Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jan 3, 2012, 11:30 am
Should I – shouldn’t I?  That is the question. Oh well, lets give it a go again. At least the ‘new post’ page looks a bit more like it used to and there is even a button to publish at the bottom. 2011 was a strange year: there didn’t seem to be time to do anything yet not much seemed to...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jul 24, 2011, 9:31 am
It seems to be more and more difficult to find the time to write regularly and ever since WordPress changed the format YET AGAIN I can’t figure out how to do a new post except by using the ‘Quickpress’. Will still try to come and ‘visit’ all my friends though. Love and hugs to all of you...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jun 24, 2011, 7:01 am
Life seems to have revolved around hospitals recently. Whale was admitted to the Centre for Re-Education for intensive physio on April 27th. However, during his stay he was taken to Casualty not once but twice with a severe urinary infection. The first time he spent 10 days in bed and so undid any...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 17, 2011, 10:44 am
As I may have mentioned, Bear and I like to have lunch at the local bar/restaurant once or twwice a week but over the last few months we’ve noticed a gradual lowering of quality in the meals offered. It always used to be excellent value for money and I suppose the ‘patron’ doesn’t want to...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 10, 2011, 7:23 am
Bear has been suffering more and more with pain in his legs recently. The only tablets that give any relief are anti-inflammatories which are forbidden because he already has some kidney damage. Our GP says he should take six  100omg paracetamol tablets a day but there doesn’t seem much point if...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 5, 2011, 3:22 am
I have been told that there is a measles epidemic at the moment, although I’m not aware of any cases in our neck of the woods. Of course, people will blame Dr Andrew Wakefield for warning parents off the MMR vaccine but there is evidence that he was right all along. Dosing babies with more and mo...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 4, 2011, 3:33 am
Rosemary’s visit was a bit of a mixed bag. I was really worried that she would be bored by the fact that we couldn’t go out much for various reasons including Bear and his painful knees plus moodiness and the fact that Jay’s car broke down and was only just ready in time to take Rosemary to P...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Mar 17, 2011, 1:34 pm
Now that Winter is (hopefully) nearly over we can look forward to visits from family and friends  in the coming months. It looks like a busy time ahead with Daphne and Johnny due to arrive tomorrow – together with the chimney sweep, who was supposed to come on Tuesday morning but he rang at the ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Feb 28, 2011, 2:37 pm
Firstly the good news is that our local ‘superette’ has reopened after sitting there dismally neglected for well over a year. The previous managers got into financial difficulty  and upped and left all of a sudden, although it was clear things were rapidly going downhill. The meat and vegetable...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Feb 17, 2011, 3:43 pm
You may remember that way back in July CC made a start on giving the kitchen a makeover. Well, I’m pleased to report that it is 99% finished as of yesterday (well more like a week ago as I started this post last Wednesday!) when the dresser was finally assembled. But thereby  hangs a tale -  a...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Feb 11, 2011, 5:07 am
Mondays are usually busy now that it’s my day for ‘going to work’ but this week I was dreading the beginning of the week and how we were going to fit everything in. One of these days I’ll get my mojo back and start driving but as I’m still very uneasy about it, it was down to Jay to be a ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jan 27, 2011, 1:49 pm
Yesterday afternoon CC and I were invited to our neighbour’s to “arroser son permis” – literally “to water her driving licence”. Since her husband died,  nearly two yars ago, she has felt rather stranded without transport and at the age of 54,  started driving lessons. The first hurdl...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jan 25, 2011, 4:27 am
Last night I watched a programme about some people’s unwillingness to accept scientific ‘facts’ any more. There was a great deal about global warming (which has actually become ‘Climate Change’) and the presenter put forward the arguments opposed to the many who dispute the idea that glob...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jan 13, 2011, 2:31 pm
It was a big disadvantage, as a teacher, that I always had difficulty putting names to faces. A typical example: _  during the first week of term a child comes to me during break to ask  about music lessons. I give him a brief explanation and then, to find out if I teach his class for music I ask...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jan 7, 2011, 6:52 am
Just found this video which gives an amusing twist to the not so funny attempts to pollute our food with pesticides and irradiation while, at the same time, if reports from America are to be believed,  making life extremely difficult for producers of organic foods. Are we in danger of losing our f...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jan 5, 2011, 10:06 am
Ever since the end of the festivities time has become very confusing for me. Normally it flies by and the weeks come and go in quick succession. Recently time has passed more slowly and I keep thinking it’s a day ahead of the actual date. Maybe it’s because I’ve  been too laid back and got ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Dec 28, 2010, 12:57 pm
This is what the hens produced today. Does it mean that one of them has run out of egg producing material? Apart from that, all five hens seem to be getting used to living in Arctic  conditions. They have even begun to venture further from their ‘paths’ between the henhouse and the shelters an...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Dec 9, 2010, 8:07 am
It’s some time since I posted about Bear and his moods but that doesn’t mean he’s a changed character. Yesterday, for example, CC had an appoimtment in town. Jay’s car is in for repair and so I suggested that he used Bear’s car to drive  CC  and me as I’m still abit nervous about park...
