From vets to vines – its a roundup of our week 1 comment

Happy February everyone!

It’s been another busy week work-wise, with not a lot going on elsewhere, so here’s a round-up of the happenings from the last 7 days.

Lola loses one of her 9 lives

The biggest news of the week was on Friday. The cats had been out and about in the morning, as usual, and returned at lunchtime for their usual afternoon sleep. By 5pm we thought they’d had long enough and Joe woke them up to send them outside for a breath of fresh air. Charlie went charging off, but Lola showed no interest. In fact she looked very unwell – lifeless and struggling to breathe. We couldn’t tempt her with food or drink and we started to get really rather worried for her.

So I took her straight down to the vets for a check up, but the vets in the village was closed. So, Lisa rang Judith and she gave us the number for the one they use in Coulonges. I placed a quick call to them and they confirmed I could bring Lola in straight away. So I set off, picking Judith up so she could show me the way. When we arrived at the vets we were greeted by a sign that they had moved! Argh! So we jumped back in the car and headed off to find the new location, not far from the Super U in Coulonges and quite a bit more conveniently placed.

The vet turned out to be a very nice chap and the building was a modern, spacious one which made me feel confident from the off. He gave Lola a thorough examination and concluded that she must have had some kind of trauma. This didn’t surprise me, given how adventurous Lola is. She could well have been hit by a car, fallen from a tree of been struck by a falling log. Goodness only knows really, but at least she didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger.

The vet said to let her rest and come back on Monday if she didn’t improve. So, relieved, we took her home where she slept all night. In the morning she seemed a bit brighter, managing to get up and walk around and even eating a bit of breakfast. Very good to see!

And today, thankfully, she has been out and about, running around and generally looking a lot more like normal. And Charlie is certainly happy to have her back – he had seemed very sad that she wasn’t up to playing for the last couple of days. So fingers crossed she is on the mend and will soon be back to her usual tricks. Birds and mice beware!

Getting in touch

This week we have spoken to regular readers Lynne and Alan, who are having a new house built in the village (as is Curtis, another reader). It was great to get in touch via skype and we were more than happy to help out with answering questions about the area and giving them the benefit of our experiences of setting up home in Foussais. They are a lovely couple and we look forward to having them just round the corner soon!

Superstar Joe

Joe had more handball matches on Saturday. Once again we had an hour’s drive to get there, though Joe has promised that next time he will go with the rest of the team in one car to save us the treck. The results were not so good this week as Foussais lost 2 and won 1, but Joe played really well and scored most of the goals, which was great to see. He used to play football back in England, but never really got on too well with it as the focus was always on those that could play really well and score goals. This meant that Joe usually got looked over and this really knocked his confidence. Now with handball he is playing well and scoring goals and getting lots of encouragement. The whole ethos seems to be far more on playing well as a team and everyone gets a fair share of time on the pitch, which works really well. Joe is loving it and its doing his confidence the world of good.

Fun on the field

Today we decided to finally tackle some jobs on the field. First there was the task of trying to fix the trampoline that had rather unceremoniously been dumped upside down on one of the pear trees during the storm the other night. With a bit of hammering and twisting and a bit of string, I managed to put it back together again – lets hope it holds until the summer at least!

There are miles and miles of brambles winding through our trees, plus we have a great vine that twists its way through the fence and trees at the back of the field. All needed cutting back and sorting out, so today we started hacking.

While I attacked the vine, Lisa plowed though the brambles. After 3 hours of solid hard work, we didn’t seem to have a lot to show for our efforts – Lisa had cleared about 2m of hedgerow and I had chopped back a similar length of vine. A lot of effort for a rather disappointing result, but at least it’s a start, and we did end up with a big pile of branches for a bonfire!.

Hopefully the vine will once again produce lots of lovely grapes but this time they’ll be rather more accessible.

Jugs to JCBs – a quick round-up 3 comments

Water water everywhere…

So the water-less day came and went without any problems. We filled every available jug, bottle, pan and bowl with water first thing in the morning to keep us going through the day. but as it turned out, the water came back on just after lunch, so we didn’t really need it in the end. Quite remarkable that something like that actually finished ahead of schedule!

Family but no fish

This week has been a bit hectic as both my parents and my sister and her two boys are visiting. We’re having a lovely time catching up – something that there wasn’t much time for at Christmas – and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for some decent weather at the weekend so we can get out and about. We were going to head to La Rochelle aquarium but unfortunately it is closed this month.  Still, a visit to La Rochelle may well be on the cards, and a coffee with the Dixies perhaps…

It’s a snip!

Charlie and Lola (our kittens) have now been “done”   They were very well behaved for the vet and coped admirably with the operation. Poor Lola was very wobbly when she came round and was clearly in some pain as the anaesthetic wore off, but after a big sleep that night she was much brighter in the morning. They are both now back to normal and up to their usual tricks!

Plotting our veg

Michel our soon-to-be-permanent neighbour called us over earlier today with some good news. he has a JCB at the moment which he is using to level a lot of his land off as part of his renovation project next=door. He is very kindly going to also level off our little patch of land at the back of the house which we have earmarked as a future vegetable plot. Wahoo! In a couple of weeks we should be able to get planting our own veg, so look out for some posts all about that coming soon. Anyone with any tips in this area, feel free to leave a comment.

And finally…

Next week I have to endure a trip back to England for a big company meeting over 2 days at the Center parcs in Longleat. Sounds nice, but I’d really rather be here with my family, drinking Pineau round the fire. Ah well, one day…

It’s a good job they’re cute… 6 comments

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…