One Year Blog Anniversary

February 8 2011  I started this blog one year today; I can hardly believe it!  It has been an amazing year and I have 'met' so many new friends, some literally.  This blog was started originally so that friends and family could follow what I have been up to, where I have been and what I have been cooking.  Suddenly, like Topsy, it grew and grew and now I have almost 100 followers, well over 11,000 page views and climbing fast.  I have so enjoyed building new friendships from all over the world and your comments are a delight to receive and mean so much to me. Thank you one and all.

This is my 160th post and I thought I would take one of my favourite pictures from each month since I started the blog, and celebrate a little of the whole year in one place. 

February 2010 posts covered several months, as it was all about 'the beginning', from when we bought the house in France (Sep 2005) up until 18 July 2007; this photo, although in the February postings, was in fact taken in June 2006.  The old plaster had been removed from the outside of the house, to reveal the lovely stone work underneath. Repointing had not started at this stage.

 http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/02/june-2006-part-3.html

March 2010 also covered several posts from 2007 until 1 January 2010.  In April 2008 we finally succeeded in getting rid of the leaks in our barn thanks to some fine workmanship from our local roofer.  Not forgetting, of course, help from our neighbour in lifting the tiles, which made life considerably easier.  Note that the exterior walls had been finished and pointed in this photo.

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/03/april-to-august-2008-part-21.html

April 2010 I returned to our house in France after the winter spell in the UK. Despite spring arriving with me and the garden being full of spring flowers and blossom on the trees, my favourite photo just had to be this cute little donkey which I saw one day on my way home from shopping, via the scenic route.

 http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/04/scenic-route-home-part-47.html

May 2010  This was a difficult month to choose a photo from, as I was torn between three, this lovely view, the Citroen 2CV's parading in Chasseneuil and the very first asparagus that I was able to cut from the garden.  This view, which I finally decided on, is taken from the Resistance Memorial, which is positioned to overlook the town of Chasseneuil and all the areas beyond, where the four principal members of the local resistance group were based.

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/05/memorial-de-la-resistance-chasseneuil.html

June 2010  Another difficult month to choose from and I thought this was going to be easy!  There were some stunning sunsets this month, the garden was looking fantastic and there was the post on La Rochefoucauld Chateau.  I finally decided though that my favourite was farming country, with hay bales as far as the eye can see.

 http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/06/round-and-about-5-part-72.html

July 2010 France in July; not really a choice here, as I can only go for the photo taken on the 14th when the country celebrated Bastille Day. What a great night we had!

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/07/bastille-day-celebrations-and-tdf-part.html

August 2010 This month I had to look no further than one photograph; this was probably my favourite of the whole year.  It was the most magical sunrise with storm clouds, nothing like I had ever seen before (or since!) and I just happened to look outside at exactly the right moment.

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/08/magic-of-nature-fiery-sky.html

September 2010 I gave up trying to decide for September and finally thought that a collage was the only answer,  maybe not all my favourite photos, but to me, the interesting ones.

Top Left - Our gates, which I had finally managed to finish painting see HERE.
Top Right and Bottom Left - My September garden see HERE
Bottom right - My friends' beautiful Charentaise floor HERE

October 2010  Was my return to the UK for winter; although this may not be the best quality photo, as it was taken though salt encrusted windows from the ferry, I think it is was certainly a favourite of my followers, and most people remembered the words of the song "The White Cliffs of Dover".

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/10/travelling-back-to-uk-part-3.html

November 2010 was the month I met up with fellow blogger Anne.  As I previously commented, it was  amazing that after following each other's blogs for several months, we discovered that our homes in the UK are in the same village.

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/11/meeting-up-with-fellow-blogger-and.html

 December 2010  As it was a very cold December, I decided that this was one of my favourite photos of a 'cold seat'!!  I have to say it was once again a very difficult choice, as I did love the photos that I took of the small town of Wantage.

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2010/12/im-dreaming-of-white-christmas.html

January 2011   Certainly my favourite photo that I posted in January is the one of St Nicolas Church in Newbury, taken across the Kennet and Avon Canal.

http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2011/01/st-nicolas-church-newbury-uk.html

February 2011   As I am only just into the month of February, and this was the month I started last year, I feel as if the 12 photos above show only a very small proportion of what I have seen, lived and cooked during the last 12 months.  It has been an interesting and educational time for me while I looked up the history of the places I have visited.   Most of all though, I have loved 'meeting' each and everyone of you who have joined me in my travels around the Charente, and latterly around the UK, working in the garden and cooking in the kitchen.  Some of you have become very special friends, but I feel very honoured to call all of you, world wide, that have visited and commented on my site, my friends. As I said earlier, thank you one and all for an amazing 12 months. 

I will be back in the Charente the end of next month and I will of course then be posting about our home and local villages in France.  That is once I get a broadband connection back, which is not likely to happen overnight!!!!  If I disappear for a few weeks you know where I am!

Meanwhile, I will cover a few of the places I have visited here in the UK and some odd posts with some of the photos I still have not posted from France.

I have just received the news that I have won a cookery book written by Linda Burgett who runs a blog called My Kind of Cooking.  You will love her blog and she posts some incredible recipes, all of which are so easy, and using very few ingredients.  Please go and visit her at My Kind of Cooking   What a wonderful way to celebrate my first anniversary.  Thank you Linda.

In The Beginning - Part 1

I was born in the UK and at the age of 9 in 1953 my family decided to drive overland to Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia. See http://thegreat1953trek.blogspot.com/.

Life in Rhodesia was the best but 25 years later I was offered a job in Johannesburg which I decided would suit me perfectly so I made the move to South Africa. It was here that I met my husband Nigel and apart from a few years when we lived in Mafikeng, which was then Bophuthatswana, we remained in Johannesburg. After another 25 years we returned to the UK in 2002, this was due to a combination of my in-laws health in the UK and the insecurity in South Africa at the time.

We bought a bungalow on moving to the UK but in 2005, we decided that we not only did not want to end up retiring in the UK but we could not afford it either. We then decided to sell the bungalow and seriously down size which would hopefully release enough money to be able to buy a home in France. The house was sold mid 2005 and we found a tiny 2 up 2 down terrace house. In July 2005 we had a two week holiday already booked in the Charente and as the sale was (we hoped) going through the whole holiday was spent house hunting. Three days before we were due to come home we found the house that we had been looking for. A lot of imagination was needed to see it as we wanted it but on the day before we left we met up with the sellers and all was signed up and deposit paid. We had 7 days ‘cooling down’ period in which we were able to change our minds but once we had decided to go ahead we were not likely to do that. On arrival back in the UK we had a small problem when we found the selling chain had a slight hiccup. The people who were to buy our house had lost their buyer but thankfully it was not long before they had another buyer and all went ahead. In September we flew over to the Charente, signed some more papers, paid some more money and we were then the proud owners of a house in France. Nigel had taken French at school and was able to get by so long as the conversation did not get too fast. Unfortunately I did not take French while in Rhodesia so everything verbal went over my head!! Lots of learning for me to do and with my lack of flair for languages I knew this was not going to be easy.

We found a French builder while we were there and made arrangements for him to do some of the heavy work, this included the conversion of the one barn to become our bedroom. It was also necessary to redo all the plumbing and drainage and a septic tank had to be put in. At the same time we also looked at kitchens and made plans for the kitchen to be built in when the builder had organised the drainage. He said he would get on with the work early in 2006 and we planned our next visit at Easter the same year so that we could get on and do the many jobs inside and all the decorating. The plan then was to take some furniture over with us including a bed so we could live in the house while working on the premises.

The Front and Back of the house 2005