of the stairs would not be advisable, I thought.   And a drip plopped down on my head when I was in the kitchen this evening. 

But, hot water! Such a blessing! I now have no excuse to leave the washing up..... and because the bathroom is like an ice box without central heating, I have taken to having a quick wash in the mornings at the kitchen sink. To be doing this with a stack of washing up piled high is difficult. It is a cottage kitchen, so is tiny, as is the sink area. Me and the dishes have no room for each other, so one has to be done before the other can  be attended to. The washing up bowl has to oblige both. I used to have several bowls back in France, but they were not brought back to the UK. I need a bowl all to myself. 

A Saturday morning trip into the outskirts of Shrewsbury, and we found B & Q, a DIY shop which Lester had been pointed to by a neighbour last weekend as having a stack of electric fires for sale, the same neighbour who had been concerned about our lack of heating, and who had brought round his Mother's electric fire for our use. Sadly it fused the electric circuit board though. I did mention to the neighbour, a man of age but with the spirit of a ten year old, if the fire had been intact when his Mother used it last, she now having moved in with the angels above. However, since he is a grand DIY person and has sheds in the back garden which house all manner of interesting paraphanalia, including a brand new big boys motor bike...... to be admired, and dreamed about, but never ridden, .........I did think that perhaps he had used the top of the fire as a perch to sit something heavy on, which would account for its buckled state and the reason why it fused our electrics, bless him. 

Anyway, the B & Q store was found, and Lester bought a couple of fires last weekend.  So I had it in my mind that the store might also have a bowl. It didn't. But we had a walk round the huge cavern of a warehouse shop, and it came into our minds that we have no need of anything to do with home decorating and DIY products, that since we are in a rented cottage we are now free of having to ' do a house up' , which is a relief after the thirteen years we spent renovating our French home. I think that The Universe decided that we needed a holiday from house renovations! 

So I am still sharing the bowl with the washing up. Not to worry. The plumber may / or may not be here tomorrow to start fixing the leak, but it does not matter because he will be here sometime in the future, preferably before the end of 2020. Keep hope alive. That is what you have to do. 

Bye for now, 

Vx 

An inside pond, and update......

 So............. we have a pond.....but not an 'outside' pond, which is where you would normally expect to find one, but an 'inside' pond. Fortunately it is not a deep pond, but a 'splashy' pond, which is just as well because it has centred itself right in the middle of the bathroom doorway. 

OK, so this is perhaps an exaggeration on my part, but to go in and out of the bathroom does require the feet coming into contact with very wet and soggy carpet. 

And the origination of this patch is? The now defunct central heating which saw fit to blow a gasket a week ago mid way through the coldest patch of weather we have had so far in the UK, the evidence of this disaster being the splashing of water coming down from the ceiling of the kitchen as noticed by my partner, who was in the middle of a phone call to the National Health Service Help Line who was busy informing him that I ought to be taken to hospital because it sounded like I had border line pneumonia, after having had some horrendous coughing fits through the night. 

Oh well. The good news is that I refused to go into hospital, that I have recovered from that 'border line' position by going onto YouTube and looking at videos about exercises to clear congestion on the lungs, and am drinking loads of water to clear my system out. One week on, and I am up on my feet. AND..... I managed to walk 400 paces up and down the village lane outside the cottage, for two days in a row, at dusk, which was magical. Keep moving, that is what I need to do.  

Fortunately the weather is very mild at the moment, so the lack of any heating in the house is copeable with. This is our first winter here in the UK after having lived thirteen years in SW France, which is a lot warmer. Not to worry, we can cope. A neighbour was kind enough to donate a fire so we could keep warm, and a visit to B & Q on Sunday sourced a couple more. We won't have heating over all of the house, but we can have heating in small patches of it. 

Meanwhile, .... the landlord of the cottage has organised a plumber to come and assess the damage. It is an elderly cottage so things will go wrong with it, the same as it does for us. We could have done with not having floor boards and ceilings dug up, but, well, it is as it is. We did think of moving out, and we still might have to if the work is too extensive, but we are just getting settled in, and we are very appreciative of the good things about living here. The only down side is that the repair is likely to be done in the colder weather, possibly near to Christmas, if not after it. Oh well, as I say, not to worry. 

So, all is well. Everything seems quite heavy around us but it well pass. The farm in France has had people interested in buying it, so hopefully it will sell eventually. The cottage has now got a leaky insides, but hopefully that will get fixed eventually. I have got dodgy insides, but hopefully self healing, meditation, and generally keeping upbeat about things will fix me up. Keep praying to The Universe, and asking for help that all will be well, both for us, for our nations, and for peace in this world of ours,  that is what I do. Sometimes I slip and falter and fall into despair, but what good is that........ keep going, that is what I need to do. 

So sending blessings to you, and wishing you well.....

Vx

There and back again......

 I am sorry for the lapse in time since my last blog. No excuse, other than that there were no words in my head to write with......but here I am, and the good news is that Lester has made the trip down to SW France to retrieve our personal possessions, and then made it back to Shropshire with no bumps or knocks to either himself or the van. 2000 miles, in three days, leaving at 6am on Thursday and getting back 10pm Saturday, with the van loaded with boxes, instruments, the lawnmower, and some flat packed furniture. The 'posh' furniture stayed at the farm, to be sold with the house. There is no room for it in our new life. 

I think Lester is a hero. Apart from our clothes, it was mostly my crafting equipment which he brought back, plus my collection of notebooks of writings, and camera related equipment. It is good to have it back. I feel less like having half of me in England and half of me still in France. It was a very divided feeling.

Meanwhile, we are going through another series of adjustments as we leave go of Labartere, our smallholding in SW France, which has sort of faded from our life now that Lester has made the trip. I find it amazing how we keep adjusting to all the ups and downs of 2020, although we are feeling worn out with all the effort it has taken. We need some quiet time now to repair ourselves, before we start searching for our own house. Even though the cottage is a very nice place to be staying in, we are always aware that it belongs to somebody else.

......meanwhile, I am making a mess everywhere! There are partly unpacked boxes in the garage, with just four more to open so I can investigate there contents. When I packed them back in March, it was necessary to try and keep the boxes at a  minimum because of having to load them into a van for transport. So it was higgledy piggledy packing I did, with things put here and there as room in the boxes became available. Therefore there is no order. So........ I have to unpack them here, sort out what we need and what can be left in the boxes for our next move, which then have to be resealed in case little living things decide to cosy up for the winter in them. 

Only one large dustbin bag, filled with cushions, was found to be a possible hotel for larger 'little' living things (rats.....the evidence being the size of their toilet leavings).  A peek inside the dustbin bag, .....a very quick closure of the same bag, ......and a quick exit outside of the garage for the bag in case any French rats were wanting to rehome themselves.....better to have them outside rather than enjoying the comfort of the boxes. 

So..... the garage is full of unpacked boxes, and the house has bits and pieces all over it as I rehome things, in particular there is a traffic jam at the foot of the stairs as most of the things needing rehoming is my stuff. Since the stairs and me are new to each other, ( we lived on the ground floor for thirteen years so my legs forgot how to 'do' stairs)  the effort of taking the stuff  up the stairs is taking a time. I have put the things in plastic supermarket bags for ease of transport. There are quite a few bags at the foot of the stairs. It might take a time to get the backlog done with, the amount of bags going up the stairs being determined by the number of loo runs I do. We have an upstairs loo. One of the requirements for our next house is that it must have a downstairs loo. Although it is fair to say that my legs have benefitted from the exercise. 

Signing off for now, 

Vx

 

Snoozing, and a trip.....

My OH and Maz, having a quiet afternoon snooze....

 

And the cottage, basking in the late summer sun,

and Bluebell, our Berlingo, doing the same. 

And the front of the cottage......

So I am having a try at getting some photos posted up on the blog, experimenting with different sizes of frame which have all turned out the same size, or so it would seem. Oh well, trial and error.

Meanwhile, I am keeping company with my OH as he goes through the paperwork necessary for his trip tomorrow. Off to France he is going, down to the farm to retrieve our personal possessions, before second spikes, more lock downs, and anything else the French and UK governments want to throw at the people, plus Brexit is simmering away, which could upset the borders. 

Fortunately, France is allowing the UK to cross into their country at the moment, but there are forms for coming back into the UK which have to be filled in. When we came up from France in May, it was the French who required papers to be carried by people travelling. 

It was a sudden decision to do this trip. We seem to have a window of opportunity, so my OH thought he would take it. I shall not be going with him. I have Maz to look after.

My OH has rented a walloping big van, and bought a Sat Nav. 

He is off in the morning.

I am packing him up some cheese sandwiches.

Bye for now, 

Vx

Sale crashed, and French kissing.

 And so the news came through from the estate agent handling the sale of our farm in France, that the people hoping to buy it had received news that the people who were buying their house had pulled out of their sale. 

Oh well, it is as it is. 

Lester hoped to get down to France to collect some of  our possessions, like: winter clothing, musical instruments, sewing machine and craft equipment, writing notebooks, etc.......all our personal possessions,  but no furniture, which we have written off, and left in the house. but the French government is introducing stricter Covid rules today which means that it is unlikely that he will be able to go. It is all very unsettling. 

---

Meanwhile, the Village Hall in Stanton might be opening for a monthly ladies 'cup of tea, chat, and craft' morning next month, but with masks on. Not sure I want to sit for an hour or so breathing in my own carbon dioxide, although I did think of making a crochet mask which will get the oxygen into my lungs because of the open weave of the fabric.  I got the idea of a crochet mask when I saw someone wearing one when I was having a coffee in the Town Hall in Wem, and thought 'Now that is a good idea', but I am thinking that a woollen mask might be alright for keeping the face warm in the coldest of winter days, but it might be too hot other times, as in centrally heated shops. I think I might have to rethink that idea.

---

France is a very kissy-kissy nation, with everyone kissing everyone on both cheeks, even partial strangers. Having a tall, swarthy, black curly haired, Spanish/French builder man leaning towards me to give me a kissy-type of greeting was quite acceptable,  but there were occasions when it felt too invasive of my personal space. And female to female kissy greetings never felt quite right. Then there was the problem of which side of the cheek to plant the kissy salutation. Often there would be a mild bumping of noses when both of you misjudged the direction of the other. 

Then there were the times when you didn't feel like kissy-kissying a particular person, and the last thing you wanted to do was get close to them, and most times they felt the same.  So then there would be a stretching of the necks towards each other, but a holding back of the bodies so a respectable distance was kept between you  while the kissy-kissy salutation was done, which was a most ungainly stance for both participants. 

But it is the French culture, so it is as it is, but I am wondering how the people of France are managing in this time of the Covid face masks, which must be hurting the psychology of the population. As lock down began there was a cessation of this habit of kissing others, which for me was a relief. While it was a novelty in the beginning of our time in France, I did start regarding it as a bit of a faff, and eventually I started holding myself back and began extending my hand to give a handshake instead, which is a much more British way of doing things!

Have got some photos to show you but they are still in my new camera phone and I have yet to learn how to download them. Technology! It just seems to get more and more advanced as time goes by,  and has me chasing after it like I am chasing a runaway horse! 

Bye for now

Vx

63, .....then 73

For thirteen years we lived on a smallholding in France and then circumstances overtook us and we find ourselves back in England, but not in the South East as before, but in Shropshire, which is in the Midlands. At the moment we are in the middle of making this transition between the two countries, are living in rented accommodation with all our belongings still in the South West of France because of the Covid restrictions of the two countries.....meanwhile we are looking for a place of our own, but are in no hurry because our rented cottage is a lovely place to spend our transition time in...........

Notes taken on August 26th 2010 ......at 63 years old

These notes were taken from the blog, when we were in full flow with living the life of smallholders.

 "I don't want to seem maudling, or difficult, or silly, but having been conditioned to buying meat from a supermarket shelf for years, to recycle our animals after tending to their welfare and getting to know them, ........well.....it does take an adjustment to our thinking, which we are doing, step by step. 

Smallholding, or small farm living, is the best of lives to live but one has to learn new ways, create new habits of thought, grapple with many new activities, not mind that one's hands and fingernails no longer look pristine, or that one's clothes do not seem to stay clean for very long because there is always something or someone wanting to leave their mark on you. And the tiredness which accompanies this steep new learning curve. That, too, can be draining. 

But it is all worth it. I only have to take my mind back to the lifestyle I had in the UK, before we began our French smallholding life. It was a very comfortable and safe life, but it was making us too complacent, and to be quite honest, a dullness was creeping in because of the habits we were living under. Fortunately all that changed when we left the shore of the UK, and embraced this challenge. Facing challenges wakes you up. We might be tired sometimes, but we have life energy, and at 63 years of  age, that is the best blessing I could be given. 

So if you are thinking of heading off into other directions in your life: do it! You might not be watching your recycled bit of sheep bubble away in a pot on your cooker, but your new direction might require of you some steep learning curves as well. This is good because it takes you away from the emotional mud which bogs others down, who are too afraid to break the day to day cycle of their lives and who therefore become old before their time.

I'm going to be old someday. When I am 104. Meanwhile, I have to go put that piece of lamb in the oven to give it a bit of a roasting. "

--------------

Ten years on...... September 2020....... 73 years old now

Wow, what a great ten years to put into memory, and how glad I am that we took up the challenge to go to France, even if most people who knew us thought we were just plain stupid. 

During the last year or so of living in France we became jaded about smallholding life, that it was too strenuous a life style, that it was difficult to earn a living from a smallholding especially because of the French tax system,  and then Brexit appeared, and so on......... And it was our intent to never run a smallholding again, which we followed through with when we arrived in Shropshire and started looking at small houses with tiny gardens. 

But as the weeks have passed, we  find ourselves looking at houses online which have bigger gardens, and the other day my OH mentioned that he would like to have a large greenhouse so he could investigate the aquaponic system of growing things, while I would still like to investigate the growing of micro greens. It would seem that we are not quite done with being smallholders, even if it is on a smaller, more manageable, scale!

Bye for now

Vx

 Just to let you know that we are in transition between our farm in the Haute Pyrenees in France, and our rented cottage in a village in Shropshire, England, meanwhile waiting for the Universe to find us our own home. It may take a while......

I have been swinging along through my life with a certain degree of success, although I must admit that sometimes I have fallen flat on my face but somehow I have got myself back up and continued onwards. It's all about learning the lessons of life, that by struggling to get back up again by learning to cope with the difficulties that are being presented to you by the conditions that are surrounding you, that you will grow stronger and more able to cope with life, and therefore will attain a modicum of peace as you advance in age. Well that's the theory anyway, because I am waiting for peacefulness to come to me as my age steadily advances towards the mid seventies. 

However, it would appear that while I might have a day or two, even perhaps a week sometimes, of peacefulness, my life seems to require of me more lessons in life to learn in order to acquire a greater quantity of peacefulness.

What am I having to learn at the moment? To stay calm and patient, and not to get in a fret, or be argumentative with my OH because we are both stressed, not to mind that all of our things are still in France, not to mind that we have had an offer on the farm in France which has provoked a huge pot of stresses in our minds, not to mind that we think we have signed all the necessary paperwork for the sale to go through, not to mind that it has been a week of silence coming from our French solicitor, not to worry that the  purchasers of the farm might have pulled out of the sale, not to worry about everything related to selling houses. 

'But hang on a minute', you might be saying, ' Have you just said that you have had an offer on your farm?'

'Yes we have'. But oh the need for patience, which seems to have flown out of the window earlier on in the year with the demands that 2020 has been loading on us. 

But I did do a two mile walk round a lake in Ellesmere with my OH and the dog, and bits of me hardly complained at all. 

And I did stand firm against a herd of cows who had absented themselves from their field, and had decided to wander through the village causing much manure and mayhem across the villagers' pristine lawns.  Maz, our rottweiller, was seriously earnest about herding them all up, which my OH thought was not a good idea, even though she was of the opinion that she ought to help. 

To keep busy, that is what I have to do. The rented cottage is lovely, and will do for the moment, and keeping busy will keep my mind occupied and stop it from worrying. I think that 'calm and patient' is probably beyond me at the moment, so 'keeping busy' is the next best thing, hence the new graphic on the header. 

 And to remind myself that I am familiar with the way life works, and that my life's pathway will get better even if for the moment it seems to be hitting a pot hole. 

Bye for now, 

Vx

-  

Catching up......

So I have come back from shopping. It is Saturday.

Last Monday I had a trip out in Bluebell. It was a solo trip, the first time on the road for longer than ten minutes driving our new car. A town called Whitchurch was where I was heading. It was an easy drive, I knew the route, and it was early so no 'speed merchant' drivers had got up yet.

Drive done, parked up. Now into town, first to a shop which I had espied when on a recent trip with my OH, and which I had thought might sell some large ladies garments which I am sore in need of because most of my clothes are still in France. They did, and I was very enthused about purchasing some items to supplement my wardrobe, but it was when the lady showing me the items which 'I might like to possibly buy', and that included some special support tights, some granny-type underwear, some older-folk crimplene type cardigans, and some thick, ever- so-sensible trousers, that I became without enthusiasm and realised that people assess you by how you present yourself. And it came to me that I needed to redesign myself, that my 'anything goes' French farm look was going to make me look old, and although I am over seventy I am not willing to feel ancient just yet.

With these thoughts in mind, off to the bank I went to change the address on my bank account. Then off to a charity  shop to  buy some bowls and plates to supplement the 2 plates, 2 bowls, and three mugs which I brought with me from France. No masks in the shops were worn, but social distancing was maintained. And I noticed that the town was quite merry, with a good atmosphere and people stopping to talk with each other, still with social distancing maintained, but it was affable.

And lo! People sitting outside a coffee shop, and there I took of a lovely large cup of coffee and the most delicious slice of chocolate cake. I looked at the passers-by, and noticed how relaxed they were. And I though of how this lock down has suffocated and changed people, but how they were coming through it.....I saw this in their faces, and it moved me to tears.

All in all a joyful visit to Whitchurch, although the drive home was not so good because the 'people who do road works' had blocked off all the familiar roads, and had 'thoughtfully' made diversions, which had me going round and round along unfamiliar roads like trying to follow a tangled ball of wool. And then the joy of driving down an unknown lane and suddenly finding myself in the vicinity of Stanton village, which is where we live.

Off to the hairdressers on Wednesday. Made me feel better. DIY hair cuts belong to a French country life style.........

Just come back from our local village shop, which has been my favourite place to shop since I came here, but now I shall go up to larger supermarket in Whitchurch. We now have to wear masks again, according to the 'wisdom ?' of the UK government. I felt claustrophic in that small shop environment. For some reason social distancing was forgotten, the wearing of the masks seeming to make people think that they didn't have to keep their distance anymore. I also don't like breathing in my own carbon dioxide, so I shall forego that village shop until I can shop there without a mask on.  In a larger supermarket I can lift the mask up to breath some air now and again.

Have been looking at houses for sale, and found one which we liked, but was thwarted by news from our bank that we have to be resident in the UK for 6 months before they will enter into a transaction with us. Ah well, that house was not meant to be, and if it was then it will still be up for sale when our six months are up, which isn't long because we have done two months already. But for each day I am in the cottage I am becoming more and more at home in it. I think it has been a good transition place for us, and the wrench  of leaving our French farm is daily getting less and less, so I am glad that we are not moving on too soon. Leaving France was the most difficult move I have ever had to do, and has cost me a lot of anguish. When the time comes to leave the cottage then that anguish will hopefully be behind me. As I say, the cottage has been a good place of transition for both of us, and I feel blessed that it came into our lives. Now all I have to do is keep adjusting to this new chapter in our lives, although I don't think that new chapter will begin properly until we move on from the cottage. As I say, I am in no hurry.

I have new boots! So I have started my walks round the village, day one being yesterday. My new mobile phone, which was supposed to be also for taking photos for the blog, is not working. It was, but now is not, because BT (the phone company) fiddled about with it from afar and now it doesn't, and hasn't been for over three weeks despite daily calls to the BT engineers from my OH. Something to do with Covid and the lock down, which seems to be a good excuse for inefficiency. We can't exchange our French driving licenses to British ones, which are shortly going to be out of date, because no one is answering our emails our phone calls from  DVLA (driving license people), because of Covid lockdown apparently. I can't contact the Government tax office ( for national insurance (health), pension, and tax) because of Covid lock down......and so on. Not to worry, I have new boots, and sooner or later all those organisations which have become even more less efficient than what they were before Covid, will come and find us. I have new boots!

 I have gone on a bit, so thank you for staying with me. I sort of needed to talk myself out, and this I have now done! So, thank you.

Bye for now,
Vx

An Urge brings Blusbell

It was 5 o'clock yesterday morning, and I was woken up by An Urge. I often have Urges, when I am led by an instinct to do some task which has no prior thought or plan. An Urge arrives as its own self, so no Saturday morning lie in for me as as The Urge said "Go look at cars for sale on the Internet" ...and thus it was that an adventure was born.

We need to change our French van to an English car because it has a left hand drive and English cars have a right hand drive, and there is an urgency to this change because the MOT will be non valid in August and to renew it we shall had to take the van back to France to have it done. We love our van. It has served us well both as our farm car and then on our journey up to England, we are sad to see it come to its end in our lives.

We have decided on a Citroen Berlingo, because it has room for Maz in the back of it. It is a boxy looking car, rather like a van but with windows all the way round it, which is a relief because our Renault van has dreadful visibility. This is Lester's project, and he has spent many happy hours searching for a Citroen Berlingo on the Internet. So why, now, did I an urge come upon me to do a search myself....... anyway when An Urge arrives it is best to obey it otherwise it will stay on my mind until it is satisfied, and I found a Citroen at a 35 mile radius, thought that would satisfy the urge, went on to do other more interesting things relevant to myself as a woman, time to wake Lester up, said that there was a Citroen Berlingo quite close by, he sprang out of bed (which he never does), asked where the car was, "somewhere in Cheshire (which is north of Shropshire )" I said,  he looked at the car on the internet, said it looked alright, by which time I had gone right off the car as I had seen where it was on the map and it was in Stoke on Trent which meant town driving which meant lots of navigating and possible disaster as wrong turnings were inevitable taken, but Lester was now being governed by his own urge and that was to work out a route to go see the car, by which time I was thoroughly off the idea.

Then into my head came the words " Confront your fears". Over and over it kept coming. Now I have other Projects which I thought these words were relevant to, so I pondered on which of these Projects they were applicable to while we started driving. Lovely countryside ....... but near to the towns lots of navigating of roundabouts,  queueing at loads  of traffic lights, and the general mayhem of Saturday morning shoppers all out in their cars. Quelle horreurs, not a place for us.

"Park by the church" had been the instruction from the garage man, so did as instructed. Walking along the path to the garage. Out front was the car. It was duck egg blue, but it was the number plate that had me transfixed, it being ' PE55 FVM ' . 'VM' being my first and second names of 'Vera May', the '55' being the numbers of three houses in succession all of which carried the number '55', and 'PE' and 'F' being given to me but which I am too embarassed to say, just that they are relevant to my spiritual pathway.

Into the garage man's office, Lester not looking too sure about the car, me knowing that it was the one because of the number plate signpost, onward with the sale....... and the garage man was a gentleman, did all the insurances, road tax, etc, ....I listened with half an ear, but "You can take the car now" was being said, and me saying " Are you going to take the Citroen to Shropshire for us while we follow you in our car", "No" the garage man and Lester said in unison, "You are"..........

And thus it was that Lester was sitting in the Citroen, I was sitting in our van, and I was supposed to be to follow Lester through all that chaos of Saturday morning traffic, ....... so what would you do if you were me, and this was going to be a sticky experience and one which might end in disaster.... well, all you can do is put a prayer upwards to the Universe (God) for save travel to you, Lester, and anyone else who might come your way on the road on the road. You then visualize a ribbon of road ahead, and bless it. You then take hold of yourself and remember the morning message of "Take hold of your fears" which must have surely been meant for this experience, and to see it as another of your adventures in life, and be brave. 

Lester pulled out onto the road, and I followed. I never name cars, but 'Bluebell' came to me as her name. I don't want to make an drama out of this, but.........
- having to hurry to make sure that I got through the traffic lights which were at green for Lester but might be at red by the time I got to them. There were a several times when I went through the lights when they were just about to turn red.
- to follow him on roundabouts I had to push in to the traffic flow when I shouldn't have, but I had to keep him in my sights. I must admit to having to raise my hand in apology to several drivers, and sent a blessing out to them hoping that I did not cause them an irritation.
- and going round and round a very busy roundabout because Lester could not find the right turning off, with him switching lanes hither and thither, with me doing the same as per his signals. It was manic.
- of having to pull out onto a very busy slipway to keep up with Lester, and really, really, having to be very apologetic to the driver who had to be inconvenienced big time. A huge blessing to that driver.
- of going down a steep hill in a huge snarl up of traffic because temporary traffic lights were in place,  and it was now the afternoon so the boy racers seemed to be out and about weaving in and out of the traffic. Then having to go back up the hill again as Lester took a wrong turning. Then having to come back down the hill again as he realised he hadn't.
- and then the long lane which had speed bumps every few yards, which had the van jolting from side to side, and me starting to feel sick. By now I wanted the loo, needed a coffee, and was generally not wanting to be doing this adventure any more. But the message on that number plate kept me going, as did the name 'Bluebell'. She didn't seem like a car, she seemed more like a friend.

And then the joy of less busy roads, and the town traffic now behind us. Home. With Lester saying that he felt silly driving a duck egg blue car, and that he thought that it was not a manly colour, and me pointing out the number plate signpost and that she was called Bluebell, that it was the morning urge with found her, and that she was meant to come home with us. Bless him, he copes well with me.

No  other driver was harmed by my efforts to keep up with Lester and Bluebell, and neither did Lester and Bluebell receive a bump to their rear when I had to race to catch up when the traffic lights changing from green to red, or when Lester had to brake sharply when he didn't notice a speed bump in the road.

Signposts, Urges, all these are useful for giving me direction in life. They can also be called 'intuition', and if listened to can produce marvellous experiences some of which can sometimes stretch me beyond what I think is my limit..... 

Will do some photos when I find out how to use my camera phone. My other photographic equipment is still in France.

So bye for now, hope you have a happy Sunday....

Vx

Only as old as you feel.......

The Cottage....... it is small, as is the manner of most cottages. It is not an ancient cottage, but nevertheless quite old, and built for long ago people who were much smaller in stature than us folk of today, and therein lies a difficulty with certain parts of the house.

We have stairs in the cottage. I haven't 'done' stairs for thirteen years, because the French farmhouse we were renovating remained unrenovated upstairs because the downstairs was big enough to live in. A loo, of course, was the first thing we included in the renovation. But over the years my legs forgot that they could climb stairs, and became lazy.

The loo is upstairs in the cottage.  We don't have a handy downstairs loo, for when things are of an urgent nature. Instead we have to climb quite steep stairs, therefore we can't linger until the last moment but must be alert to the warning signals of an imminent 'call of nature'.

So......what would you do if you were me, and your legs have become lazy?

Well, you could always get a porta potty and put it in the downstairs larder, but it is quite a small space, and the brooms and boots underfoot, and the coats hanging over head, would make it impossible to be comfortable.
Or you could see the stairs as a challenge, and put it to your legs that this is something which will benefit them, even if at first they don't agree, after all it is easier to be lazy is it not?

The good thing is that the stairs have two hand rails, one each side of the staircase, therefore the arms can also be put into use, which is a good thing as the upper arms in particular also need to be pulled out of their laziness and put to useful purpose. 

My legs, my arms, and myself, were not much of a team in the beginning, and if had not been for the need of that loo I would have probably let the Stair Project be put on hold until my next lifetime came around. It was the call of that loo, and even the urgency when I had dallied too long downstairs that kept me engaged with the Stair Project.

Four weeks on and today I have just managed to go up those stairs with a good stride, and no need to hold on to the banisters, and with not much heavy breathing.  Coming down, I still hold on because of the steepness of the stairs but my legs feel more secure in themselves.

Hooray! I'm on the move again! Now the next Project is getting me walking again. I have just had a look at the 'Shropshire's Great Outdoors'  and the 'Ordnance Survey Maps' websites and I have been filled with an enthusiasm to get some walking boots and 'let's go do'........ France doesn't have footpath trails, and they were the first things I missed when I arrived at the farm.

But I wouldn't be able to do much mileage on my legs as they are at the moment, but I can do a 'round the village' circuit, although I do have to stop now and again when my body complains. I have only just started the 'Walk the Village Project' because I needed the Stair Project to get my legs moving again. I also have another project on the go, which is getting up and down off the floor, but that is for another day.

France was a lovely place to live in, and the experience of living a farm life for a while was the best ever, but after the 2017 health blip I had I seemed to not have recovered as much as I should have. It would seem that changing my life direction has woken me up to the fact that you are as old as you feel, no matter how old you actually are.

Bye for now,
Vx

Off we go........

And so it came to be the evening of the day It had been hot, so hot that we had been reduced to bundles of sweaty tiredness and a grumpiness of temper which we were trying hard to ignore......jousting spouses squashed up in the confines of a little white van loaded up with computer equipment, bedding, a change of clothing, sundry other items, and a dog, would  not bode well for a happy travelling experience as we navigated our way out of France. The miles were waiting to be travelled.

From SW France to the West Midlands of England via the Channel Tunnel, that was the plan according to the route I had copied from the Internet. It seemed like a good plan, very straight forward, staying on the tolled motorways which would hopefully have services which might be open, it still being the time of the Covid lock down so  we didn't know what to expect. Would there be fuel? What about toilets? Would we be prevented from travelling by the French police? Would our travel papers be acceptable? Would we be turned back and prevented from leaving France at all? So many stories abounded, so many worries nestled in our minds.

We were done with the house. Everything was packed in boxes and stacked neatly in the Half Barn because no removal company could take it to the UK because of the Covid lock down, so it had to stay.  Time to lock up, and go. Too tired to think about anything other than the long drive ahead, we were more relieved than sad as we drove out of the courtyard and locked the gates behind us.

Twenty seven hours of driving were ahead of us. Why so long? Well......
- there was Maz to consider. She had to stretch her legs and do her toilets, so we stopped every two hours or so.
- then there was me......so exhausted by the heat of the day and the effort of it all, I kept getting faint and sick, but not dreadfully so, just enough to need to get out of the car fairly frequently for some fresh air.
- and then there was the route planning which I had downloaded from the Michelin web site. Almost as soon as we were on the motorway it proved useless. We thought we knew the route from when we first travelled to France, but everything had changed and new junctions had been made, and we ended up taking a detour which cost us time and miles. Not to worry, thank goodness that all the services were open so Lester bought a map book and we found the route again. We don't 'do' SatNav. We like to see the route on paper because it's in our control and we know where we are. I don't trust voices coming to me from out of a box on the dashboard.
- and our little van is not a speed machine, so everyone over took us, and that included big monster trucks of which there were many.

Hooray! And finally the Channel Tunnel. What a relief! We were out of France. No one had stopped us along the way to say that we did not have the right travel papers, and even at the French part of the border crossing the Frenchman in the booth only cast a cursory glance at our passports and then threw them back at me, as if to say 'we don't want you English here anyway'.

Sitting in our van, loaded on the train. It was mid afternoon of the following day.  Then through into  daylight and we were in England, but we did not feel 'Oh we were home'. At no time through this process of transition did we feel that we were 'going back' to what we knew before we went to France, it was always that we were 'going forward' into new experiences. new challenges. This is what you have to do if you are going to be a Life Traveller,..... which is someone who does not necessarily travel to far distant places on this planet, but someone who travels through the days of their life embracing and accepting  whatever challenges life brings to them, with a hopeful optimism that everything will come out alright in the end, even if there are a few tears,  grumbles and tempers  along the way.

Managing the UK motorways was a doddle. We were familiar with them, at least up until the end of the M40. But then there was the Birmingham area to get through. We bought another map book. It was getting late. We plunged into the tangle of  junctions, an error of judgement kept us on the wrong road, but then that road suddenly magicked into the right road, and hooray.....we were on to Telford, and then to Shrewsbury, and then  round and round a big roundabout we went as we searched for the right exit but couldn't find it, so we headed off into the Shropshire countryside hoping that somehow our destination would appear in front of us. It did eventually. 

We would have preferred to stay in a hotel but the Covid lock down had shut them all, so we slept in the van. It was nearly midnight, twenty seven hours after we left SW France.

And in the morning, a cheery young lady, pristine and blonde, arrived at the cottage and gave us the keys to our new, but temporary, home. It did not disappoint. The cottage is a black and white traditional English cottage, with hanging baskets, and an English flower garden surrounding it. And it is set in a picture perfect English country village, which also has it's own typical English village pub just a few steps away, which opens again next weekend after being closed because of the lock down.

We feel very blessed.

Bye for now,
Vx   

Coping with fear......

It has come to my notice that the font of this blog is quite small. I do not have time to change this at the moment but will do so when time permits. 

Vx

I have tried to write a blog for many weeks but my writing muse seems to have left me and I am left with grumbles and 'are we doing the right thing or not in leaving France' type of thinking, which I would not like to inflict on you because you have troubles of your own. In this blog I have always tried to leave you with a smidgeon of jollity, of hope for the future, of a 'not to worry, everything will come out alright eventually' way of thinking.

Unfortunately all this has deserted me during the last few weeks. Lock down has been a blessing, though, because we have had time to review our need to leave the farm and found it the right way forward for many reasons.
 - the French system, which is so difficult for small farmers, full of legislation and all written in French!
 - the heat. It is hot and humid here and my health does not like it. Neither is trying to grow your own veg.
 - we have to support our farming lifestyle by having an income. The French authorities breathe heavily upon us for wanting to do that. I was self employed in England and hoped to carry on doing the same here, but was unable to. My OH therefore had to support us, but then Brexit happened and rules changed. Fortunately he was given an option that if we moved to England again then he could maintain his current position with his employer. He was working online here, which gave him time to work on the farm as well.

Unfortunately the demands of his online work started sweeping aside the time he could spend on the farm. He was successful with his work, (he is a computer boffin!) and as time went on the farm began to suffer.
I, meanwhile, tried to carry on the running of the farm, but I had a problem with my health which came about by having heat stroke and not knowing I had it, culminating in a middle of the night evacuation into the local hospital when all my internal systems failed. Not to worry, I have recovered but not quite, and the vagaries of the SW region of France's fluctuating weather temperatures does not help.

The lock down has served a purpose as it has given us time to think about whether or not we carry on here. I went to the local supermarket a few days ago. It was my third time of going shopping since the lock down. And I found a fear in me about going out, leaving the farm, of going into a situation which may or may not give me the virus. This was not good. The fear was so great that I almost turned back as I waited in the social distancing line to go into the supermarket.

I took hold. I had gave myself a talking to.....it went something like this: If you are going to catch the virus then you will. Or you might not. To live in fear is not a good thing for it will diminish the quality of your life. You have recovered from strokes and heat stroke collapse without any invention from the medical authorities (apart from hospital experiences which were not under my control), by self administering your recovery. I learnt to turn towards the Universe to fix me. Therefore, should the virus come my way then the Universe will fix me again, or else I shall pass over and it would be my time to leave this Earth. I have already had three practice 'passing over's ' and it is wonderful experience to have once you embrace it.

So when I went into the supermarket I smiled at the young man who was gelling my hands and disinfecting the handles of the trolley, and I continued with good humour around the shop. I am not saying that the fear of being out in public had entirely evaporated, but it was much lessened by me taking hold of the fear.

All in all, we need to move, and soon. The contract with my OH's employer will hopefully still be waiting for us in England, but with the economic climate likely going into free fall for a while because of the result of the virus, then he may or may not have a job to go to. Not to worry, as my OH says, we go where the dice will fall.  We shall be out and about in public again. We may or may not get the virus. If we do we do, if we don't then we won't. To be afraid is not an option.

As always, I seem to have thought myself through by writing this blog....... so stay safe but do not let the quality of your life become diminished by fear. Do what you need to do, and live your life.

Bye for now,
Vx

DAY 8, and the bumblers.......

A loud buzzing sounded behind us. Oh drat! Must be a fly, and a big one at that judging by the bigness of the buzz. A bit early in the year for flies though, but then it has been another mild and wet winter, and whenever we have had a drop of sunshine and gone outside to enjoy the warmth there has always been insects flying about, including midges and even bumble bees.

So Lester does a mini moan. His head has been engaged with heavy coding on his computer. I regard him as a boffin type of person, someone who goes deep into his mind to produce the reams of code which sits behind what you see on the computer screen. Interruptions are not good, particularly anything which buzzes. He goes into hunter mode, grabs the fly swot which is always kept on hand, and goes on the hunt.

He is now in the far end of the Half Barn. I hear him start moving a desk upon which is a stack of fabric waiting to be packed, for are we not in the middle of moving house from France to England........ and is not the area of the barn in which L is now moving things about the area in which there are several already packed boxes, although I have not sealed them yet because we do not know if, and when, we shall make the move.

Lock down you see. Day 8. No movement allowed on the roads. Police making frequent checks. Can go to supermarket, get medicines, walk dog but only within a 1 km radius of the home, and can only be out for an hour. Six months in prison and a huge fine threatened if you flout this rule three times in a month. We have to fill a form in to go outside the door to say who we are, where we are going, what time we left the house, and the date. It is for our own good, which we appreciate.


I hear L move the desk again.
"What are you doing!" I ask. I am in the middle of writing, which also requires me to be deep in my head, similar to how L is when he is coding.
"It's a bumble bee" he says.
My concentration is now broken, so I go to investigate.
"Where's the ladder", L says.
"You sold it" I said, watching as he starts to move the desk again, alarmed that he is shifting piles of things waiting to be packed, which could turn into untidy heaps quite easily.

He then tells me to go away. He says that he is going to move the desk underneath the velux window in the ceiling, and can I get a container with a lid, and get a move on as the bumble bee is flying dangerously close to the spider's web which should have been removed ages ago but hasn't, so is now a super duper web into which a bumble bee might get trapped. He says he is going to stand on the desk to reach the bumble bee, but even then he will be at full stretch.

I go into motherly mode, and tell him not to stand on the desk, for fear that he might take a tumble and render himself senseless. He asks where the ladder is again. I tell him again that he has sold it in preparation for the move. He tells me to go away again because I am fussing. I go.

The bumble bee is saved. I give L a hug for his heroism.

The next day, about the same time, and another buzzing sound starts up, and it is another bumble bee, flying in the same spot as the previous bumbler. And the next day the same. For five more days did bumble bees appear in the same area. All were saved.

For some reason, and by some miracle of nature, those bumble bees must have over wintered with us, the same as the owl in the barn has been doing. It is nice to know that we are useful to the lives of other beings which are not of human form and reminds us that we are part of the global life force.

Bye for now, and hope you are staying well wherever in the world you are.

Love and blessings,

Vx

My singing nose....

My nose sometimes sings to me, but only when I am lying down and dozing, sometimes even deeply asleep. And it insists that it is paid attention to, refusing to be ignored.

But it is not words that my nose sings, but sounds which are like squeals and squeaks, which are surprisingly tuneful and not at all irritating. It is the listening to this nose-song which wakes me up because I simply have to listen to the sound because it is so fascinating.

The sounds are not on the same note, but are varied in range and tone and only ever come on the 'out breath', never on the 'in breath'. Rarely do both sides of the nose sing at the same time, normally only one.It would seem that my nose has made its own vocal chords.

I do not know if others would be able to hear my nose singing. I am not sure that they would want to. So my nose sings for me only.

I have not investigated on the internet if others have such noses, and if they have, then if they find it an irritation. For me, it is not.

10 minutes later 

On sharing the making of our morning toast, I had cause to mention to my partner that my nose did sing, and I asked him if he had ever heard it. Not expecting him to say that he had, I was surprised when he turned to me, gave me an unexpected hug, said that he had and that is why he sometimes went and slept on the settee.

Oh!

So I asked him what my nose song sounded like.
"Snoring" he said.
But I said that it wasn't snoring, and he said that the sound was not like the open mouthed type of snoring which apparently I have also been known to do, but it was a sort of shishing sound.

Oh!

It would seem that in my head I hear the various tones which make up the song, but to someone else it just sounds like a shishing snore.

Oh well. I shall await more investigation into the full range of my nose singing. It is always different, never monotonous, and really quite tuneful.

*******

Into the fourth day of the lock down here in France. We are not allowed to travel without a written form about where we live, where we are going, and why we are going there. Plus we have to have some form of identification. There are police checks everywhere to make sure we have these, with fines if we don't. They will also turn you back if they think you are driving too far away from where you live, or if they think you should be shopping at a supermarket closer to your home.

Most everywhere is closed, apart from the supermarkets, some of which seem to have fully stocked shelves, others are emptier. Most are allowing only two items of one particular product, and some are allowing over seventies to shop from 8.30 am to 9.30am. I am in that age range but do not feel ancient enough in myself to take advantage of that offer. 

