60's/70's soiree food and Disco in Josselin!

I don't know if there is anyone out there who lives near to Josselin in Brittany dept.56, if you do, or do not mind a journey (you could always stay the night in one of the hotels or one of the B&B's here and make it a short break) then come on down to this great 60's/70's food and disco evening which is proposed for Saturday 18th April starting at 7.30pm, the food you will be getting is roast lamb, (yum yum) veggies, rissole potatoes, gravy and 1/4 pichet of wine red, white or rose, and of course 60's and 70's music - all for 10E! So get your glad rags on and come on down, they have requested that dressing up in the appropriate gear would be great if you can to add to the ambience.

So come on all of you who are lonely, or anyone who want's a good night, Keith and I enjoyed their last soiree last month, was such good fun, have a look here http://bretondiary.com/diary/150309_st_patricks_day.html at Keiths Breton Diary for information of their last do to whet your appetite. If you would like to come along please ring Sandra or Fabien to make a reservation on 02.97.75.67.91, first come first served, but you can still come along just for the evening if you do not want to eat.

If any of you are a bit shy or cannot speak enough French just let me know and I will pass your requested reservation on for you.

Hope to see you there!!!!


Jilly

I'm back!

Hi everyone,

Just in case any of you might have been wondering where I have been blogwise, I have had a few personal problems, which hopefully are sorting themselves out now - so am back on form - so watch out LOL!

Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

I have been a busy Jillybeans today! you may well remember when I first started the garden here in the smaller house, I took some pictures, this particular one to the left is in my first potager, (veggie area) note the rubbish at the end, lots of broken tiles, glass, builders rubble etc., now it is nice and clear, pic below, and have re-arranged the stones to make it a rockery as you can see in the pic, I will trail some strawberries and wild flowers over them, well thats the plan, lets hope it comes to fruition!

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I was looking at next doors garden, a little old lady lives there, she loves gardening, she has leeks and onions she is still digging up, quite a big plot, she potters away every day doing a little bit more, you would say 'ok whats wrong with that' well nothing at all, its just that Keith mentioned "have you noticed she has rows of tulips amongst the veggies", and sure enough as the picture below proves, she has some real nice tulips coming up, now what is odd is that the French are not really worried about flowers to that extent especially in the veggie patch - not far short of a waste of space in their eyes, as they would put as much veg in as possible, so this was quite refreshing to see, along with her 7 pairs of knickers all neatly in a row, 2 housecoats, pinnys, 2 bras, tea towels, jumpers, as today is Monday its wash day! every week its the same - bless her!!

I have also been transplanting strawberry plants which are dotted around the garden, apparently some of them are Alpine strawberries which will be lovely to pick in the morning with my cereal! I've got loads of them, also been sowing more seeds, been trying to hold back on them a bit as it is rather cold at night, in fact it was frosty on my windscreen of the car today, but in saying that my red cabbages are coming up a treat, so are my tomatoes and cress, just keeping my fingers crossed nothing happens to them! Have sown some potatoes (the left overs from my other garden) onions, red onions and carrots outside as well.

Well thats it for a mo! happy gardening one and all!

Our Cats!

We have 2 cats called SAMMY & CINDY - they are brother and sister - they were both born on 1st May 1999 which means they will be 10 years old this May!

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They've both been with Keith for a long time (since kittens) and have been through lots of adventures with him, now their latest adventure is having moved again but instead of just Keith they have moved in with Joshy and me! Now that's really put the cat amongst the pigeons!!!

SAMMY - is the laid back, lazy fat stupid cat! he loves sitting in this box to the right here! he weighs in at just over 6kg! "he is built for comfort not speed" and follows his master everywhere (old habits die hard). He doesn't usually venture off far but last summer at the old house where Keith lived he went missing, we were very distraught as its not like him, we searched everywhere, put posters up looked in the ditches, so unlike him to miss a meal,

After 8 days away from home, we were having to come to terms that the worst had happened to him, which I knew was really upsetting Keith. Then on Monday morning, whilst Keith was doing some work on the computer and I was in the kitchen, busily peeling garlic, we both heard a "Miaoww" Sure enough, it was the Sammy beast! Having said hello, the first thing he did was to rush to the food bowl and gorge himself - "nothing has changed there", I thought to myself!

As you can perhaps see from these photos, he seems to have lost quite a bit of weight and was very thirsty, but in all other respects seemed fit and healthy. Having emptied his water bowl he started on the watering can, Cindy came up to wash him as if to say you dirty bruv u and then it was snooze time!

Next door to Keith's old bungalow is a company who repairs roofs, we later found out that he had crept into next doors works van, must have been on a Friday they had closed the van doors and shut up shop on a weeks holiday, and of course was discovered on their return 10 days later! We had to take a bottle of Pastis round to say "sorry" for the clawing and mess inside the van!

He loves sitting on my lap when I am working on the computer, but as he's so large he often falls off! he also loves it when I comb him, I don't use an ordinary brush I use a flea comb - not because of fleas you understand - its because he goes into ecstatic raptures with this thing and being long haired its great on getting the excess hairs off especially at the moment as they seem to be molting a lot! now its a different matter if Keith is in bed and Sammy is as well he hisses and spits at me!!! we can only think its a "protecting the master" way of his - oh well! Sorry Sammy I'm not impressed - but I do love you really!

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Now CINDY is a totally different cat, she is very clever, does her own thing, when Keith was living in the Bungalow there was a lot of land around, so she was always off hunting and sleeping amongst the long grass, I hardly ever saw her when I came to visit but she did love to bring Keith presents as this pic shows one of her conquests she had brought into the house - poor mouse, he told me (Keith not the mouse) he had to walk away as the crunching of the bones was too much for even him - yeeuk at least she licked up the blood as well!

She would never sit on my lap and didn't like to be stroked in fact would usually run away when I or Joshy were around, NOW we are all together here and the garden is much smaller, she has had a whole change of life (must have had a cat brain transplant) she is a totally different cat! maybe due to not a lot of open land around there seem to be no meeces to be caught (glad to say)

a real homely cat now, very vocal, is always talking loves Joshy, has taken to sitting on the window sill watching the world go by, as we are actually on the road this is a novelty to her compared to the countryside. She is getting nearly as lazy as her brother! She also loves sitting on my furry handbag a present from Keith's sister (shhh don't tell her!) and during the day she adores sitting by my computer as she follows the sun round!

Now if Keith calls PRAWNIES! they will run like mad wherever they are, Cindy can't get enough of them, Sammy starts eating then leaves the rest for later, but he's such a stupid cat he goes back and wonders where they have all gone to! Derrr Sammy!

Finally a pic of them both with their master!

I have done my Potty Planting!

Spent all day planting yesterday, boy was I tired last night! Keith my fella had got my dinner nearly ready by the time I got home last night and said lets go for a drink to relax you first (he really wanted a drink if the truth is known) so we walked down to our local bar but with great difficulty on my behalf I just could not straighten up! Now I know what it must feel like to be old and a hunch back!

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When you look at the above pic it really doesn't look like I've done much but if you look closely, each stick represents the rows I have planted, theres a lot really honestly! Anyway, I have planted loads of early potatoes, Anais, and a main crop Desiree, lots of ordinary onions (sturon), shallots (Jermor) and lots of red onions, I love these, the ground although dug up and manured a week or so ago, was so hard due to no rain for a while I had to really dig it all again - no wonder I felt knackered!

Now all I have to do is wait for them to come up! I have kept a few of each type to plant here in my garden in Josselin so I can actually 'watch' them grow as I find it exciting!

I need to next time I go over, probably next week now, sow my carrots, parsnips and some other stuff, green beans I think might be a possibility but not sure what else as yet.




Whilst waiting for me to finish planting, my friend Karen who has been helping me continued digging ready for sowing next week, she was so proud of her efforts, but I reminded her to look to her right (see pic above) to show her that she has barely started she has all that still to dig up!!!! don't think she will be coming again LOL Sorry Karen only joking!

N.B. I have added a couple of 'Nasturtium' pics (Keithy's favourite) to brighten up the otherwise dull pictures of my planting!

Blue Tit update!

I have managed to take some real pics yesterday of our Blue Tits take a look!

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ARN'T THEY LOVELY!

Looking forward to seeing the babies later on - only problem is Blue Tits are renowned for throwing their babies out of the nest, which means our cats will get them, or perhaps not as it is a bit of a wilderness below the tree, lets hope!

LEGO! LEGO! LEGO! LEGO! LEGO! LEGO!

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Today I am blogging for my 12 year old son Joshy, he is absolutely Lego mad - he is the top Lego Boy of Brittany!!!! The above pic was taken a few weeks ago and there is even more Lego now! He has lots of Lego City, and is now getting into Star Wars. He has numerous pics so click on this link to see the latest ones on offer, but please don't look too closely at some of them as you will see lots of bits fluff and dirt on the carpet where he won't let me clean his bedroom!! boys hey!!!!!!!!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/jillygirlie/JoshySLego?feat=directlink