Snippets I would have posted...

...if I hadn't been pretending to hibernate...

Probably far too long for one post, but I want to make a record of lots of things, and don't want to do numerous tiny posts dragged out over the next few weeks. I do plan to post some photos of the snow, installation of the wood burning stove and the Christmas candles, so there will be another few disjointed points before "normal sevice is resumed".

[In no particular order:]

Wild Boars:

We saw two families of wild boar: one was in the wood just outside the village, and the piglets looked very nearly fully grown, and the other was on an outing we took on Boxing Day - mum, dad & six tiny piglets.

WOW!

I know they have loads of them in France, but we have been looking out for them for over five years, and the closest we'd got previously was the chap who ended up in the body bag, which doesn't count in my book!

The little piglets are so cute with their ginger stripes!

Eurostar:

Apologies all round, blah blah blah, will learn from their mistakes, etc etc etc.

For once we didn't mind - the bonus days when David couldn't get back to the UK were like an early Christmas present!

AND our luck was holding - the trains broke down before David had gone back to London.

[Now him being stuck in London over Chrimbo would NOT have been popular]

And David's mum sent him a text to say the service had broken down, so he didn't even have the wasted journey to Paris/hotel stay/return to Troyes fiasco that he could have had!

Penknife:

Vs. Axe

I was hoping for an axe for Christmas...

[And certainly would have made use of it, had I received one!]

But I got a penknife instead! Actually, I love it - a special gardener's penknife, so thank you Santa!

That of course means I can go axe shopping; yippee!

Boiler going wrong:

Had a minor panic with the boiler...

We're loving being able to phone it up & say "stoke up, please", and arriving at a warm house!

[OK, technically we send an SMS saying "1111 bahk1 2", so it's not the full sci-fi robot experience yet, but sometimes in my mind it could be.]

For the first time since we've being using the "télécommande" we needed to turn the boiler down...

[When it was getting down to -19°C and highs of -2°C we didn't really need to turn the heating down; that was before M. Antoni had adjusted it, and it was struggling to get up to 14°C going all the time.]

Only it wouldn't!

Thankfully much nagging of David by Maria led to sufficient chasing of M. Antoni that he came back & waved his magic wand; we don't know what he did, but we could finally turn the boiler down to the low setting.

Bit of a panic, but glad it's fixed now (and hoping it stays that way)!

Broken tooth:

In September I finally had to go to the dentist having had toothache for 5 or 6 weeks. I felt really weedy, having to make an emergency appointment for a filling-gone-wrong, but Paul was very good about it.

I apologised for being wussy, and said could he just bung me in a temporary filling, and I would make a proper appointment when his diary was less crammed!

Well, the x-ray showed that there was a fracture in the tooth, and Paul said at least one half would have to come out; he wouldn't know if he could save the other half until he'd hoiked out the first chunk...

After asking if there was any way to save the tooth, and re-phrasing it a couple of times in case that gave me a better answer [in my defence, I think I was a bit in shock], it was still "No!", and "Let's get the first bit out and then see about the rest".

It's quite an odd [very slightly unpleasant] sensation having someone wrench out a tooth: there's no other way to do it, unless it's so bad you have to go to the dental hospital & they take away part of the jaw - NOT what I wanted!

Sadly, both halves of the tooth were beyond saving as the tooth had split completely, and the nerve no longer served either bit, so the other portion was dragged out, too.

When I went back to have the stitches out, I asked if I could have broken the tooth in Feb/March: I'd had really bad tooth pain for about a week [I felt as though a horse had kicked me in the face], and could NOT face letting a dentist any where near me, and then we got busy, and I forgot, etc, etc, etc...

Paul said yes, that sounds about right, and by the way I wasn't a wuss!

So, that made me pretty happy!

Chainsaw:

Very sad to lose the damson tree in the storm.

DELIGHTED to be able to use the chainsaw "properly"!

[So far we've only used it attached to the saw horse - that works brilliantly.]

That reminds me; did I mention we have logs?!

Well has water!:

When M. Antoni came to adjust the boiler the second time, he looked in the well, and we now have water - yay!

We "conveniently" forgot that you are supposed to pump the water for 12 hours [which is what caused it to run dry in the first place] before having a water quality test done; and no-one else has mentioned it...

And I'm willing to take the risk for flushing the loo and the cold shower water.

The basin has town water, so teeth cleaning is with treated water.

Pros: shiny hair - like rinsing with rain water. [However cold, I always finish with a cold rinse - wakes the head up nicely in winter!]

Cons: we don't seem to have constant pressure - so there's cold "patches" during showering!!

#LFMF:

When you're really tired, get a strong man to move the furniture!

I dragged a table top [we'd been emptying the stable to allow building work to start again, and had to store the "spare" furniture in the house"] away from the cupboard where we store the coffee maker.

[Site meeting of builders et al = coffee by the gallon!]

Thinking I wouldn't drag it back so I didn't mark the floor tiles, I lifted it to move it back into place...

And the edging and part of the top came away, whacked me in the face & left me bleeding and with a trout pout!

[Thankfully, as I've so far resisted botox, I didn't end up with that "mummified" look we sometimes see in Hollywood!]

Old furniture, made in sections may have weakened glue after a hundred or so years. #LFMF