We are in rural France, which I think is the best place to wait for things to settle down. As with everyone else in the world, we do not know how long this will take, so to shut down the worry because that will not do you or anyone else any good, and to stay busy with doing things which give you ease of mind. 

Bye for now,

Vx

So what do you do......

So what do you do if all of your smallholding equipment is sold, the same equipment which you used during recent years to provide yourself and your partner with food for the larder? The years when you were virtually self sufficient.

- when the large chest freezer full of DIY meat to feed us for the coming year was given away because you thought you would be soon to be changing countries, and to take it with you was unrealistic because the temporary home you hope to stay in for a while is about the size of a rabbit hutch with a pocket handkerchief garden, it being an English country cottage so nowhere near the size of the home you currently have, this being a French country cottage with an attached acreage of 5.5 hectares, the cottage itself being far greater in size than its UK equivalent.

- when the work contract in the UK which facilitated the move starts on April 1st......when the French business account has been closed down in readiness for the move, ..... when the French bank is getting itchy about keeping our bank account open because we have told them we are leaving France.....

- when our UK bank will not allow us to access our UK bank account because we are in post Brexit and financial borders are closing, so the bank wants us to give them a UK contact phone number, which we do not have because we are still in France. We have to be in the UK to have that phone number.

- and then there is the lock down happening as I write this blog. I find it ironic that for most of the twelve years we have been in France I have had a larder big enough to support us for several months, most of the food being produced by ourselves. This has given us a sense of security, that no matter what the social or economic situation is out in the world beyond our farm, that we shall not go hungry.

- So what do you do if plans have been put into place, which you are half way through fulfilling and which were rolling along at a cracking pace, and which were going to take you and your partner from here to there in one seamless effort, what do you do when things are locking down making that 'seamless effort' suddenly not do-able. What do you do?

- Well, if you were me, you would carry on with packing in the hope that things would right themselves, meanwhile not minding that you do not really know if things are going to turn around on their heads and you might have to eventually unpack and start growing our own food again, but minus the meat because the sheep and the chickens all have new owners. Also minus the tractors and other smallholding equipment because they also have new owners. I do not even have any flower pots to grow seeds in. Not to worry, I can always use some margarine and yoghurt pots.

- As I say, if you were me, what would you do. I would look at my stash of wool and start a fresh project, that is what I would do. I would also consider unpacking my sewing machine and fiddling about with making something from my fabric stash. In a nutshell, I would do something which keeps my head from dwelling too much on our somewhat precarious position. Stay here in France without any employment (thank you Brexit!) or go to the UK within the next two weeks to maintain my partner's current work contract. But there is lock down starting to happen. So, all in all, what happens is entirely beyond our control!

- But I have some lovely red wool which I have just found a pattern for on Ravelry, and I am also of a mind to have a rummage through my fabric stash. One thing is for sure, though, and that is when we do eventually buy our home again it will have to have enough land for me to grow our own food again, and for there to be a sizeable larder space for storing that food.

When times are not going quite as you expect them to, then do something else while you wait for those times to sort themselves out. And to think calm thoughts about everything turning out alright just before you go to sleep, because not to put positive thoughts into your head at that time will result in some not very nice dreams of possible nightmarish content during the night.

Ah well, .....now which box did I put my crochet hooks in....... it's a good job I wrote a list on the side of the boxes about what was inside them!

Meanwhile, wishing you well, .......

Vx




-


-

Change comes knocking!

Ticking along, that is what we were doing....

And then come the day when Change came knocking, so for a while we shall be in a transitional stage while Change re-positions us. Then Change will evaporate away and we shall then start ticking along again. 

I shall probably not have time to blog much during the coming months because Change will consume all of my time and energy, so to say that I am still here, and shall tell you all about what has happened when it has happened!

Bye for now,

In love and light

Vera x

And so,,,,,,,

And so you are going along on what you think is the pathway which will carry you onwards for many a year ahead. You think that all is well with your life, even though you are conscious that things are bugging you in the background of your mind, but you resolutely ignore them, thinking that they are not worth paying attention to, even though you feel those thoughts bickering away for most of your waking hours.

But you try meditation, which works for a while, and then you try knitting and crochet, both of which do the same. But still those background thoughts niggle away at you.

And then come one day everything changes. Within a matter of moments they change, and your life is turned around. You find yourself on a pathway which is not the same as you were on a matter of moments ago. You feel bewildered, even angry, at the particular circumstance which has ignited this change of direction, and at those niggling thoughts which have now all very much come to the fore, to be looked at one by one, and no longer ignored.

In a nutshell, all has changed.

That is all for the moment.

All is well, and I just have to believe that it will indeed be so during the coming months.

Going forward, then, on to a different pathway........

Bye for now,

Vx

The fight, the lambs, the PC........

We have lambs! All in a day they arrived. One minute no little ones, then the next a bunch of them, all tucked up in the sheep barn as if the mum's had used it as a nursery while they went off to graze in the field behind the barn.It is of our opinion that the ram must have had a very busy day a few months before when the ewes had come into season to have so many lambs arrive at once.

Or else it was the weather........ we have had a patch of sunny days when it would have been better to have had little ones, but no, the weather has turned cold and wet and it is now they arrive. Every year this happens. Good weather passes, then as soon as the weather deteriorates we have youngsters.

We counted five or six. Now the air will be full of mums talking to young and young talking to mums, with us going out frequently to see what's up. It is magical.

*****

The computer is all sorted out, and is finished with Windows 7, and all other Windows editions, forever and after. It is a relief. The Linux Manjaro operating system is easy to use, simple to look at on screen, and has saved us the £1500 it would have taken to have replaced my PC because it would not have been able to handle the stress that Windows 10 would have given it. 

Onwards then.....I still have to research Manjaro compatable software for photo and video editing, and the non fiction books I have written and self edited will have to be re-edited. Not to worry, I probably need to update the books anyway. 

I like the Linux Manjaro operating system, it is open source so therefore free, and will never have Windows tinkering with it, with its annoying upgrades which it seemed always to be doing, and which was requiring more hardware to be bought if I was to go on to Windows 10. The software for Linux is also open source, and free. 

******

I had a fight the other day. It was with the new cockerel. There I was, with a large pot of goodies for the chickens in one hand, a large ladle in the other to spoon the goodies out of the pot with, slipping and sliding on the mud to get to the undercover feeding station, all of which was requiring balance and co-ordination if I was not going to go head over heels and land up flat on my back, when I noticed cockerel boy hanging close at my side, very close he was, and his feathers were all uplifted, and I felt a frision of alarm that he might not be feeling very friendly towards me, and so I scattered some food around me, thinking that he might be diverted by it, but no, all he did was do a little hippitty hop skip and aim his beak in my direction, which I fortunately saw coming, so I did a swipe with the ladle to distract him from pecking at my legs, but the pot being quite heavy, and my balance being ruined, and the mud being very slippy, and the cockerel deciding to now go to war with me, well............

