COOKBOOKS GALORE

As I'm still feeling rather shell-shocked about the house sale, I thought I'd have a short tour of the garden. It really cheered me up. I grew this parsley from seed last year and it survived the snow and frost this winter. This is the Willians pear tree. Doesn't seem to have many pears on it this year. I love the little bird house which attracts so many birds in winter and spring.The piece of wood across the front is to stop the magpies eating all the sunflower seeds.  Looks like it's going to be a good year again for Bramleys. We brought 2 trees with us and they've done really well. Need to take off 2/3 of these little ones to get a decent sized apple. At last the French beans have started to grow. They badly needed some sunshine. The cabbages are doing well and the beetroot. Going to have a good crop of gooseberries. There are red ones too. I love this climbing rose. It's Zephirine Drouhin, which has no thorns and a lovely perfume. Its flowers are p...

At 8-45 on Saturday morning the phone rang; it was our estate agent saying he was outside the gate and could he come in. He told us that the couple buying our house had split up, so the deal was off! We were so shocked! Only a week before they'd been here, telling us what they were going to do, and even buying a few bits of furniture from us. In France when you want to buy a house you sign a 'compromis de vente', and in this there's a legal clause which says that you have to pay a certain amount if either party drops out. We don't know how much this is yet. So we had to cancel the removal van, scheduled for July 8th. Three of the bedrooms are full of boxes and stacked furniture.  The house is back on the market. C'est la vie!

We've decided to return to the UK and our house is sold. We now have to wait till mid July to sign the contract and get our money. We're moving to Northamptonshire, to be near our son and family. It's a new area for us, so another adventure! Haven't made anything worth blogging about lately, and we seem to have been very busy. We've been here 7 years and it's been like a lovely long holiday.  This is our house. The garden goes all around the house and we're on the edge of a lovely hamlet of 20 houses. There are fields in front and behind us.We're going to have to downsize quite a lot when buying a UK property! This is our Mairie in the local village. It's a chateau that the commune bought and restored, and everyone is very proud of it. There's are lovely grounds behind where we have open-air concerts in the summer and picnics. There are 200 different types of trees. This is le Donjon in our nearest town, Niort. It was built by Eleanor of Aq...