Ozzy comes a cropper!.

Apologies for not quite managing to post before the end of 2013 - December was a busy month! On the 14th we ran a quiz night in the local bar - with live music from Marc and Sarah. We thought that we might get 25 people at the most but, in the end, 65 people turned up. We raised almost €300 for the Phillippines Relief Fund - and also caused the local bar to run out of red wine!!!!!! Many thanks to everyone that came and helped make the evening such a success. It was hard work but great fun and we are already planning another one for Easter. Happily, as far as I know, there are no pictures of me asking all the questions in my Santa outfit.

Our lovely children and their partners came for Christmas and we had a very festive day in Bergerac. It was lovely to meet Martin - first class sense of humour so fitted right in!

It was great fun decorating the house for our first Christmas here.......

The run up to Christmas is very low-key here in France. A refreshing change from the relentless, commercial assault which seems to start in October in the UK. Only Christmas day and New Year's day are bank holidays - the rest of the time it is business as usual and even a visit to the supermarket on Christmas Eve was stress-free - no evidence of people stocking up with enough food and drink to feed an army.

The rest of the family should have arrived on the 23rd, but the abysmal weather in the UK meant that their flight was delayed for three hours and actually landed at 0130 on Christmas Eve so that was a very late night for everyone! Luckily the weather here was a lot nicer and we had a sunny Christmas. Once everyone had left we had a quick turnaround to get ready for the 20 people who had booked for New Year.

Louis had been busy in the run up to Christmas with his Shine On London Road light installation in Brighton. It's quite hard to explain it, but this short video sums it up nicely:

Toy Hacking

We are now the proud owners of some nice hacks:

Keen-eyed readers will have spotted that, despite the title of this post, there has been no mention of the lovely Ozzy yet. He had a nasty accident a few days before Christmas and we really thought we had lost him. A million thanks to the fantastic vet in Valence who managed to rebuild him for us :-) He's well on the way to a complete recovery now but is definitely down to eight lives

His subdued state did make him the ideal place to put your beer though :-)

So, what does 2014 hold for us? Summer bookings have started and Marc will be playing live music in some of the local towns and villages. Long, sunny evenings seem like a distant memory at the moment, but the days are getting longer and summer will here again before we know it - although it would be nice if we could avoid the in-between part with the snow this year!.

Keep the home fires burning

November already? How on earth did that happen??? Only 38 sleeps until Santa comes (thank you to my friend Karen for keeping me abreast of this important information).  As you can probably tell, Ozzy has turned out to be even more useless at blogging than Larry so from now on the humans will be updating this. Actually, it was us all the time - did you guess? Here is Ozzy doing what he does best:

This year has absolutely flown by - seems like only yesterday we were wilting in 40 degree heat and here we are with the heating on thinking about Christmas. The good news is that after many visits from the plumber, much head-shaking and the occasional flood at the beginning of the year, the underfloor heating is now doing exactly what it says on the tin - and very nice it is too!

September was an exciting time for Ozzy (although that may not be the word that he'd choose). In a brief flurry of activity over a 2 week period he learned about travelling in a cage in the car (not popular!), getting stuck with needles by the vet (tolerable), being relieved of his manhood (indifferent) and spending a week in a cattery (confusing). He remains totally bonkers and is an endless source of entertainment - albeit a rubbish blogger.

So, what have we been doing with ourselves? Marc has been busy putting together a fortnightly radio show for one of the local stations. You can have a listen here: www.antenne-d-oc.fr/Britdoc
We have had guests in La Maison and also in the B&B, The pool and the Safari tent have been put to bed for the winter and the grass just keeps on growing.  October was gloriously sunny so it was an opportunity to finally get around to making a start on the vegetable garden. We've been busy thinking about next summer and rewriting our advertising - there will be some changes on the campsite and also additional outside "private" space for our B&B guests. Our website is next for a makeover, so look out for some changes there too.

There is some great garden inspiration to be seen locally - the scarecrow competition in Montcuq was great - I particularly like the first one!

Still,  you know what they say about all work and no play - there have been visits from family and friends and even a quick trip back to the UK where we became unnecessarily well acquainted with the rail network due to some confusion over the requisite documents needed to obtain a hire car :-(

The summer tourists may have all gone home, but there is still plenty going on here. The local town certainly made a big effort to entertain the kids at Halloween. I don't think either of us have ever been to a Halloween party in our lives, but we went to 2 this year. The standard of dressing up was spookily high - just a shame the rain intervened to cause the late cancellation of the ghost train.

On a startlingly hot day in late October we went to visit Bamboo Park - they too were gearing up for Halloween - slightly incongruous in such bright sunshine! Sadly, we found out that the park is closing after this season - such a shame as it is very beautiful. There is a ruined house in the grounds which would be "ideal for the DIY enthusiast".......

The local markets are bursting with seasonal produce - very colourful - and we have, of course continued our tireless research into local restaurants.............

as

Well, that's all for now folks. I'm off to write myself a reminder to publish a further blog post before the end of the year......................

Masks and music

Well, this blog writing lark is harder than it looks - so I have been spending time honing my word skills with a few crosswords:

Huge thanks to Barbara who regularly tops up the supply!

All the children joined in for another craft workshop - masks were very popular this time and some of the cat ones reminded me of my relatives in the wild - Auntie Pearl always did overdo it a bit with the eyeliner:

Meanwhile, back in the UK at the Green Man festival, Louis was also busy running some toy hacking sessions (must run in the family!) You can see some of the creations here - http://exploring-senses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/green-man-festival-day-1.html 

The humans have been very busy with all the work to keep the site running smoothly, but they have also found time for some "extra-curricular" activity. Marc's band - The Boogie Brothers - have done a few gigs now and have 2 more lined up next week. Friday night was Le Boulve where a fine time was had by all and everyone was up and dancing well into the night: