"The Gas-Man Cometh
(Michael Flanders)

Twas on the Monday morning the gas-man came to call
The gas tap wouldn't turn
I wasn't getting gas at all
He tore out all the skirting boards to try and find the main
And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again
Oh it all makes work for the working man to do."

Do you remember the lovely Flanders and Swann? I saw them onstage in London in the 60s, reciting and singing their succintly descriptive ditties.

I thought of them this week when our Gasman came to call to give our boiler its annual checkup. Young, oh so young, he bounded in, took the boiler apart and seemed to lay its insides all over the laundry room. He clicked and clunked, flicked a few switches, started it, restarted it, and said smilingly 'All is fine', at the same time as handing me the bill for 140 euros. I wish I could earn that in half an hour!

Two or three hours later the smell of gas was floating gently round the laundry room. I went in, came out, and went in again, just to make sure, you understand? Phoned the office who didnt seem too bothered and advised opening the window...yes, I'd done that. Some hours later Jeune homme bounced in again, took the boiler apart, and waved an aerosol tester at it. 'Voila' he said, 'No leak, Madame!'

Then, perhaps because he realised I wasnt convinced, he smilingly whipped out his cigarette lighter, waved it at the inside of the boiler....and we both leapt back as the gas leak caught.

'Ah' he said, somewhat embarrassed, which was nothing to my comment that he could just possibly have blown us all up!

Sewing

I cant believe that anything this small (approx 40x30") should have taken me so long to finish.

It really should have been ready to go to a new baby by the end

of November, but it kept being put to one side. Christmas came. Visitors came.

We went to England and stayed rather longer than planned due to the snowy weather.

Now, it's done. Sent off to the new-ish baby .

It reminds me of gorgeously coloured Cupcakes!

Now I'm playing with string patchwork, using all my little bits up.

What will it be?

No idea.

Vannes

One or two people have asked about the header photo of Vannes. It is one of our favourite places to take friends and visitors, about 40 minutes from our house, and set at the head of the Morbihan gulf.

Vannes was founded over 2000 years ago and the original Roman name was Dariortum. It is said that the name 'Vannes' came from two prominent citizens, M and Madame Vannes, whose faces are cut in stone relief and mounted on a wall in the old town.

The old walled part of the town comes as a surprise, as it isnt visible from the main shopping streets where people gather for the twice weekly market.

But if you slip through an old gateway you find yourself by the ancient wash houses, built over the stream. The ramparts are close by, and the gardens are tended with immense care, being full of flowers in the Spring and Summer.

The Marina comes right up to the town, and there are two or three restaurants where you can sit at a table under a parasol, have a meal or a coffee, and just enjoy watching the boats.

The header photo was taken two days after Christmas, when we all sat outside at a restaurant on the port . The sun shone and the place was full of happy people.

Lady Rosemary??

Do you remember the 1968 childrens programme, The Herbs?

My children used to love it, singing along with Parsley the Lion and Dill the Dog

The picture is of Lady Rosemary, and it seems that it is also a picture of me. A dear friend who knows my love of all things floral, gave me the delightful flowery garden set for Christmas.

'You've got a garden Trug' she said, 'and a big sun hat, so I really felt you should complete the picture and become Lady Rosemary'.


Hmm. I wonder where Sir Basil is?

Loofah success

Here are my two Loofahs, grown from seed this year.

I wasnt sure if I would have much success, but I must have done

something right!

I now have an awful lot of seeds, far too many for me to use.

Let me know if you'd like to try growing a Loofah.

Edit; This is how a loofah grows, preferably in a greenhouse.

Waste not........

Countryfile is a programme that we watch without fail.

Last week one of the sections was to do with the millions of tons of food that is wasted in

our country.....not just the food that we throw away at home, but the

crops that are ploughed back in by the farmers.

Why?

Mainly because of size, looks and supermarket requirements.

I was horrified when John Craven, the presenter, showed a field of beautiful Purple sprouting Broccoli that was 'not good enough'. The stems were a little too thick/thin.

When he took two comparison boxes out to the shoppers, they all said they would prefer the

'unsuitable' Broccoli over the beautifully measured.

What is wrong with our country that we are allowing this to happen?

When a cauliflower is rejected because it is 'too big'!?

When a carrot has to be perfectly straight?

Please.

Think of the people

of Haiti,

begging for any shape or size of food.

Shoegrips

These shoegrips, sold as Yaktraks, have to be the best thing we bought this year.

We'd seen something similar in Canada years ago, bought them and lost them, as one does. So I was delighted to be able to order these on the internet from QVC.

They made walking on snow and ice possible. I did notice that the local postmen in England were wearing them too!

