One week in...

As the eskimos have many words for snow I am guessing the Bretons have quite afew for rain! So water will not be an issue for us although I can see I shall need to install guttering if I want to catch some for the gardens etc.
One of the first things I notice is the complete absence of fencing, herds of cattle are held by a single strand of hot wire, as to how this works in a power cut (I guess we shall find out)… Lovely to see the hedgerows, banks of earth with alsorts of trees, shrubs, plants etc. Great habitat for the wildlife and a windbreak for each field not to mention the asethics, makes a pleasant change from endless lines of 8 wire…

Thursday Heleen set off to Paris in the old landrover we have inherited with the farm, (it's about 600km from here) to pick up Scooter, Marley, Thomas and Toby from the airport. I shall leave her to tell the tale but when she did not arrive by dark on Friday evening I guessed all was not well, unbeknown to me she was sitting on the side of the motorway in a dead landrover waiting for a tow truck, her journey home took about 10 hours…
However, the good news is that the dogs and cats are alive and well after their many hours in small boxes…Scooter and Marley have acres to race around and many new smells, suffice to say after days of confinement they are in heaven…

Yesterday I had the first insight into 'newcomer' status when I had a load of mulch delivered. Where Karen (the old owner) would have been charged 50 Euros I was charged 80! By all accounts this is partly due to the lack of beers I have bought the chap in the local bar… This and my embarrasing lack of French I suspect, although I am enrolled in a weekly class starting soon as I feels awfully ignorant not to be able to speak the language.

Just had another piece of luck, a chap from the UK is heading home and has sold us his car for an absolute bargain cars are very expensive here and so people often go to the UK and bring them back). So we are the prod owners f a Volvo V40..it is a bit flash for us but at 2000 pound I am very happy. This plus a lovely old Fendt tractor coming our way soon it does feel that thngs are falling into place…

On the whole the people we meet are really helpful, there are quite afew established expats here who seem pretty interesting and the locals in the shops, bank etc. have been great…

Got to get my head around the diferent plants, seasons etc. with spring on it's way I have lots of work ahead..digging old beds, taking up alot of black plastic and replacing with mulch…I will post some pictures of before and after. Already in the swing with the chickens, currently there are 40 that have free range of a portion of a field, laying around 20 eggs a day in this weather seems pretty good. They are fed organic grain and with the land spray free since 1993 they live the good life. I will look at having a separate section for breeding our own layers and if I can work the market (with me complete lack of French!) perhaps build up the flock…

As to what to do with the remaining 40 acres!! that is for us to find out… with no TV and wine at 2 Euro a bottle I feel we shall have many evenings to sit around and dream up sme ideas...