Crunchy Underfoot

 Before I moved to this perfect part of the world, winter for me was always something awful to be endured. Something that lasted a terribly long time.  I used to feel so cold as I rushed outside wearing not enough clothing...but not realising that winter needed it's own special clothing.

 Yesterday came the first sprinkling of snow, barely covering the ground, looking like a light dusting oficing sugar. Mother Nature's own makeover,  now even the most mundane of articles appears to be a thing of beauty.

Here's my little girl with her first solo attempt at cake making, this one is a gateau au citron with a sugary crust on top, hopefully the first of many!!

Aha, Aho, Tracks in the snow.

Whilst running the risk of sounding samey, this another post about the snow.
Yesterday, after a day of the snow falling all day, the ground was again a fresh white blanket, unblemished and pristine...or that's what I thought until I ventured around to the front of the gites where we're staying at the moment.

The snow was awash with different animal tracks. There were the usual cat and dog tracks, then I spotted what could only be a rabbit. It surprised me as I've never seen rabbits in these parts. This one was searching under all the apple trees for fallen fruit.
The other track was what looked like a blackbird, something with quite big feet and wings that brushed the snow as it hopped. Not unusual at all except where the tracks stopped and the bird took flight, both wings left what looked like hand prints in the snow.

I find it exciting-as a townie and someone who is not used to the snow, that the garden comes alive at night and the snow allows you to feel like some kind of tracker.
Now I know where these animals come into the garden, where they go and where they leave.
I also know that Alison's potagere is not breached, even though the rabbit does a nightly check on the gate!!
The only prints I found around my house were of what looked like dog paws, with long claws but enormous in size. Gladly whatever it was had long gone.


This is the tracks of the bunny prints looking for fruit under the trees.


And this bunny footprint.

* having just popped outside for a few minutes , I noticed that the bunny prints were in one path, the cat and dog prints made other paths and even my own were only in particular places, I realised then that we are all creatures of habit in our own ways.

The evil deed is done.

The van was finally loaded and the house emptied so I phoned Alison in France to check the arrangements.
The fact that no-one had been able to enter or leave the village for two days did not deter Mr Lemur from his plans. The ferry crossing was booked and we were going ahead as planned to drop all our worldly possessions in France.

We kind of decided that it would not turn out as bad in reality as we had been warned, the main roads were bound to be free of snow by now, so down to Portsmouth we went....happy to be giving Dover a wide berth.

We woke the following morning to find no snow at Le Havre and none on the roads, so despite the fact that we were driving a fully loaded 7.5 tonne truck, it felt good.
Our good friend Alan helped load the truck for two days in the UK then bravely offered to accompany us to France to lend a hand on the other side.

The house is located in rural Normandy and after about two hours of driving, wet approached the outskirts of the village.
As soon as we left the main road, we encountered the snow, not too bad on the flat but a bit of a white knuckle ride on the long downward hill into the village.
I tend to worry on the snow because never having driven this truck, I don't know if we're asking for it to deliver something out of it's comfort zone.
Anyway, we were nearly there and what other choice did we have than to have a go at negotiating the twisty, winding, icy slope?


I needn't have worried about the lorry in the snow, Mr Lemur negotiated it faultlessly and we arrived at the house ready to start day three of the move extravaganza.
At this point, Alison arrived from next door with promises of hot coffee, I didn't need asking twice, anyway, there was always the possibility that the others would arrive to say that the unloading was done.
Didn't happen.

Unpacking the truck was much as you would expect really, until we came to the range cooker. It went in easily enough...with a fork lift. it came out very laboriously, the four of us wondering how we could possibly lift the thing without the weight being taken bt the thin sheet steel on the bottom. Luckily it was a cooker on legs, Guy, our French neighbour (on the other side) suggested tying a rope around the bottom of each tapering leg to fashion a handle. This worked and we could move the cooker six inches per lift as far as the door and over the threshold, then came the fun stuff, we screwed the feet of the cooker onto planks to make skis and then dragged it into position. Easy peasy. Just took about an hour to move, that's all.
As soon as we finished unloading, the temperature plummeted and all the melting snow started to re-freeze.
Thankfully a canny one amongst us suggested moving the lorry into the main village before the road turned to glass, which is exactly what happened. We would have been stranded ourselves until who knows when had we not done it.

It became apparent that someone 'up there' decided that we deserved to live in France...for whatever reason. Had we started out a day earlier or later, we would not have found it as easy a journey.

A quick but heartfelt thank you to our good friends who helped us, to Mom and Dad, Alan, Helen, Alison and Guy....you're the best.
...and Alison, I nicked your picture, thanks, hope you don't mind.

Look at the photo's on www.cheekylemur.blogspot.com