It snowed! So excited as it isn’t supposed to snow here. Couldn’t wait till morning, had to jump out with camera and rush into the garden. It was so quiet, beautiful and the dark lanes and fields were lit in soft reflection from this new white blanket. The sky is heavy with snow, so tomorrow… Continue reading First snow
They are a restless lot and chewing the cud, snuffling through leaves or merely running away in blind panic, is the usual happening when I raise my camera lens. Maybe the lens makes me look like a large menacing single-eyed cyclopes, but whatever it does, it makes animal portraiture difficult. Mr Bull positively puffs and… Continue reading Portraits
A while ago, longer than I dare to remember, I worked in a cheese factory. It was a yearlong contract to unfortunately close down a large specialized cheese importer – HT Webbs and transfer the most profitable cheese to the Danish dairy company Arla Foods. The job was fascinating mainly from the point that to… Continue reading Cheese please
This week I woke to beautiful white frosted views. These are from my garden. The garden itself is in winter slumber. The grass is covered to ensure the grass dies back for Spring when I will be creating a wild flower garden. The wildflowers need barren earth, they need harsh, they need the support to… Continue reading Frosted Winter mornings
Spending a day in Paris: boats, books and baking Written by Judi Castille in Guest Blogs The anticipation of warm, thick, hot chocolate in little expresso sized cups was alluring. Indulgent pastries and a huge array of chocolate and candy to choose, persuaded me to rise from my slumberous bed and cross the river Seine… Continue reading Paris – Good Life France
Over the summer I had been so busy with the barn renovations, settling into my hamlet and trying to work a balance between my work – accountancy – and other projects that require a creative input that I had forgotten what I loved doing the most – photographing flowers, seed-heads and grasses. Ok I am quite… Continue reading Browns stopped me feeling blue
I always love taking photos of flowers and yesterday I was sorting photos, realising so many were in my old computer and yet to be released. Here are a selection from spring and Summer, many in my local area of Creuse and some from London where I lived before arriving here in March. It is… Continue reading Summer floral and visitors
When I finally came here to France in March I came with a baggage of old business ventures, ideas, some creative like writing – eight stories in draft and a huge A4 file packed with notes and ideas to complete them – and illustrating the stories too – I hadn’t picked up a paint brush… Continue reading Which direction?
This articled appeared in The Good Life France website this Autumn. But here with photos I took on the day. Over twenty years ago I visited the Chateau du Rivau. In its first stages of renovation by owner Patricia Laigneau, a Versailles trained garden designer with a passion to restore the chateau to its… Continue reading Chateau Du Rivau
I follow a blog by The Thrifty Campers – two brave souls heading out into the wilds to live – well – wild. Its a great site and full of humour. Go have a look and give support. Last month there was a great post about hand-washing. Yes when living out you still need clean… Continue reading Washing days and making do
This spring we turned a bramble infested piece of land that lies at the end of our tiny hamlet, into the beginnings of an ornamental garden. At first it was going to be an allotment, in memory of my Dad who always wanted one, but never got round to it – the house decorating, the… Continue reading A Glut of Tomatoes
A few weeks ago I grabbed handfuls of saffron from very wet grass, took them home to dry, but ended with sogginess and to the compost they went. A lucky accident, the saffron dyed the papers they were draining on and after drying, they turned out to be great background papers for the herb photos.… Continue reading Picture papers
I wasn’t expecting to be entered into any blog listings so quickly, but it appears I have made it into Feedspot and am very happy to be joining a great many enthusiastic Francophiles who are listed. Like all bloggers I want to ensure I create useful, sometime humorous and visual content and I am still… Continue reading 100 French Blogs
Back in 2013 I begun a business that would I hoped import fine Romanian honey – Acacia, mint, Linden, wildflower, fir to name a few. We were also making conifer syrups from the pine and fir forests near Transylvania [ our families area] and honey was a natural extension of this. I contacted German suppliers too,… Continue reading Honey Bee Suite
The very first French blog I followed was Lost In Cheeseland. Its a fabulous look at Paris through food, travel and personal experiences of Lindsey Tramuta. Over the years Lindsey has honed her writing to the point where she has finally written a book about how Paris is changing and finding once again its artisan… Continue reading Lost In Cheeseland
One huge element of writing this blog is photography. I love taking the camera out and seeing what will turn up. So often this week the camera stayed at home, stupidly I assumed nothing would be worth photographing, only to find this week an adorable pig snouting through the autumn leaves and a neighbour who… Continue reading Photography filters
From 2013 to early this year I had invested a huge amount of time and finances on bringing to commerciality a conifer syrup that originated from a recipe my husband’s father made from the pine cones and fir tips he collected whilst walking the local mountains. He was a mountain man – both in his… Continue reading Foraging Future
From a wet start, and a trip into our almost local town of Boussac, north of us, the sun shone and lit up a gloriously Autumnal day. The road back home has a sign right pointing to Toulx Sainte Croix, a high point, almost a mountain, where a few weeks ago we found a wonderful… Continue reading Saffron in the sun
