Category Archives: France

Dog training on a sunny day in Plymouth

France

Hello Dear Reader,

We’d forgotten the dog crates we already had. It’s a funny thing to forget about. Two of our rescue dogs came with crates that we dismantled and stored away. The bigger crate housed the Bichons and the Maltese went into the smaller crate. They came out and had a good clean and popped them in the back of the car and headed to Plymouth. We purposefully used the Torpoint car ferry so we’d be delayed and would need to queue. As I anticipated, each time we stopped the dogs got anxious and moaned and each time we ignored them as we won’t be there when they are on the car deck on the ferry. We’re also going to start leaving them in their crates at night so a five or six hour ferry crossing won’t seem that bad.

We had a lovely sunny walk around Plymouth Hoe purposefully lingering near crowds, other dogs, noise so the hectic ferry with hundreds of cars just isn’t that bad. We hope to go out for coffee in France and take the dogs everywhere we go. We stopped at Captain Jaspers for a coffee (cheapest place I know at £1 a mug) which is a well known biker hangout and the dogs just laid down on the floor totally unbothered by chrome, smoke and noise.

Don’t be deceived by the sunshine in the photo as it was bitterly cold and that coffee, bikers and all, was greatly appreciated.

Well done doggies, you did us proud.

Added later - Blogger problems - it seemed on those with google accounts could comment, I’ve disabled that and any can comment although I moderate comments. I hope it’s working now. Feel free to comment and you should be able to do so whether you have a google account or not. Thanks

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Trying to spend as little as possible!

France

Hello Dear Reader,
If you’ve ever stayed in a rental property you’ll know that the lack of kitchen utensils is a real annoyance. The more time I have the more I enjoy pottering about in the kitchen and cooking so I need just such items for our French kitchen. By the way, anyone reading who lives in France who can tell me if there’s a French version of everything costs a pound, or in their case a euro. Household items seem to be quite expensive there so I shall pack up at least the basics that we need to start off a ‘home’.
I only have a tiny kitchen here so I don’t have a spare anything and I’m building up a supply of ‘necessaries’ as and when I have the spare cash. We’ve started to pack to ‘move’ already and most of that will come from paring down everyday items from here. I’m mindful of spending no more than we need but I’m also aware that I have a flat and a house to furnish and fit out to a good enough standard that family and friends can stay in and who knows, you might even come and stay one day or drop in when you’re passing.
We start ‘journey training’ our dogs tomorrow with their first trip in their crates in the back of the car. Normally, they just sit on the back seat but we’re going to have them in crates every time we take them on the ferry. We’ll just have an hour long jouney tomorrow but build up to them spending longer in their travel crates over the next few weeks. If you’ve travelled any distance with a dog or dogs in your car, I’d appreciate any tips or hints please.
We’ve at long last had some dry weather which has meant we’ve got out for longer walks, split some logs and chopped down some kindling to start the fire. Laundry has gone outside and the windows were left open for a few hours to blow away the winter funk.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxx

Laying down a fine vintage

France, wood heating
Hello Dear Reader,
It’s been a day of preparation. I’ve cooked for the week ahead of three pots of veggie stew for my lunch, bacon and cheese quiche, flapjacks for lunch boxes, beef casserole and a pork casserole. All very simple or dull as is your opinion but it’s cooked and in the fridge or freezer and ready to be eaten.
The laundry is done and as it hasn’t stopped raining since October, it’s all dried in front of the wood stove. Which brings me to thinking of investing in wood. I was reading Sue’s blog over at Our new life in the country where she and her husband have plans to manage their own woodland to be sustainable for the future. More and more people are choosing to heat and cook with wood. If any of you have concerns about smoke and dust emissions most stoves are ‘smokeless’ with a double burn system where the wood burns and the wood gases burn as well. It means that the glass door doesn’t soot up and there’s barely any soot in the chimney when it’s swept.
We’ve bought wood in France……a lot of wood. It’s much cheaper there so we’ve bought five cubic metres of split beech and oak. It’ll be in our garden when we get there. We found our supplier through leboncoin which is a for sale website similar to freeads. Plenty of people make their entire living from wood and most homes there heat with wood as there’s no gas other than bottled gas. Below is one of the wood supplier’s sheds. Often, farmers do this as part of their job as they manage their own woodland.