Haiti, and Shelterbox

I'm going to describe the work done by one of our favourite Charities, based in Cornwall, England, SHELTERBOX.(click to go to their site)

It may be that you havent heard of it. It isnt big like Save the Children or Red Cross. But it has a most sensible approaches to disasters. We have supported them for some years, as has our Anglican church here.

Shelterbox was thought up by Tom Henderson, living in Cornwall, and adopted by the Helston Rotary Club. He noticed that much of the aid offered concerned the main needs of medicines and rescue.

In 2001 Shelterbox worked on producing a large box which contained the basic needs for human survival, a Tent for an extended family of up to 10 people.

With it , depending on the locale and the disaster, goes basic survival equipment, blankets, water purifying tablets, tools, a stove for cooking, and pans and other utensils. There is, in each box, a childrens' pack, as an offering to those children who have lost everything.

This evening there is a team from Shlterbox in Port au Prince, and 930 boxes are en route , to be followed by another thousand.

All the charities who are presently involved in rescue work in Haiti are doing an amazing job. Please support them.

In answer to your queries......

In answer to questions about the things we bring back from England.....here are some of them.

I can't get my favourite Lapsang teabags here.

Syrup and Treacle can be found, but at very high price.

Beans also.

And Cheddar cheese? Well, some supermarkets now have teeeny weeny little packs of it. You can see our preferred size!

Safely returned.

It wasnt quite this bad on the motorways from Cheshire to Portsmouth, but I was glad we had made the decision to stop half way rather than doing the journey in one go. I'm the only driver now and find it exhausting in the sort of weather we have been having.

We took a stop near Bicester at a small Travel lodge, sailed into the car park..and were confronted by heaps of snow right across the parking area. Needless to say, I got stuck, but as prescribed, we were carrying a spade, so just had to do a bit of digging around the wheels the next morning.

Apart from fog, the rest of the journey was fairly easy, and after a stop at the superstore at Hedge end (all those little English essentials to take home), we reached the ferry with no problems.

It was even better to find, when we went to have dinner, that two of our friends were travelling over, so we spent some time enjoying their company over Coffee and a (shared) Brandyin the Bar.

Now it's time to attack the cases and carrier bags.................

Fishing?

Phishing (Fishing)

'The act of sending an e mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.'

Do you get them?

I do, more and more frequently now.

So far, thank goodness, I havent been caught out, and in some cases it is easy to spot the fake, by the poor spelling!

I have been 'phished' for information on;

my bank account,

my Orange server account,

My credit card,

my Paypal account.

The most ludicrous one told me , (in execrable French) that due to an accounting mistake they had taken 9oo euros from my account and would like to pay it back. All they needed was my bank details! Did they really think that I wouldnt have noticed a sum like that disappearing from my account??

What more can they demand?

Walk by the Canal.

Bugsworth Basin in Derbyshire yesterday. This was once the Terminus of the Peak Forest Canal, and was one of the largest ports on the canal system.. The basin closed in 1927, but in 2005 was reopened.

We had a wonderfully chilly walk along the canal path, following animal tracks in the snow. The canal was of course iced over solidly, and tempting as it might have been to try out the ice, no one did.

The narrow boats lay , caught up in their prison of thick ice, unused.

This is a photo of the opening ceremony, in the Summer of 2005, so you can see how alive the Canal can be.

We finished our walk in the Navigation Inn, with hot mulled wine and a very good lunch.

And here we stay...

The weather men tell us not to go out unless absolutely necessary. Even motorways are blocked, often by one vehicle having had an accident. We heard of people having to sleep in their cars overnight last night.
Deliveries are not getting through to shops, ans many supermarkets look as though post war rationing has returned, no bread, no milk.....
We are in one of the coldest areas in Cheshire, down to minus 18 last night......yes, laughable if like my daughter, you have jsut returned to Canada where the temps are minus 30.
So although we are booked to return to France next Monday, I'm not sure that I shall do that long cold drive down to Portsmouth. We may just have to stay a little longer, visiting with our family!

Sadly, not my photo, as the camera had once again stayed at home in the warm. We were all out having a wonderful walk around Dunham Massey grounds, a National Trust property near Stockport.

Ice and snow everywhere, ducks slipping and sliding in the frozen lakes. People treading with great care. Paths closed to the public due to icy conditions.

But what a marvellous place to visit, particularly the new Wintergarden, only created this year, and featured on a Television programme recently. I rememebr seeing volunteers washing the silver birch bark, and there they were, gleaming in the pale sunlight, silvery and ethereal in their little triangle. Underplantings of cyclamen and snowdrops will make a fantastic carpet in a few weeks.

Snow is falling fast today, and we are not going out.