Take a walk with me where I live in rural France.

What a difference a day makes. 

We had many weeks of rain, then snow and then more rain with grey skies. 

 This morning we woke up to a cold and frosty start to the day.

  and by mid morning the sun was shining and the sky was clear blue.

                                 

                                                   Would you like to join me on a walk ? 

                                                    We'll start off at the rear of the house.

These trees are Hazelnut which grow in abundance in our area.

I love the catkins hanging. When I was a child we called  them lambs tails.

   

 These Hazel trees form the boundary between our land 

and

the field where the farmer sometimes puts his Limousin cows to graze.

 We are now entering a wooded area.

This time of the year chain saws can be heard all around, as everyone is busy cutting their wood.

  Stacks of wood like these can be seen in most places stored and left to dry for a few years.

I thought you might like a peep at what is hidden in these woods.

 I'm not sure what some of you may think when you see these photos.

You will either love them! 

or think

 'how could anyone let this happen' 

Let us move on.

We're now out of the woods and back on the lane.

I love this view from my house where the stream is winding its way through the fields.
We can hear the rush of the water now after all the rain.

There's plenty of water at the moment, so the water level in our well will now be high.

We are now back on the road to where I live.

 Over the hill.

Et voilà, en face de chez moi.

In the summer we use the well water for all our hanging baskets.

I must show you just one more ruined house.

Since we have lived here we have seen this house gradually fall down.

Unfortunately there are many houses like this, just left to fall to ruins.

 It seems the younger generation now want modern houses which are built 'off plan' 

with very little character and look like matchboxes.

 I am very sad about this ruin, it could have looked something like this.....

The signs that spring is on it's way.

 Heather blooming and the Quince beginning to show signs of blossom.

Hope the frost doesn't kill it off.

I hope you enjoyed walking with me through the woods and the lane where I live.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

My dream fun car.

When we came to France to live in our first tiny village all those years ago, I arrived driving our daughters little Renault cinq. The seats were folded down to make as much room as possible for our two Labrador dogs and any space that was left around them, was packed to the top with  the remaining items that wouldn't fit in the van we had hired.

I knew I was going to need a car of my own and had dreams of how I would get around these narrow country lanes. I'd seen lots of pictures of the Citroen CV and thought what a fun car that would be to drive ! Just like my visions in a previous post, of riding my bicycle to the Boulangerie each  morning.

One of the villagers used to have a  clapped out Citroen 2cv a bit like the ones in the pictures. Well !!!  it was the same shape, only his was blue and a very old version of my dream fun car. Early and I mean early, like 5.45 am every morning, we would here the putt, putt, putt noise these cars make as he went off to work and I thought to myself... they might look fun , but do I really want to drive a car that sounds like an old lawnmower.

Yesterday while I was  in a store in Limoges browsing through a box of cards, I was taken back to when we first arrived and had visions of myself driving the lanes in a car similar to one of these.

My fun dream car. One of these really would be fun to drive, especially the pink & blue one, If I had that one everyone in my area would know it was me, when they 'd see this car.

My dream fun car.

I never did have one, but it was nice to dream.

Would you like to drive around the country lanes in France in one of these cars ?

Which one would you choose.??

I also bought these cards

  for all 'The Paris Dreamers'

                                               Look how the ladies are dressed to ride a bicycle.

 A little before my time, but

I remember my eldest sister riding a bicycle similar to these.

All these pictures are from Julien Lautier Creations.

I hope you enjoyed joining in one of my dreams .

a bientot 
Barbara Lilian

I'm still thinking of Spring.

In my last post I told you I had found some tulip tips just peeping up through the cold ground.

Since then our weather hasn't improved. It's still cold and has poured with rain everyday.

Yesterday we had some publicity posted  in our mailbox

 advertising these tulips in a basket for only 3.99€

Similar to the ones waiting to flower by the front door of my ' Petite Maison '

We dashed off to the S/market ( Aldi ) which is 30 mins. drive from where we live, hoping to buy at least
 two baskets, but  I was so disappointed.as they  had sold out early that morning. 

 I did the next best thing & bought a bunch of tulips @ 1.99€

Tulips are not easy to arrange as they will soon bend over, drooping to where ever they want to go.

Have a peep at the pictures I've taken to show you what I was able to do with just one bunch.

I brought out some of my small white containers that I love to use for flowers.Then chose     

 a few tulips, cut the stems short and  opened out their petals to make them look like this.

Have you ever tried doing this?

I first saw this method about 30 yrs ago, when I wanted to learn about flower arranging.
I'll always remember it, as the demonstration was given by a man who showed simple ways of using just one
or two flower stems with  clusters of flowers and buds cut  to produce a very decorative arrangement.

As you can see, one bunch or bouquet,  I should say, as I live in France,  goes a long way.

Hope you liked what I did with one bouquet of tulips from  the super marche.

and @ a Bon marche prix.

a bientot 

Barbara Lilian

I feel like spring is on it's way.

Today I felt a little bit of spring had arrived at my house.  So I decided to do make some changes on my blog.  First was to get rid of the snow scene header picture with  the falling snow. I know it's a little early but it brightened up my day browsing through my files of flower pictures to share some with you. I hope it brightens your day.

Just a week ago we had snow and were waiting for the snow plough to come to clear the road outside of our house, and today we had blue sky, which always makes me feel so much happier.

The view from the garden.

All the bare trees waiting for their leaves to start sprouting.

I  took a walk around the garden to see if there was any sign of growth after it had been under a blanket of snow. To my surprise I saw the green tips of the tulips sprouting, much earlier than usual this year.

This is what they'll look like when they are in flower.
A dwarf variety (sorry I don't know the name) which stay in flower for a long time. 

Our son & his lovely wife used to live here before they moved to Denmark, her own part of the world .

These little tulip bulbs were planted by them almost 15 yrs ago.

A pretty bunch of pink tulips to brighten up the table.

This picture was taken at one of our favorite walking places, part of the lake is still frozen.

 Even though spring hasn't really arrived 

I hope my little bit of early spring 

will cheer you up as much as it has for me.

A bientot

Barbara Lilian.