I’m talking wood again as we’ve had a big heart to heart about France. We had hoped to get loads done this year but we’ve had a reality check of our capabilities and personal strengths. DB is great at the essentials and I’m great at making a house a home. However, we are determined to work within a tight budget which means we have to be patient. The house is bought and paid for, it’s watertight and secure and we’ve got safe electrics. What we don’t have or want is a money pit. We’d had plans to build pathes (which actually means moving ten tonnes of sand and gravel by wheel barrow just to build the patio) build walls indoors and paint the house externally. All those things can wait.
Once we’d decided that, we felt a whole lot better, especially financially. It’ll give us time to save up again and do the work next year.
And breathe……….
So, a good vintage? Like our wood that we’ve bought for the long term, the house is going to be a long term project. We could break into savings but I just don’t want us to be in an awkward financial position.
And when we get there, we’ll be warm and toasty.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxxx

Always do your research and get advice

France

Hello Dear Reader,

Just in case you’re reading for the first time today, I thought I’d explain the ‘Froogs has a house in France’ thing. We’re both 50 and it’s a milestone age that really had us thinking about retirement. We both want to retire at 60, whether we do or not will be affected by life and the economy at the time when we get there. The plan is to retire then and we needed to find a way to do it. We’ve been holidaying in France for years, not as long as some and longer than others and in that time, I’ve looked at houses there purely out of interest. We often thought what if……..

The catalyst for the house purchase came when we inherited some money. It was a lot to us and we wanted to do something life changing with it. Initially, we just thought of buying a mobile home in France and renting that out when we were not there. The site fees put us off and the fact that a mobile home would need replacing after ten years so that idea was shelved.

(Disclaimer - sorry but here’s some extra information as well, in case you didn’t already know - our UK mortgage is almost paid off, we are paying extra into that each month so it’s paid off early. We aim to rent out our UK house when we retire, hopefully at 60, to add to our pensions. We can retire before 68 because our industry pensions can be taken early and at a reduced rate. That is the current ruling however we are well aware that could change. We will review our financial situation as time progresses and nothing in a financially uncertain world can be guaranteed. The retire to France is because we love the place, it’s cheaper to live there than here and our house here will give us a retirement income.)

Our search, which was always only ever in Brittany, was always a financial search up to our highest amount. It was also at a time when there were more houses than people in the area we wanted to buy in. French people prefer new, warm, cheap to run houses and often the older houses sit on the market for years on end. You can and we did find a house for less than a deposit on a house here. We knew the area but that’s the end we then did the research into the legalities and costs of how to buy a house in France.

Inside Jenny’s house in the early stages of renovation. They are far braver than us. We didn’t have the courage to buy a house that needed that much renovation. Ours has a derelict garden but the house is sound. John and Jenny’s blog tells the warts and all story of the house renovation and they do all the work themselves.


As a blogger, I read lots of other blogs and love John and Jenny’s blog where they were renovating a derelict house in Brittany, funnily enough in Huelgoat which is exactly where we’ve bought a house. Through reading her blog, I felt as if I knew the area well. I have other friends living nearby and when I actually arrived to visit, it was as if I knew the place.



I used plenty of research and Jenny’s blog and kindle book. One set of research led to further research and when and only when I felt I was in full receipt of all the information I could, then and only then did we proceed with the purchase. I wanted to use this post to thank Jenny whose blog was a great source of guidance and whose book was a really cheap way of getting Brittany specific information.

