Welcome to La Vie en Foussais - The tales of an English family following their dream in Foussais-Payre, a quiet corner of rural France
Cats.
We love ours.
We love the way they come and sit on your knee at night for a sleep.
We love the way they are pleased to see us when we come home after a day out.
We even love the way they wait outside our bedroom door in a morning to say hello.
But one thing we certainly don’t love is the constant stream of mostly-dead animals they insist on bringing in to play with!
It started with just one lizard. “That’s okay”, we thought, “we can cope with that”.
Then one day we returned from a day at the beach to find the living room full of feathers. Yes, they had brought in a starling to play with and stashed it under the settee when they heard us come back home.
Lola then started coming home with what looked very much like pieces of another cat’s tail. Quite how she got those we do not know.
Then came the first mouse. I was on the phone when the cats in the other room suddenly went quiet. Worrying. A quick investigation revealed Charlie tossing the poor creature around the room. I managed to wrestle the mouse from his mouth and fling it over the fence, much to his annoyance. It was only later in the day, when the cats were sniffing around the bottom of the settee, that we realised that the mouse had actually left it’s head behind! Argh!
A series of lizards were next in line for the treatment, inlcuding one live one who really didn’t want to be picked up and rescued!
Then, while I was away in England, I had a call from Lisa. Charlie had brought in the biggest prize yet - a rat! She was shaking. Luckily the rat was dead and she managed to scoop it up with the dust-pan and dump it outside, though Charlie put up a good fight for it. I was impressed with Lisa’s bravery, but not impressed with Charlie’s increasing appetite.
And so it continues. Today saw another dead lizard and a dead mouse join the list of casualties. What are we to do? I know it’s great that they catch rats and mice, but does anyone have a suggestion about how to stop them bringing the corpses into the house? All ideas gratefully received!
I tell you, it’s a good job they’re cute…
We were recently invited for dinner with the family of one of Molly’s school friends. They are a lovely family and we are really thrilled that Molly and Jeanne are friends. Jeanne’s mother had suggested that the two girls go to their house and spend the afternoon preparing a meal for the two families, which was a very sweet idea.
So Molly and Jeanne spent the day slaving in the kitchen (with a bit of playing thrown in as well I imagine 
) and the rest of us turned up in the evening. It was a wonderful evening - the girls had prepared a starter of goats cheese on toasted baguette, followed by baked fish with rice, all topped off with some delicious apple tarts.
Jeanne’s dad makes his own wine from the grapes at one of the Vendee vinyards, so the vins de la maison were flowing freely all night. Lisa kindly offered to drive home as it would have been way too rude for me to refuse the top-ups to my glass 
All-in-all the meal was beautiful and the company thoroughly enjoyable. Jeanne’s family speak no english at all, so this was a night of us speaking 100% french all night. Quite a big challenge for us, but we rose to the occasion and the conversation never dried up.
I think we are all starting to realise just how far we have come over the last year in terms of the language. This time last year we could never have even considered having a dinner party with only french being spoken but now we are quite happy in that situation, and the kids even more so. They are all doing so well now that I think they have well and truly overtaken Lisa and I in their ability to communicate.
This is great news to us, as giving the kids a second language was one of the big reasons for coming here and we can already see how glad they are to have it. Now, if only they could start giving us lessons so we can keep up with them, that would be even better!
Most people have to work to earn money to pay for wine and pineau, and I am no exception. At the moment I am having to do all the work that was previously covered by myself and a colleague, so things are, you might say, rather busy. Hence why my postings here have been rather scant of late. My days have been full and my nights very short.
But anyway, today I find myself with a bit of time for a catch-up so I’ll be posting a few items to fill you in on what’s been happening over the last couple of weeks.
Today was Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of World War 1 on 11th November, 1918.
Sadly, things being as they were today, I didn’t really have time to appreciate it.
However, my thoughts have been on the sacrifices made by the millions of soldiers who lost their lives fighting a senseless, pointless war in the bloody fields of France.
There may now be only a handful still alive, but not one of them will ever be forgotten.
Did you notice anything different?
Yes, unlike Barry Mannilow (honest), La Vie en Foussais has had a bit of a facelift
This is down to some technical jiggery-pokery that you probably don’t want to hear about, but basically I can now offer somewhat of a more “rich customer experience” as the marketing folks would say. At the moment things are pretty much as they were before, but I hope to be able to introduce some more goodies over the next couple of weeks that will make La Vie en Foussais even more exciting than it was before.
Okay, well they may not be that exciting, but every little helps!
Please let me know what you think to the new look and especially if you spot something that is broken or missing. Also if you have any suggestions as to what else you might like to see here, I would be very interested to hear from you. I am always open to suggestions for new content so get in touch and let me have your ideas.
