On Line crop weekend

As some of you already know I recently started scrapbooking and am loving it.
I have hooked up with some other scrapbookin fans at YMBD and this weekend they are holding an onliine crop.
I have completed the 3 pre crop challenges already and am looking forward to attempting SOME of the remaining 18!
There is a link here on this blog to YMBD.

This is my favourite layout of the weekend.

January Sunrise

There's really not much going on in the garden this month, some early daffodils are coming through but that's about all.
What we do have in January though are spectacular sunrises.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Mistletoe

Whilst enjoying our walk through the French countryside this morning we came across a huge oak tree just covered in balls of mistletoe.
When I got home I took these pix of our gnarled old apple tree which hardly bears any fruit in the summer but plays unwilling host to mistletoe in the winter.
For more info on mistletoe check out this link.
http://www.mistletoe.org.uk/

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Renard the Fox

Whilst sat quietly surfing scrappin web sites this afternoon imagine my surprise when my DH (Roger to you) came flying out of the library where he had happily been watching football to yell "There's a fox in the garden"!

After several minutes of squinting through the windows we caught another glimpse of him as he slid gracefully through the shrubbery and into the field next door.

This is a first in 12 years, we have never seen a fox before, I only hope he stays away from the pond as the moorhens are a little vulnerable at present. Everything is frozen over and they are very wary of the ice.

Stay tuned for further sightings of Monsieur Renard.

Happy New Year

We had a very enjoyable Christmas here at the Presbytere. Good food, good wine & great company. Just Roger & me & the chaps!!
On Christmas Day we attempted our annual beach walk, not another soul in sight probably because of the bitterly cold wind, but Miz Bess wasn't up to it so we turned back early.
She was fine a couple of days later when we walked through the Forest at Cerisy, the chaps always enjoy that walk.
We've spent a couple of lazy days in front of a log fire catching up on our reading & snoozing, sometimes managing to do both at once, and generally recharging batteries.
It's been a good time to flick through gardening books and think about vegetables to try in the potager come spring.
No snow for us this year but several mornings there has been a hard frost and frozen garden ponds to wake up to. The resident moorhens have abandoned the garden and decamped to another small pond at the end of the drive, they still come up to the house to be fed though! I didn't raise no dumb moorhens!!
2009 didn't start with fireworks (we're rather more sedate these days) but I have a good feeling about the year, despite the state of the world economy, and (fingers crossed) there are some good times ahead to look forward to.