Here’s the link to Jenny’s blog - http://jennyandjohninbrittany.blogspot.co.uk/

And here’s the link to Jenny’s kindle book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017MDI2ZW/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_xkBpwb1G3FMHH

Jenny has been full of personal advice for me as well, especially on issues such as where to get firewood, where the nearest second hand shops are and issues of DIY. One good turn deserves another and I hope you enjoy her blog and if you want any information on a permanent move then her £1.99 kindle book is cheaper than a magazine and well worth a read.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx



Time off for quilting and a catch up with the house renovations

France, quilting



Hello Dear Reader,

It’s half term and I’ve got loads of catching up to do. I’ve felt that our lives here have been on hold for months on end as we’ve channelled our energies literally across the channel. Time, money and effort have gone into ‘the house’ and I’ve forgotten that we have hobbies and lives here. I’ve dug out quilt books, scoured them, re-learnt quilt blocks and rekindled my great love of sewing.

I’m going to fill a scrappy quilt with random blocks that I’ve learnt just for the fun of it. I love the square within a square and a diamond within a diamond. You all know that star blocks are my favourite.


I also love the random and organic way that some quilts just grow. No rules, or colour scheme. I add in mainly thrifted fabric with a few cheap fat quarters. Anything goes as long as there is some sort of colour contrast. Whilst we’re staying here for the week, the French electricians have been busy and sent some photographs of the progress.


Our electricians have finished re-wiring the house in France. There are still electrical elements to change later but everything is safe, legal and earthed. There are plenty of lights and we’ve opted for utility over decorative qualities as I just wanted a kitchen that had plenty of light to work by. I don’t like the water heater in the kitchen but it’s safe, it works just fine and we’ll have to lump it for a few years as it just doesn’t need replacing. I’m not keen on the tiles either but again, there’s nothing wrong with them and I’ll have to live with them. I don’t like to spend money replacing things if there’s no need.

French electrician in action!

The garden is still work in progress. The weather in France has been worse than here with storm after storm and the tree surgeon has left our work, which can wait as there’s no urgency, and has attended instead to storm damage where he’s needed to make trees safe. You can really see the forest behind the house now with all the trees cut down. He will be back to take all of the little branches to the tip and to stack the logs to dry.

I’m looking forward to pulling all that ivy off the house, I think it chokes it and I really don’t like it. I also can’t wait to sand down and paint the dingy shutters and as for the red lichen…..well, that’ll have to go! It’s all locked up again and can quietly just get on with existing for a few months until we return again.



It’s so different from when we first viewed the house or should say struggled to view it. Even the estate agent described it as hidden. It’t now totally revealed. It will be fun to look back at these photos next year and see the state the place was in when we first bought it!


Back to life here. We’re staying at home and getting our breath back! Lie ins, feet up with coffee, plenty of reading, some walks if it ever stops raining, a day trip if we can and general lolling for a few days.

I’ve been absent from here for a few days with an illness that has wiped me out, a few antibiotics seem to be helping along with rest, plenty of fluids and some pain killers. I’m on the mend and some quiet quilting is just what I need.

I’ll back for another chat tomorrow,

Until then,

Love Froogs xxxx


Thrifty French renovations

France
Hello Dear Reader,
Thrifty renovations are underway in our absence. Our back door was rotten, didn’t close properly and had no window. As with many French houses, there’s no windows at the back so we opted for plain glass. There’s nothing behind the house but the forest so no one’s looking in. I will make a curtain.
Can you see the logs? The tree surgeon is in the midst of clearing the trees from the back of the house that over hang the property. He’s also taken all the trees down in the garden.
The garden is currently a mess but they’ll be back soon to clear it and stack the logs. I’m so glad that the ugly conifers are down. I’m sure the neighbours will be glad to be out of the shadows too.
This weekend, we’ll collect another eBay purchase as we gather good as new furniture for the house.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxx

French kitchen

France
Hello Dear Reader,
You’ll have to use some imagination. The sideboard is work top height and will be a kitchen base. The pine shelves will be kitchen ‘units’. Both bought locally via eBay for £57. The seats came from the tip. The third floor is a small self contained flat that will be home whist we continue to renovate the rest of the house. After we’ve done that the furniture will assume more traditional roles.
The dining room has turned into ‘storage.
I’m sure I was a Womble in a previous life!
Where’s the dining table? That’s in France and we’re on the eBay hunt for a ‘new’ one.
I know, I know, I could go online and order something from Argos but I love a recycle or upcycle. More fun and a lot cheaper.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxx

Uniquely French

France

Hello Dear Reader,
A little share of something I love that is uniquely French.
Bins. When i say bins, I thought I’d mention rubbish in general. The UK is a throw away society, France is so much more measured. Above is the bin for the entire hamlet of ten or so houses and the families generate so little waste. Bread as an example, has no packaging, you just carry it off in your hand. Most packaging is recyclable, goes into a yellow bag and gets turned into something else.
Something else, in the UK, there is rubbish everywhere. People eat on the move, throw rubbish out of cars, allow their bins to overspill and make a mess everywhere. There’s a different culture in France and rubbish is a very rare sight. Councils in the UK have made so many cuts that parks, hedges, verges and roadsides are overgrown and weedcovered. Here there’s an army of workers keeping the place beautiful. That tells me that taxpayers value their local areas and are prepared to pay for it. I love this about France and I already feel very proud to ‘live’ here.
On the last note for some time on life here, we left at ten this morning with the tree surgeon cutting down trees.
We’re just about to get on the ferry and go back to Cornwall.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxx

Batten down the hatches

France

Hello Dear Reader,
We’ve shut up shop and headed back to the rented gite early. Poor DB bashed his head on a low door and we’re both shattered. We’ve liaised with the artisans who are working on the house. New back doors and electrics by the end of January. Tomorrow, the tree surgeon arrives to start taking the trees down.
We’ve researched the red lichen and as it’s so common, there’s an easy solution. It get sprayed with something called anti-mousse. It dies and doesn’t come back for ages. It’s another job we’ll do ourselves.
Whilst we’ve been cosied up in the warm, we’ve drawn up some kitchen plans. We’ve found a ‘basic’ kitchen that we can buy a few units at a time, bring them flat packed in the car and build it as and when we can afford to do so. I’ve no intention of busting the budget as this adventure can unfold all in good time.
I hope to see the trees down tomorrow, fingers crossed he turns up in time.
I’m off to rub deep heat where it aches, this might be the first Christmas I lose weight instead of putting it on.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxx

Renovating a house in Huelgoat

France

Hello Dear Reader,
Thank heavens we can get into the house as the rain’s coming in side ways! We need to dig some serious drainage in the garden, dig out for pathes and get some sand and gravel down as affordable solution to a very wet problem. Here as there’s so much rain people don’t have solid paved paths, they have sand and gravel so water can soak away. We’ll also leave the trees at the bottom of the garden so they can suck up some water.
EDF came today and reconnected us to the mains electricity. We have heat, light, hot water and working sockets. We bought ‘inspection lights’ which are great to work with and will make an industrial minimal light fittings when we’ve done painting. The heat has made the spiders crawl out of holes and I’ve been catching them and evicting them out the window!
We’ll run the fire as much as we can as it’s sucking up the damp and keeping us warm. I’m damp treating some of the walls, DB is painting the ceilings and I’m stripping the kitchen ceiling of polystyrene tiles. We’ve even fitted the smoke alarms.
I must apologise for the screenshots, there’s very little 3G out here as I’m in the middle of nowhere. But, you get the gist. I’ve cleaned the studio flat upstairs and touched up some paint work . We’ll live in here until the main house has dried out. It’ll take a summer with the doors and windows open. We’ll also store furniture up here.
It’s a spacious flat but as you can see, there’s no kitchen and we’ll improvise until the house is habitable. It’s already drying out, even after one day with the fire lit. The stove is literally sucking water out of the walls. It’s like painting a sauna! Whilst we’re gone, the heating will be on timer, the stove doors left open and the warm air will suck the air up the chimney.
It already feels homely, light, warmth, hot water and the fire lit and I’ve already made a mess. DB has been a total star, he’s rigged up lighting by wiring into the light fittings we’ve brought with us into French extension leads, he’s also retired the oil filled radiators we’ve brought with us to have French plugs. He’s sawn branches, lugged coal and firewood and kept the fire going all day. The man is a flippin’ marvel!

Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxx