Wow, three years of blogging! How the time flies when you are having fun!

Three years ago today, I published my first blog!  The time has just flown, and when I first started, I expected to run out of steam in a few months!  

Thanks to blogging, I have seen so much more of not only the Charente, but everywhere we have recently visited.  Having camera in hand makes me so much more observant, and I now notice things that in the past would have gone unseen!  In reading blogs, I have also taken tours through other people's eyes to almost all the places in the world, and ones I am unlikely ever to visit in person.  Thank you everyone for this, but I must single out  three blogs for   special praise; to Gaelyn, who has given me the finest views of the Grand Canyon I could ever expect to see, and also to Joan and Graham for keeping Africa alive for me.  There are others who doubtless deserve mention, but these three have been quite exceptional for me. 

I have made friends all over the world; some I have met, and others I keep in touch with by email and hope to meet one day.  When I have not been feeling well, people I barely know have been there for me, and when I feel like taking a short break from the computer, all my followers and vitual friends are there when I return.  Thank you everyone who has made my blogging experience a great one and I hope to be at it for some time to come.

For the past month I have been posting about our trip to Casablanca, so here are a few of my favourite photos that I have taken over this period here in the Charente.

09/01/13 I saw this gorgeous specimen parked outside our bank.

11/01/13 One of very few sunsets we have seen this year. It is mostly cloudy and raining!

14/01/13 While on the highway to Angouleme, being followed (temporarily!) by a Porsche, our favourite car!

and the same day, the flooded River Touvre on the outskirts of Angouleme.

16/01/13 Friends to dinner, and at last I had unpacked the decanter that my parents had bought many years ago in Mozambique. Probably red and white wine would look better but I was drinking Rose so......

20/01/13 We had a luncheon in the local village and decided that taking the car out was too risky, so we used shank's pony instead!

Same day, looking through some trees. Wonder when this cart last had an outing?!

24/01/13 A very cross goldfinch seeing off a blue tit at the feeder.

25/01/13 The River Son, not far north of us, is normally a quiet stream, but has now burst its banks.  The rain just does not stop!

26/01/13 A macro of my flowering orchid; a birthday present a couple of years back.

27/01/13 Raindrops keep falling on my head.........

28/01/13 During a break in the rain, I was walking around the garden trying to find a subject for a photo, when this very tiny fly landed right on the moss that I was looking at. Right time, right place!

minutes later, this goldfinch posed perfectly for me.

29/01/13 I noticed that there were some signs of apple blossom looking 'spring like'.

30/01/13 The church at Suaux seen from the entrance to the Mairie.

and on the way home, we saw this Norwegian Fjord horse in a waterlogged paddock.

31/01/13 I was fascinated by this 'rose' like fungi growing on the wood in the woodpile. 

A great tit poses for me.

02/01/13 The church in La Rochefoucauld

and the supermarket,

while the sky outside suddenly turned black.

Arriving home, we appeared to be in the eye of the storm!

04/02/13  Finally, photos of two blue tits and....

a great tit, waiting patiently for his turn at the feeder!

See also - My Life Before Charente Updated 08/02/2013

and my daily photo diary at http://photodiarydps.blogspot.fr/

Tempete (Storm) Joachim in France

Storm Joachim raged eastwards across France on Thursday night and Friday.  As I type this on Saturday morning, I gather that there are still 70,000 houses without power.  Eight departments are on orange alert for flood risk, and three for avalanche risk.  Rail and air transport pretty much came to a standstill, but it appears that they are back to normal today.

Yesterday, we had planned to go to a local village which has the biggest Christmas Fair in the area, to take photos for you all. I am sure it must have been cancelled; there was no way that they could have managed in the main street with the torrential rain and the gale force winds. Very sad, as I was so looking forward to it.

I thought you would be interested in a few photos taken locally of a small stream that runs through Vitrac St Vincent.  It is normally only 2-3 metres (7-10 feet) wide and very placid!


Thankfully we had no damage at home, but there are large branches and trees down in many places, and on the West coast many people had to be evacuated from their homes.  At least we do not have to water the garden with 60mm (about 2.5 inches) of rain overnight and during the morning!

Guess you could always swim to the picnic table which is on a mound.

This is where the stream passes between several houses so it has to remain narrow, but I wonder how much water has actually gone into these homes!

Finally the clouds break and lift, while the sun leaves a delicate pink tinge.

It was a dark and stormy night!

There was  a very noisy and stormy evening here a few days ago.   I was fascinated by the changing sky and took several photos from various positions, which I thought you might enjoy.  I have to say that, at the end of  this celestial display, despite watching the rain falling not too far away, we did not receive one single drop!!  The clouds  and thunder circled all around us for a while, then dispersed for about three quarters of an hour, only to return with even more visual and sound effects. I have tried to place the photos in the order that I took them.

Early on, with the rain very visible at the back on the right

My neighbour's sheep in the foreground, getting on with what sheep do!

The sun just starting to set

This looked like flames in the sky to me

Suddenly the sky started to clear

As the sun caught the edges of the cloud

But then it returned with a vengeance

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.