The French love expositions, artistic ones, wool fairs, potatoes fairs, poultry fairs, if it’s a rural, local pastime, there will over the long summer and into autumn, be an event occurring in a quaint little village. Our area is no exception and this year has been a good year with Crocq, Auzances, Orsenne, and just… Continue reading Autumn Expositions
Sometimes I forget why I started my blog way way back in London. I took a trip down memory lane and it was good to feel that I still had my love of all things natural and wild flowers and more than that, the tentative start with a camera, as before 2012, I didn’t own… Continue reading Finding the flowers
Near our tiny hamlet there are forests. Logging forests for burning and fence making. I drive past here many times meaning to take a photo, but either forget my camera or I am not the driver and too soon we have driven past and it’s too late to stop. But this week Tony’s injured shoulder… Continue reading Winter firewood
From last March, I have been stalking round my neighbours farm, snapping nervous cows, yapping dogs and farmer too. The seasons brought work to the farm – feeding, ploughing, hay making and calves to birth. Its a lonely job being a beef farmer and most days Christian is on his own, doing what he does,… Continue reading Project Farm
Taking photos on the “big camera” as I call the Canon Mark III is quite time consuming. It’s a heavy camera, especially with the 70-210mm lens to get close-ups – eyelashes of cows for example, and if stability needed, I need to lug the tripod too. One solution for the blog was to get a Tamron… Continue reading Technology in the countryside
Our tiny little commune is known as La Nourrice, meaning wet-nurse. It is a strange name and I have yet to delve into its history, but in essence a wet-nurse breast feeds another woman’s baby. It was common practice in days gone by, but I am not so sure today, well not in this neck… Continue reading La Nourrice affinage
The hedgerows are quiet and in winter slumber. The ivy is still feeding the last few little pollinators who haven’t realised yet its time for bed. The hedge near our house still has pink pillow berries and the nettles never ever notice winter at all, and continue to menace even in their frosted coats. When… Continue reading In flower for 2018
The more it snows (Tiddely pom), The more it goes (Tiddely pom), The more it goes (Tiddely pom) On snowing. And nobody knows (Tiddely pom), How cold my toes (Tiddely pom), How cold my toes (Tiddely pom), Are growing. Winnie The Pooh was right. He always is. It snowed and I rushed out with the… Continue reading How cold my toes
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
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
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
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
A French Homestead Life 