19th December - Two legs are best, but they are not always that reliable

It was 11pm and my partner, Ness, was due the next day for a two week visit for Christmas, I had to pick her up from the airport and I was so excited I could have pee'd myself. The weather had turned cold, and it's not unusual to have -10C overnight, but this night was -2C. The stars were refracting their blazing light from every inch possible of the sky, and the moon glowed, throwing the most immensely beautiful light, warming the look of the chilly fields, roof tops and lanes around. Other than that, my paltry, inefficient but sentimentally attached to me torch was the only other light source guiding my route.

On my little journey to the caravan, upon entering I realise that Chance, (one of my boys) did not have any water. Due to his newly discovered heart condition he drinks almost as much as I do, but water, not wine. I popped the boys into the caravan with the heater blasting making it so very cosy. My normal trip to the tap is not overly far, is on a slight slope but would appear now that it was fraught with danger.

On the way down I glanced at the pile of logs that I thought I must clear tomorrow, in case it snows. I must have missed seeing the most enormous blade of grass because I tripped over it and slipped down the tiny slope at the highest point, my foot went underneath me and then my whole weight crashed down onto my leg at an angle that made it snap like a dry stick, and the sound of it shot into the darkness like a canon. In fact, I heard three snaps, which presumably was my fibular breaking in three stages. My screams and swearing lit up the skyline in a blue haze. My torch had gone out, and I was alone on the frosted floor, wondering what the bloody hell I was going on. I had hoped that my neighbour had heard my cries, but she did not come. Strange things go through one's head when you are in such immense pain. My thoughts turned to my dogs that were alone in the caravan and Chance would be waiting for his water.

No one heard me scream, and unless I could haul myself up I knew that if I laid there for much longer I would get hypothermia and probably die. I had no idea how long I had been there, so somehow I got myself up. Now, they say when pedestrian victims of car accidents are struck they have been known to act out their last thought and punch their perpetrator before dropping down dead. I suspect before I hit the deck the water bottle and the importance of it was my last thought so I convinced myself that I had only sprained my ankle and carried on with my duty, hopped to the tap, filled the bottle with water and hopped 30 yards up hill to the caravan got up the step put the water in the bowl, got a elasticated bandage from the cupboard and sat on my bed.

I thought that if I just put my leg up overnight in a bandage then it would be alright in the morning and I would probably limp for a while. Then I looked at my leg. The swelling was colossal, and I thought Ness would kill me if I didn't get some ice on it and do the 'proper thing'. I wasn't looking forward to this, my trip was about 150 yards down to the neighbour's house, down the slope, down concrete steps and on the road but I managed and banged fully on the door. She was down the stairs in a flash and had me sitting in the chair and ice around my ankle before I knew where I was.

The most humiliating thing for me was being ferried in a wheel chair through the hospital wards to the emergency reception. Plus, I had my work gear on and was covered in sawdust and mud having chopped a lot of logs that day. The one thing I do when I am nervous is talk a lot, and I can come up with any subject, but when the x-ray was shown to me and I could see the gap where bone should be, it finally hit me what I had done. I was silenced. Then my whole body went into shock and I started to shake uncontrollably.

The following day, after two hours sleep I hopped again, from my neighbour's gite to the cottage to 'phone Ness to tell her that I would not be driving that afternoon to collect her. There was no time to organise anything. She had to get a taxi from the airport, a cost of 150 Euros, but at no time did she complain. It was a surreal situation. My neighbour went to the pharmacy and picked up hundreds of boxes of drugs and a set of crutches. Walking on these bloody things is more impossible than stilts and I fell over about 5 times trying to negotiate simple items, like the rug or a door.

My strict instructions were to rest my leg and put it up to help the swelling, sleeping was a nightmare with cushions balanced on the end of the bed, blankets wrapped around trying to cover all the bits that get freezing overnight when not covered. Difficult to do, with two dogs hogging the covers at the same time. However annoying my dibilitated state was, I was cooked for and waited on, driven around wherever I wanted to go for a whole week, and by week two I was walking on the cast without crutches. Five weeks down the line, cast is off and my Captain Hook impression is over. The French hospital staff were fantastic, the locals; people I hardly knew came from all directions offering assistance, gifting me groceries, organising and taking me to hospital appointments and generally making sure I had everything I needed.