.....what could I do, but toss the pot at him, not intentionally, but in an effort to stop myself from falling over, but oh dear, now he was really into warfare mode. Big hops and jumps he was now doing......I was a distance from the exit gate.......what could a girl do, but meet him head on! Oh but the pot was now lying upended on the ground, as was my ladle, so all I had was my blue lacy scarf, which was not a weapon as such, but was all that I had, so in what I thought was a true girl-ninja fashion, I did some flicks and swirls at that cockerel, which kept him away from my person, while I edged my way slowly backwards towards the gate. 

I don't know who won. Probably the cockerel, but it was his patch, and I was wearing red socks, and a cardigan which had red splashes in it, so perhaps he thought I was a very big cockerel boy. But...... I did find myself getting into fighting mode as well. It was just as well that all I had was a scarf as a weapon!

So a bit of a long blog, but it was a catch up one. No 8am dawn photos to upload to Blogger, because I don't have a photo editor for Linux at the moment, which is my next step in the Converting my PC to Linux Project. No lamb photos either.

Bye for now,

Vx

Fabric stash, but no lambs?

This is what I have been doing........organising a seven metre length of 106 inch wide cotton fabric into two door curtains to hang in front of our front doors. The drop of the curtains is 2.25 metres. Thank goodness I have the fully extended plastic garden table to work on. I have two more sets of long curtains to make for the house, but they are patchwork so will take longer to make. These are good projects to be involved with as we go through the grey days of late January. No dawn for us this  morning, just the sun coming up with no grand entrance, as if it was saying, 'Well that's it, I'm here but don't expect anything of me today!'

*****

No lambs so far this year. Normally most of our small flock would have little ones dancing around their feet by now, but so far none have appeared. We are wondering if the ram is done with the effort of producing young, but the ewes do look fat so we still hope for some youngsters to appear. Perhaps the mild and wet weather we have been having has made their fertility cycles go out of kilter.

*****

The drive for my computer arrived today, so I might be off line for a few days. Smiling through gritted teeth! So looking forward to learning a new operating system and all the various programmes I shall need, but know it will be a steep learning curve, but excited anyway. 

*****

I need to get my partner's trolley out of the barn and practice strapping my accordion on to it. I also need to have a go at wheeling it to and fro the van, and investigate how I am to lift the whole contraption into and out of  the van, because rehearsals start soon with the choir I played music with before Christmas.  Looking forward to that. They are a jolly band of minstrels, and we have fun. I shall also see the on coming springtime as I drive across lovely countryside to get to the rehearsal venue, just as I saw the on coming winter as the countryside slowly changed colour before Christmas. 

So, bye for now, 

In love and light,

Vx

Still 'offy'

Five days since I have posted, but I was still feeling 'offy' so without any words to write.

I can't believe how time flies, although the weekend seemed long and I felt I got value from those two days because I made a list of creative things I wanted to do which seemed to give the effect of lengthening the days. It would seem that to not enjoy what I am doing seems to make the minutes of the day seem long, but the day itself seem short.

To get value out of each day it would seem that we need to find pleasure in whatevcr it is we are doing during the moments we are doing it. Be mindful is what I mean, and staying focussed on the present moment and not let my mind go galloping about all over the place. This, I think, will be a lifetime challenge for me!

8am Monday 20th January 2020

My computer is hoping to be sorted out this week. It is starting to get headaches, and tells me that is so because it keeps dawdling about doing its job. I don't know whether this is because Windows 7 is no longer being twiddled about with because Windows are no longer supporting that particular  operating system, or whether it is just fed up. Anyways, my tech husband is going to be doing things to my PC. I shall then be going into novice mode with Manjaro, and the other distros associated with it.  What is a 'distros'? Actually I don't know. It's short for 'distribution'. and is techno language, so I thought I would casually insert it......... ! 

Here is yesterday's dawn photo, taken as usual at 8am. 

It was a dark sky, which I thought was not worth taking a photo of. The previous days had been the same, but darker and with no light showing through. The moon was still up though, and can be seen just above the top of the tree on the right. The heavens are all in motion. 

Bye for now,

Vx

I am having a day off / off day

I am having an 'off' day. whereby I feel disinclined  to do anything  which resembles work, ie sitting for hours on my computer for all the day long getting files downloaded so we can get Windows off my PC. Now this is an important task because it is going to affect my future writing work, but for today......stuff it!.

But it is not to sit idle and bored, for that will only make me feel guilty about PC work, it is to give my mind something else to do, for that which is my head is all jangled up like a tangled skein of wool, so to subject myself to another day of PC work is only going to make that tangle worse. Writing does not tangle me up. Downloading and zipping up files does. Learning new things for the computer does as well. How do I know that I am getting tangled up? Because I get irritated, and my head hurts, which does not bode well for a happy and joyful atmosphere between myself and my partner. He will sense my mood, and it will make him have a reciprocal mood back.

So this 'off' day I am turning into a 'day off'. With great pleasure I am going to sort out my craft area, and to all of you who are also crafting folk, you will know what a good pastime that is to be involved with. First, there will be the 'Tidy Up' process. Unfortunately this means that the present chaos will get more chaotic as boxes will be sorted through and their contents rearranged, but gradually order will prevail, but it will be Vera's type of order, which is a happy, jumbly, type of order!

No 8am photo today. I was still in bed, and on strike. But I did manage an 08.20 photo! Beautiful!

I am off to enjoy sorting through my fabric and wool stash!

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But before I go, this is a question from 'Your Daily Questions' blog I posted on the 13th Jan. 

"What are you most grateful for in your life right now"

I spent a few moments pondering deeply this question, and this came surprisingly to mind: that I haven't fallen into the atrophy of old age, and that because of my mind set I hope I never will, that I am grateful for being who I am, even though I do understand that I have a complex nature.

Crikey, putting that question to myself most certainly brought out a surprising response to myself. 

So how would you answer that question to yourself?

Bye for now,

Vx

'Your Daily Questions'.......

8.10 am. Monday 13th January 2020

Moon going down

Sun coming up!

I am working through all the files on my computer prior to having my computer stripped of its Windows operating system, and came  across  this particular file, which I thought I would share with you. 

I hope the words are clear enough for you to read.

As 2020 is going to be a 'full on' year for me, I am going to put this into my work folder, so that I look at them before I start work each day. I think they will help keep me focussed. 

Bye for now,

Vx

Just five minutes

8am, Saturday 11th January 2020

Another lovely early dawn. Looks like a torch is being shone behind the clouds. I stood and watched the sky for a while, and saw how the light changed minute by minute, and thought how people chase amusement, and then wondered why they can't be patient and look at what is around them. We are all the same. Too much going on around us, that's the trouble. Too many distractions, which eventually makes us ill of mind and body. 

Not to worry, allow time to stop each day, be appreciative of all that is around you, all that you have, and you will be surprised at how much better you will feel in mind, body, and soul.

Just five minutes, that is all it takes. 

Vx