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Sandy B. posted an article on sablonneuse - Dec 5, 2010, 10:04 am
I thought we had escaped the bad weather   for too long and today it has caught up with us - well and truly. Jay and I walked to the bakers this morning and really enjoyed crunching over the (almost) virgin white snow but the cats and chickens are not so happy. The cats us...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Dec 5, 2010, 9:58 am
I thought we had escaped the bad weather   for too long and today it has caught up with us – well and truly. Jay and I walked to the bakers this morning and really enjoyed crunching over the (almost) virgin white snow but the cats and chickens are not so happy. The cats usually queue up to das...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Nov 28, 2010, 5:52 am
Our ‘renovations’ seem to be dogged by problems. Two days after Guy left for his holidays the electricity went off  just as I was about to get up. This is rather annoying as the bathroom is a ‘pièce noir’ (no windows) and without electricity the pump for the well doesn’t work and neith...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Nov 21, 2010, 11:34 am
Last August we made a start on redoing the kitchen. Cc painted all the doors, we chose a new sink, tap and worktop and ordered tiles at Leroy Merlin. Pascal came to fit the worktop, sink and tap and made a bit of a mess of it. Then he decided to take a week off before doing the tiles. But he never...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Nov 10, 2010, 12:00 pm
It’s no good, I couldn’t face the execution process all over again and, besides, the end result was far from successful so I’ve given the rest of the boys away. Hugue, at the local brasserie said he’d have them and so I decided to catch the first one outof the coop  each morning and put hi...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Nov 3, 2010, 8:55 am
Put it down to age, poor eyesight or downright stupidity but I made a big mistake with the Christmas cake recipe this year by misreading ‘lbs’ for ‘tbs’ and it wasn’t until I’d gaily poured in a tin and a half of golden syrup and mixed it all up that I realised what an idiot I was. Not ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Oct 27, 2010, 11:08 am
Lulu arrived at 2:15 armed with a small but very sharp knife. She had come to kill the ‘prisoner’. First she asked me to heat up some water and have a bucket at the ready and then we went up the garden. She waited outside the run while I went to fetch the condemned cock but he was very suspici...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Oct 26, 2010, 8:40 am
Things are not going smoothly with the kitchen makeover. We have run out of tiles. The shop didn’t have any more so we’ve ordered some and they should be in by the middle of November. Meanwhile, the valiant Guy has moved upstairs to tackle CC’s shower. Thathas  turned out to be worse than ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Oct 19, 2010, 5:45 am
Following Whale’s couple of weeks in hospital recently he was given  three follow-up appointments with a urologist, neurologist and finally an out-patient visit to ‘rhumatologie’ where he had stayed. The urologist’s appointment was last week and so off we went in the ambulance arriving in ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Oct 16, 2010, 8:54 am
Goodness me, nearly a month has passed and I’ve written nothing. It amazes me how people like Z and LOM can lead far busier lives than I do and yet still  post regularly. Well my first ‘excuse’ is that I got the job teaching English on Mondays but it takes quite a bit longer to prepare for ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Sep 20, 2010, 2:40 pm
Ever since all the hens and cockerels have been together in the bottom half of the garden I’ve been thinking how lovely it was that despite seven cockerels to five hens there hadn’t been any serious battles. Until today. It was all started by the remains of  a pot of creme fraiche. The chicke...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Sep 13, 2010, 10:19 am
It takes a lot to get me going but I was really cross with the BBC when I saw this article denigrating homeopathy. Just recently there have been several attempts to poor scorn on alternative therapies and I feel strongly that the government and pharmaceutical companies are doing their best to scare...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Sep 7, 2010, 5:01 am
Well done Helen for waking me up from my blogging hibernation with a little prompt in the comments box. So, what’s been going on here then? My sister Wendy and her husband came to stay last week. They usually come in March but decided to wait until the end of August in the hope of avoiding the r...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Aug 14, 2010, 5:44 am
Would you believe that those dear little chicks have grown into enormous cockerels? They are bigger than the hens but, all the same, they get pecked mercilessly and chased off by the  ladies when it’s feeding time. Gertie, Daisy, Peggy and Susie certainly let it be known who’s in charge.  Ho...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Aug 4, 2010, 9:44 am
As I’m finding it difficult to put fingers to keyboard and write anything even remotely interesting I’ve unashamedly pinched this meme from Helen’s blog.  I should point out that LOM found it on Judy’s site so many thianks to them both. Twenty Questions 1. When you looked at yourself in t...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jul 20, 2010, 11:05 am
. . .No, not Trinitrotoluene, the explosive but Télévision Numérique Terrestre -  digital TV. Time is running out for the analogue signal here and after September there will not be a choice so when we saw a dear little digibox priced at 19 euros we bought it. It was worth a try and cheaper than...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jul 8, 2010, 4:38 pm
