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Yeps, too much time spent on myface/spacebook, totally erased its address from my brain and today, whilst I decided I should recreate an account so as to follow a certain blog, it revealed itself once more...The mysteries of the internet...
It finally looks like spring is here and about time. The snow was wonderful and totally magical.
The whole landscape was ...Oh gosh I can feel another cliché coming on...splendid.
On the down side, the wonderful looking stove which was supposed to be the heart of this outfit, turned out to be like some people, you know the type, high maintenance, flashy and full of promises but who inevitably let you down when you most need them...
First it covered the kitchen floor in black goo (which I am still trying to remove), it never really lit beyond filling the place with black smoke, so much so, we had to stay outside for a couple of hours (in -5°) to avoid monoxide poisoning.Most nights, we went to bed fully clothed, armed with oil heater (a toasty 9°), hot water bottles, cats and sheep skins( hims indoors uses them for yoga in case you wondered). The oil inevitably ran out during the night and we woke up to 2° in the bedroom...Yes... I know... I have become a bit obsessive with the old thermometer, but I bet you would too, given the circumstances!
It turned out that the wood - from my beloved wood pile (see a previous blog) was wet or rather truly soaked and it clogged up the chimney with tar.
The chimney sweep who came to the rescue two weeks later, pulled a huge cork of solidified black matter and said we were lucky the whole machine was still working.
Lesson? Don't trust your friendly neighbour who swears the wood is dry as dry can be, when he probably cut it two hours ago.
Really, I should have known better as he had already tried to pull a fast one on us over THE field. A previous life in the Kerry mountains, has made me very sheep weary( a long story) so, at the first sign of the animals appearing on our land, I phoned him. He implied that the Marie-Antoinette thing to do, for us "les anglais", would be to allow his sheep to graze the sweet grass of our field and thus create a bucolic scene as well as keeping the grass down in an ecological manner! Tempting as it was, my genetic collective "French"peasant memory struggled to be heard over the rural dream and rang the alarm bells of ...DROIT DE FERMAGE. A well kept secret amongst the French farming folks (FFF) the chances are that if you find out about it, you have already fallen victim to the dastardly legislation and your so helpful and ecologically minded neighbour, is growing genetically modified spuds in your garden (or, as was the case of mine- wild boars...yes! seriously! though I still prefers them to GMC). This is one bizarre and idiotic French piece of law making. Basically it says that if you agree to someone using your land it basically becomes theirs for ever, to dowhat they wish with it, as long as it is agricultural...there is no way out and the land gets passed from generation to generation....As there is no need, in this case for a written contract, a vaguely consenting sentence from you, such as - yeah sure let them, they're doing no harm, more cake anyone? clinches the deal.
Another stupid law born of the Revolution, totally outdated, is the one that allows hunters to hunt on your land...up to a hundred and fifty meters from your house and much closer if they have their back turned.
