It’s been an active and eventful week this week that’s for sure. Once I’d set my mind to walk 5km every morning I was really pleased that first Nic, and then Carol decided to join me. So, every morning this week at least 2 of us have walked the 5km route – leaving at 7.15am – bright and early to get it done before it gets too hot. I’m not going to mention the small point that the first morning Nic turned up to join me I was still it bed (oh whoops I just did mention it). It was partly her fault, partly mine, a bit embarrassing and resulted in a very sleepy me literally being out of the door in about 7 minutes flat and feeling rather dazed and confused for the first few km.
As the week has progressed the walking group has evolved to a running group as well. Not sure how that happened but Carol knows a guy Steve etc. etc. and before I could say “but my knees are knackered and my boobs are too big to run downhill” it was 0800 on Thursday morning and 5 of us – well 7 if you want to count Luka and Lillie too – were off on the hilliest run I’ve ever done in my life!! 20 minutes out and 20 minutes back.
Very hard for me and I was the slowest – but I enjoyed it and went back for more this morning – 0800 on a Sunday!! For a run!! Unheard of in my previous life!!
I have also revived my yoga practice and am now trying in earnest to do 30 minutes most days after my walk. So far this has worked well this week as it’s been sunny and warm and I have been doing it outside, overlooking the trees – which has been a fantastic contrast to my previous yoga studio back in the UK – but I did find I was missing a mirror. But then we doing a pose I caught my shadow and realised I was sticking my butt out the back a bit too much and was able to correct it really well by just looking at my shadow!!
Wednesday was a really active day – as well as the 5km walk we also had all our worldly goods arriving in the removal van. This was exciting and frustrating in equal measures. Back in England we had stressed the limited access to the storage barn, and (we thought) agreed that they would bring a small truck but in the preceding few days via a few frustrating phone calls it became apparent that they were going to bring a larger lorry. So, we were both a little nervous about this.
You’ll see from the photo that it was a challenge for them!! It’s a very steep and narrow slope – it took about 45 minutes for them to get up there!!
Enough said about that – I don’t want my blog to be moany but I was disappointed that they didn’t take any notice of us and also even more disappointed that there were a lot of broken items – luckily nothing irreplaceable but it would seem they didn’t take a great deal of care of our possessions. So, everything we own in this world apart from the things we managed to squeeze into the motorhome are now in storage until we build a house to fill up. It’s a good job we had a good de-clutter before we packed it all as I really do not want to EVER move house again!!
We were very grateful that we were going to our neighbour Alice’s for supper that evening and we had a lovely, chilled out evening with her and as always, a bottle of wine and hearing more of her crazy stories unwound our coiled springs.
Thursday evening was another fantastically chilled evening with friends Carol and Craig. Lovely homemade pizza by Craig, and salads from Carol – and lots of Gin and Tonic and Rose Wine – lovely. All enjoyed sat outside looking out on to lovely French landscape and we were completing spoilt by a stunning sunset – see the photo and I swear there were no filters on this picture. Just simply stunning!!
Friday evening was the Fete des Voisins (Neighbours Day) which was in the village at the Halle – which is the covered market area. Large tables were put out, and everyone coming brings a plate of food to share and some drinks. 
The idea is to get to know your neighbours. It was a really fun evening – lots of wine, I tried “l’eau du vie” for the first (possibly last) time and got up with some young French girls (and some older English girls) for a little boogie.
Martin finally got around to fixing the post box up this week. The said post box was found in the ruin and previously belonged to Dad and Ann, but we have never found the corresponding post. But Martin found an old wooden post on a rubbish pile down in the village so used that to fix it on – hey presto – our very own post box!!
He ventured down to La Poste to check that we have our address correct as technically we are within the Bourgale estate but our access is via another track. He explained to the post woman that we were going to send ourselves a post card to test it out – much to her amusement! With a little shrug she said the post takes “un jour, deux jours?” So, he posted the Post Card – which has full written instructions for the post man on exactly how to get to us….and waited…………….and waited…………..and waited. Every day, we checked the post box singing this song in our heads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vAqE0AvEqwAvEqw
Day One – nothing
Day Two – nothing – but we did have loads of junk mail
Day Three – nothing
Day Four – nothing
Then when we thought maybe it had got lost – on Saturday!!
Result!! It’s official – we can now have food parcels sent to us!!
At least now we will have a proper post box to have notes from Alice left it – although I must say it was rather sweet to come home to this on Saturday morning – it was left on our camping table outside the motorhome
She had very kindly agreed to “doggo sit” for Luka and Lillie whilst we attended Bernard’s 90th Birthday Party – which was great fun. I can’t even begin to imagine what it is like to be 90 years old but he’s looking good on it – and given that he was a similar age to me now when he first came out and was in very poor health I think that’s a very good indicator that life out here could be the healthy option – let’s hope so!!
©Sharon Rees-Williams – wordpress.com/thislittlepieceof.land, 2018
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