I am a great believer that with every negative, it is possible to draw a positive. I had to look hard to find why I had been incapacitated in such a harsh environment, where it was necessary for me to be active and fit to manage just to stay warm at the least. It didn't take me long to find it. And what I found is that for two people who had drifted slightly apart found that they could again work together as a team and discover hidden treasures about each other that had been buried deep, coated in the armour created by a life not being richly lived and not following that heart path. I feel if you have a sound foundation it is better to work with what you have than to look elsewhere thinking that life will be more rewarding, because it won't.

I am glad I broke my leg, and you have to be me to understand why on earth I would say that.

17th December - Are any of us ready to live our dream?

Why the country indeed?

This morning I took a leisurely drive to an old Brocante, the French equivalent of the good old fashioned junk shop. A fool's pleasure, but sometimes an Aladdin's cave of handy stuff. The morning proved to be fruitful. On my drive home however, I had to stop in the the quiet road as I had disturbed a kestrel just having made a kill and she was feasting whilst resting on a fence post. I wish I had been on foot, as I would have proved less intrusive. She put up with my diesel engine and moved to a different post to feed and with one eye on me and another on her brunch she carried on. I had to move, but wish I could have stayed until she had finished. She insulted my clumsy carriage with an exit that would make the most colourful of aviators drool. She was lost to the acres of newly ploughed field and I offered a weak apology for my interuption. I hope she understood.


As always, my drive down the long winding hill towards home is a beautiful site and if done respectfully, one can take in the breadth of the beauty the valley has to offer. A few polite stone buildings set amongst a wealth of fields intermingled with forest, woods and a lake. It all lends itself to a site that never disappoints, and should be arrived upon slowly as the view is incredible. This trip took on a slightly new dimension, as 2 young fawns jumped out of the forest on my right into the trees on my left and disappeared. The boys (my dogs) thought I had taken on a new standard of communication as my voice reached a pitch only dolphins could understand, and I shouted to them that there were deer in the road and that they should both take a look. Of course they couldn't understand what I was saying with their paws over their ears, but the deer were away so quickly, the explanation was lost in a second. So, I revelled in the the site, and had not the slightest care of any 'traffic' behind me, the moment was too precious.

In this blog, I have written many times about the fight with the falling temperatures and the elements general, but to survive here you have to dig deep.

I might make it sound that I am suffering, but really it's all comparative. Yes, I could be in a modern house with modern facilities like central heating wandering around in t-shirt and jeans in mid winter complaining that the dustmen had left a margarine container lid in the road, or that there were cracks in the rendering of the wall opposite me. Instead I wear 8 layers every day, a hat, a scarf, thick walking socks and a padded gillet and am thrilled when I see the temperature gauge above 6 degrees when I get into the lounge in the morning.

As I look across the valley, the sunlight tickles the grass reflecting the dew and bouncing back a breath taking colour, the trees are beckoned by the incandescent setting ball of fire to stand proud and show off the jagged shapes that are leafless branches waiting silently and solemnly for Spring, and yet they don't understand the splendour of the long shadows shown on the ground so far beneath.

I ask myself, do I need a 29ft wide television, and a little silver box holding 4,000 channels, a £100 hair cut and colour or an item of stitched cotton and polyester mix with a minuscule particular badge which denotes I must pay 400 times what it cost to produce? No, I certainly don't. Each day is a brush with the very core of what each field and hedge and tree embellishes. The space in the sky is filled with great splendour. Those that surround me, have given me permission to be witness to their survival. The processed act of sleeping, waking and spending each day making sure that enough food is gathered, that procreation takes place and then after some sleep they get up the next day and do the same thing again.

The great tit, blue tit, black cap, coal tit, warblers, and more all now come and feast at my feeders. My selfish set up to encourage their company, hear their twitters and marvel in their actions. The crows still call in the dead of night and by day they fight off the several pairs of buzzards perusing their territory.

It's simple and yet I feel defined being part of it. Would I turn down a huge Domino's pizza if it were delivered at dinner time to my door? No, probably not, but I don't crave it. My life is now driven not by satiating a desire, it's driven by adopting a simple need and meeting it. I have relinquished the idea of surrounding and thus confusing my life full of items not required to sustain life and instead have worked to produce a balanced and happy individual.

Nature surrounds me, and nurtures me at the same time. I have deep respect for her prescence, and the affect she has on me and my surroundings. It is this which moves me to verbosity. If I cannot comprehend what is happening to my psyche, and live each day without this understanding passed onto me by my Mother, would I be just dead wood?

Though I suppose we are all simply dead wood. Eventually and simply compost, disappearing unnoticed and unmissed into the ground to feed another entity, to enable life in whatever form to commence again existing on what is left behind.

I'm OK with all of that, and long may she continue to take my breath away as she does every day.

9th December - Of mice and mackeral

Last night I didn't wash up my dinner plate. My damp sheets beckoned and I just had to go to bed, casting aspersions to the idea of doing any household chores.

I should have learnt by now, I have already had an episode that I don't want repeated, but do I listen? No. It's not about being house proud, it's more about not providing and watering hole for the entire population of local mice to come and visit, chat a while with their friends about the day. Find out if the recession has affected the neighbours, all two million of them. Maybe even have a drink and bite to eat, compare who can flatten their skull to fit through the eye of a sewing needle the fastest. And, who hadn't turned up tonight because they had been invited out to a special lunch with the new Kestral family in town.

But provide a watering hole I did. The biggest mistake was to leave a 30mm long piece of bone from the mackerel which I had devoured earlier, on the plate. It must have caused a frenzy. It would appear that when mice get excited they leave a concentration of miniature brown tic tak like deposits. But these little critters aren't going to improve your breath if you ingest them, they are going to kill you.

The bones left on my plate were abandoned, 3ft from the original scene of the crime. My mind wandered onto the conversion that took place between the assailants. "Oi, look Terry, that looks like Mackeral bones, think we'll have some of that, geese us an 'and will you?" Heave, heave, heave. "Bloody 'ell, didn't think these would be this slippery, pull ya weight will you? Oh shit, QUICK, SCARPER someone's coming!"

And shit they did.

I have never been a fan of bleach, indeed the bottle that I owned in my last house would have probably fetched a fortune on that well known auction site, being a collector's piece and all. But now, I use it like a woman possessed.

I never really liked tic taks much.

8th December - Ice is nice, but I prefer it with a gin and tonic

WTF? Loosely translated WTF means, what on earth? This little micro climate that is
La Chapelle Janson has me baffled. One minute you are sheltering from the rain the next, you are falling arse over tit on the ice on the path. I have gone to bed in horizontal rain to wake up to ice as far as I can see, then gone to bed freezing and wishing I had never been born being awoken by those little pebbles on top of the caravan. You know the ones where the rain drops carry small stones in their back packs.

Last night it was fairly cold, nothing more than you would expect. But as the night pushed itself up the hill of the next day, I could feel La Chapelle work its magic. The pillows start to become ice sheets and then someone starts to tighten the vice on my head, the cold bites and I contemplate suffocating under my quilt rather than be frozen to death with a pointless expression on my face. In the morning, after my taser shot, I enabled myself out of bed to what could only be described as an ice curtain. My work clothes where were I had left them, stood up by themselves in my shape. Whilst I pulled on my attire, I noticed that the door handle was glistening. Upon closer inspection I realised that the enitre door frame was covered in ice.

When one lives their dream, I always thought that one would prance around as if you had just won a contract with Colgate, just because you have a permanent smile on your face. Not so. You take what the univserse throws at you and you laugh, it's the only approriate response. One makes their bed and they had better lie in it. Though I challenge anyone to try my bed, I think you would rather sleep in the trees.