Well this week was eventful. On Wednesday morning after being woken suddenly with a pounding migraine and being sick on the hour every hour, at 3 o’clock the local emergency ambulance service was called, run in our area by volunteers and very fast to our door, to whisk me off to Montlucon Hospital. After a… Continue reading Baby Vache
This post turned out to be a little technical, but I was fed up spending hours searching the internet on “how to point a French barn”, and finding unhelpful comments. So to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, I decided to write a post. Bare with the length of this article… Continue reading La Mason Femme
I first came to France on my honeymoon – Paris, not very original, but it was the start of a life long love of the country. I was 23 years old. Over the years, I am now 50, I travelled to France many, many times and read her history and dreamed of settling down one… Continue reading The Good Life France
In La Petite Maison, our temporary home whilst the barn is being renovated, we have a chimney and every morning the waking sparrows squabble and chase each other for an energetic couple of hours. Competition to make nests here is fierce and the clatter of pebbles often wakes us, as they tumble down the chimney.… Continue reading Trapped in the chimney
My husband Tony carries a little black notebook wherever he goes, scribbling, jotting. I think most of it is highly secret, but sometimes a character appears, there is a lot of paper flurries, ink pens on the move and a bit of cursing on photoshop. Dealing with all our company websites, logos and trade marks… Continue reading Chaps, Sods and Fellowettes
Leanne is a fine art photographer in Australia. Her niche is architecture, landscapes using long exposure, dramatic contrast and now infrared, a new exploration into the reverse world of light. Every month Leanne runs a post – Monochrome Madness – where we can post our photos based on the theme set. It’s nice to be… Continue reading Monochrome Madness
August was extremely hot and we hid behind shutters sipping cool spritzers. The cows too felt the heat and shuffled and wiggled themselves perfectly into the oak trees shadow and waited patiently till the sun cooled a little around four in the afternoon. How many cows can you get under a tree? In some cases… Continue reading In the shade
After many months of cutting down an overgrown wilderness, a garden appeared. The birch trees flourished with a bit of tlc, shading their roots, mulching and a lot of watering when the heat was extreme in August. But something was missing. A garden bench. I wanted a quiet spot to sit, to write notes for… Continue reading My garden bench
As the song goes…Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun…”, well coming from the constant dreary grey drizzle of England, even in July and August, this English woman had a nasty shock two weeks ago after a few pleasant days working outside. It was not one of those extremely fierce heat days,… Continue reading Mad dogs and Englishwomen…
We have a very small community here at Auge and even smaller our side of the road, as the motorway cut the village in two. Our side kept the cows and the other side kept the church. Winding down a small lane between the pastures you come across a huge couple of barns belonging to… Continue reading Neighbours
Holing up in the depths of the countryside, nothing happens, too quiet, you will forget about civilization, are just a few comments were heard when we left England. After a few months here, France couldn’t be further from any of this. The countryside is noisy, from the early morning daily collection and delivery of thousands… Continue reading So noisy in the countryside
June and July have been solid work, pushing to get our home and gardens clear of overgrown woodland, brambles, piles of unwanted packaging from our moves and painting all our buildings and new fences from a huge array of pots left by my father from his garage. We are now left with an off assortment… Continue reading At the bottom of our garden
When it rains, as it did today, I hole up in my office and tackle all the outstanding letters, accounts and papers that I procrastinate about. An easy option when the sun is out, cool breezes and the garden calling for me to potter – any excuse not to stay inside. Now into our first… Continue reading Room with a view
Mr Bull -Bos Taurus [cattle], our docile neighbour. He is home alone at the moment, missing the girls and killing time snoozing and scratching amongst the buttercups. The bulls are hired in each year to work their romantic magic on the girls and whilst waiting, Mr Bull groans and moans – a rumbling, resonant sound… Continue reading Mr Bull – not camera shy
One of the long term plans in coming to France was health. Fed up with rainy grey days in England and longing for long summers, we found our barn in cow country, rolling hills and meadows, where the weather changes by the hour. A temperate area with fierce storms and gales followed by three solid… Continue reading Vegetarian
I suffered with insomnia for many years and joined the group of people who realise they can learn foreign languages at two in the morning courtesy of the range of obscure television programmes the BBC air for night workers and insomniacs. I never learnt Spanish, but I did learn that I had to resolve the… Continue reading Woman Pause
Two days ago it was so hot, my arms got sunburn and the factor 20 cream came out of the dark recesses of the cupboard. Today we had blizzards, the van as you can see from the photos froze over. A short journey to Montlucon, a mere 20 minutes and our white van was an… Continue reading Frozen
As a child in the 1970’s I loved the dried Teasels every woman seemed to have in her home and as time went by they became dustier and one day as time moved, they were no longer loved and dried teasels became unfashionable. It is a shame as I still love these cruelly prickled seed… Continue reading Teasing times
It was very breezy, icy cold winds from the Southern mountains, but the light was soft and perfect for pictures. Views from our land and the local livestock enjoying the sunshine. I love where I live.