It’s some time since I had a little moan about Bear  and,  in all fairness, he hasn’t been too bad these last months. However, our weekly lunches à deux at the local restaurant often turn into an opportunity for him to let off steam. Take today: he suddenly launched into the usual i...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jul 7, 2010, 10:48 am
Whatever happened to June? I remember realising that it had begun and before I knew it, here we are a week into July. So what’s been going on? Nothing terribly exciting I’m afraid. There was the meal with the Club de Troisieme Age with langue de boeuf as the main course so Bear refused...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jun 22, 2010, 4:26 am
Some weeks ago a friend told us that  her boyfriend’s mother attended English classes in town and their teacher was leaving, so they were looking for someone to do six to eight hours a week. She asked if  CC  would be interested in applying but as she  has been promised a two month contra...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Jun 5, 2010, 11:13 am
See how they’ve grown: which meant that their indoor cage was getting too small for them – and incredibly smelly despite being cleaned every day. After another attempt at moving them back indoors I cheated and called on one of the boys from next door but one to climb into the pen and h...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 30, 2010, 5:24 am
The problem: how to move the chicks from their cage in the conservatory to their run outside. The solution: Not as straightforward as you may think. The first few times we managed by carrying the cage up the steps and onto the grass, putting food in the run and then opening the doors. The chicks w...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 22, 2010, 3:46 am
Following the visit from the two ‘chicken experts’ we decided to try giving the hens the freedom of the garden one evening when the cats were indoors. They loved it in a very non-excited way and calmly pecked their way round the grass,  ignoring the vegetable patch completely. The fol...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 20, 2010, 9:49 am
We have two daily nurses who come and  help Whale and they do alternate weeks. Although they are a partnership they never seem to agree on what to do: one will swear by Econazole cream while the other insists on using it in powder form:  one thinks a sore place should be left dry and covered up b...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 13, 2010, 9:37 am
There’s no doubt about it, they are growing fast.  Their curiosity is developing and they love investigating anything new  in their cage. I’ve given them a perch and they are now adept at jumping up on it and even taking a flying leap from the perch to the top of the heater. One adva...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 13, 2010, 9:16 am
Last year when we nearly ran out of wood I phoned Pascal and asked if he could deliver 2 steres to tide us over. Maybe  there were crossed wires or language difficulties but he  brought 4 and it woulsn’t have been easy to send some back. However, our other woodman had already taken an order...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 5, 2010, 8:36 am
They’ve only been here a couple of days yet I’m convinced they’ve grown already. They are certainly more sef-assured and protested vehemently when I put them in a cardboard box while I cleaned their cage. I was warned that even small chicks create a pong but I didn’t know the...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 3, 2010, 4:16 pm
Yes, they’re here at last – eight little bundles of fluff – and a few feathers. Yesterday I brought their new home down from the loft: it’s the cage Chloe lived in after her operation and set up the  ‘Electric Chicken’  to make sure it worked. However, I didn&#...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - May 1, 2010, 8:48 am
The chicken house is nearly ready – apart from its roof (but it would be too heavy to carry into position with it on), we have eating and drinking equipment at the ready as well as a supply of food and litter. There’s even an electric fence waiting to be put up to keep out predators (not...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Apr 20, 2010, 8:59 am
We are completely different – chalk and cheese. Both of my sisters said this to me before we met and so after getting on so well with Rosemary I couldn’t help wondering if this weeks experience would go as well. I needn’t have worried because Daphne and I hit it off immediately: ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Apr 15, 2010, 11:47 am
While Jay and I were taking Rosemary back to Brussels a letter came asking us to present ourselves at the Gendarmerie at 14:30 on April 15th. We assumed it was about the problems our postlady has been having with a neighbour but I must admit, it crossed my mind that it could be something more seriou...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Apr 14, 2010, 11:01 am
Some of the cats dashed indoors all of a sudden but Willow sat transfixed on the steps outside the conservatory. I went out to investigate and saw this ratlike creature cowering in the corner at the bottom of the steps. As I went to pick Willow up it went for me and landed on my foot ready to take ...
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Sandy B. posted an article on Sablonneuse in France - Apr 12, 2010, 3:51 am
You may be wondering why Rosemary signs  her comments as The Energy Healer so perhaps I should say something about this aspect of my sister but I hope she will leave a comment if I’ve given the wrong impression or misinterpreted anything. She told me our dad was a healer  – ( I have t...
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