Snow again, wild creatures in my house and the cats

It’s been a while since I posted.   Partly because I didn’t have any photos to show and partly because I’ve been having lots of medical stuff going on and was worrying about that.  Remember that to view the photos full size you just have to double click on them.

 

Things have been changing here in the village.  My opposite neighbour is being forced to put his house up for sale because his wife, who left him last year, taking with her their three daughters, wants half of the money it will bring.  He is in bits - very sad at having lost first his family and now his house.  She is now in social housing, has so much money in benefits that she needn’t work if she chose that route and has another man.  It can’t be right that he loses everything.  When she moved out she took everything with her, not even leaving him a bed to sleep in.  I know that if I met her in town I couldn’t speak to her I feel so strongly about the way she’s treated him.   On Saturday someone arrived from Paris to view the house  so it may not be too long before it’s bought.

Last week I sold five ducks – they were the Indian Runners and Khaki Campbells.  I had to sit in the doorway of their house and catch one at a time before they shot out through the door.  The black male Indian Runner did escape but we managed to round him up and get him back into his house where I caught him and he joined the other four ducks in the large cage the purchasers had bought.  Here are three of them on the pond in January.  I miss their funny antics.

I’m quite sad to see them go as they were very entertaining but I can’t have too many and I have decided to go back to just Muscovies.  I have three which are black and white and have been offered two grey and white ones which I think I will probably buy.

The snow has been disrupting things a bit in the village and around – bowls was cancelled on Tuesday last and is forecast again for this Tuesday so I may not be bowling this week either.

This jay was on the birdtable in the blizzard of snow.

This little calf and Mum were not amused by the snow and although there was an empty shelter next to them they couldn't get into it.

This was after the Commune's snow plough had been down the lane and dumped lots of snow behind my car.

Grace sitting on the top of an impossibly small fence post.

Purrdy looks at the possibility of entering the new sewage pipe which is just for the rabbits to play in.  She goes into the pipe and Grace and Claude wait for her to exit.

Yet another great tit who flew into my windowpane.  He recovered after a twenty minute cuddle and having shut the cats in the house, I released him in the abandoned garden next door to me where he flew off happily.

More wild life.  The cats brought in a dead white bunny a little before this wild live one.  I wrapped her in a teatowel in case she bit me and let her recover for a little while before releasing her in a field at the back of my neighbour's house.  She jumped out of my arms with the teatowel in between her teeth before dropping it and bounding off into the boundary hedge.

One of my medical things is a bladder problem for which I will be having a TVT operation towards the end of April.  This will be my fifth unrelated operation in the seven years I will have been here in France.  Thank goodness for the brilliant French health system which looks after me so well.

Three things I like:

1.   The way the snow makes everything look beautiful and tidy.

2.   Seeing so many different birds at my bird table during the snowy weather.

3.   The days getting longer now as the first day of Spring approaches in four days.