Our home is slap bang in the middle of beef farming pastures and lush grassland and that means cows everywhere. All day these creamy cows frolic and chew the cud, follow us inquisitively if we come into view and provide many humorous moments of cow interactions. They are docile, full of character and one of… Continue reading Charolais Cattle
Every girl needs a woodshed to have fun in and if it isn’t quite the way Lady Chatterley would have had in mind, I am going to enjoy mine just as much, well once we have put the door on anyway! For clarity, Lady Chatterley of DH Lawrence fame, would meet her game keeper for… Continue reading Fun in the Woodshed
Arriving back in France has been a jolt to the system, a commitment to getting life back on track and not to lament too many things that have gone wrong over the last year. Loosing a couple of business ventures, money and now with little if no income, but with home to build, I am… Continue reading The Sweet and Sour
After almost five years of moving apartments, packing boxes and accumulating more boxes that come with life, I am finally on my way home to Auge in France. I had not expected five years ago to be leaving London and setting up in Europe, it was always one of those retirement dreams, but circumstances, money… Continue reading Heading home
Early March and my friends flat is a chaos of boxes, bags, scissors and tape. We have borrowed this studio for six months now and filled it with everything we think we wont be able to get in France, or if we could, we will be so busy when we return, we wont be inclined… Continue reading Leaving my past
Tony and I decided to take a road trip around Europe, in an attempt to see as many cities as we could over a almost four weeks. Everyone thought we were mad taking my old car, but it seemed the simplest way to see the countries we passed through. One of the difficulties of making… Continue reading A European Cheese tour
Its what hits you side on that takes you by surprise – they say. The train arrives faster than you had allowed and you thought you had enough engine power to get across the line. But you don’t. You have driven over this route so many times, you know the risks, you have assessed, put… Continue reading Always have a Plan B
The world is full of a cornucopia of blogs, lifestyle photographers, craft projects, entrepreneurs and travellers. It is hard on the very best of days to promote your businesses, to show case your work and find a voice to say how great your products are, that you adore what you do and would move heaven… Continue reading A voice – a journey.
Tony has been working diligently over the last few weeks re-working Ion Conifer Syrups website. He has done a great job bringing the woody shades of the conifers, mountains and land into the site. We both put a huge amount of work into this business, web work, photography, manufacturing, distribution, costing and account work. I… Continue reading Ion Conifer Syrups at work
I have never been a great fan of having my photo taken, but my husband over the last year has been sneaking a few and actually they are not as bad as I thought. So in this world of social networking, I wanted to say hello, this is me on location. The bee trucks are… Continue reading My local countryside
I had a garden five years ago which I had to abandon when I divorced. It wasn’t a large garden, more a Edwardian pocket handkerchief, but I had started to fill this with flowers I could cut, dry and bring into the house. Even when they faded and dried, they were re-cycled into linen bags… Continue reading Wild and wonderful
When the weather is not being nice or the wind is being just a little too boisterous, I turn to food photography to cheer the day. I am new to this genre and finding my feet. Food photography is not easy. There are choices to be made – dark and moody, clinical white with clean… Continue reading Fun with Food
This tiny little delicate seed head was hidden in a dark obscure mossy place down by our local stream. I had forgotten my tripod, so holding my breath to get the shot was turning me blue. I am not yet skilled in connecting two or three images to bring this lovely seed head, almost star anise,… Continue reading Almost missed
A French Creative Life 