Saturday morning idyll

A lovely sunny day today! I suppose the exclamation mark is slightly uncalled for since the weather has been dry and warm, but still the sun actually came out and decided to beam upon us rather then the more resentful "oh I'll shine if I must but would rather just stay in bed" type of sun that we seem to have been having of late.  So what did the children chose to do, having been cooped up for the last few weekends?  They sat and played cars.  Until I decided that I wanted to be outside and chivvied them out to enjoy themselves.  (I worryingly suspect that I am going to be one of those mothers who turfs their teenagers out of bed at 9 o'clock with a cheery"it's a lovely day shall we all go out for a picnic?"  Whilst whipping back the curtains amidst shrieks from the vampires in their beds, but time will tell)

And enjoy ourselves we did;

The donkpon were brushed till they shone, M suggested that Caramel would win competitions - she's so loyal, the poor donkey has hoof problems following laminitis and still has half a winter coat that he refuses to shed, but his little owner thinks he's beautiful.

Then they relaxed in their field whilst we pottered,

 I admired the garden and the children polished off another bowlful of cherries.

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See Mummy was right! But I do now have cherry and dirt stained clothing to deal with....  Hope your Saturday was sunny too.

Cheery cherry picking.

What a horribly wet and miserable month June is proving to be this year.  We had a pretty awful May aswell with only one weeks relief from leaky clouds.  Luckily that was the week that the vet was available and our fruit picking season began with two rather large plums being pruned from poor old Caramel.  He didn't appreciate it and the vet had a rather tougher time with him than he'd had that morning with a draught horse. A sedative, TWO general anesthetics and a local were needed to knock him out, and even then, after the deed was done, and the vet confidently predicted that he'd sleep it off all night, he was up and wobbling on his legs a mere hour after the vet had left. The donkpon will still have to be separate for another month though because it takes at least that long for the testosterone to drop so poor old Soph is in her field in the rain as she is waterproofish whereas Caramel is not - so he gets the barn.

Caramel's is not the only 'fruit' we have been picking this fortnight, as despite dire forcasts about lack of fruit and appalling harvests our early cherry tree is bent over with the weight of cherries on it.  So the children and I had an initial pick of the cherries last week and managed a 3kg haul, and that was just the first ripe ones that we could reach.  A second forey gave us as many again and now it looks like I'll have to get the 'secateurs on a pole' tool out (it probably has a name but I don't know it) or the birds will have eaten all the ones above hand height.  I have 18 pots of jam and the glut of cherries added to the nonstop egg production from the chickens has prompted husband to demand a clafoutis, I will try.  I don't like them so at least it will help my diet, I can't actually think of anything else that uses them but go ahead and google receipies for fresh cherries for me  - we do have three and a half more trees to get through

Jubilee time

Living in France means that we don't get to celebrate with street parties whenever there is a big national event back home.  And here there don't seem to be that many french occasions to celebrate, Presidential elections somehow just don't capture the hearts of the french in the way that fairytale royal weddings do in Britain..  I wonder why?!  So I try to do our own little thing in little idyll even if, to outside eyes, it seems faintly ridiculous. Children need balloons and bunting and any excuse does for a party.  The diamond Jubilee was thusly celebrated in our house, and we added flags (to wave at the television and to drape "tastefully" from the beams) princess dresses, and cupcakes.  We had fun decorating our own crowns, colouring in the queen and making paper chains.   The children were delighted to be watching the real queen floating down the Thames and my poor suffering french husband rolled his eyes and tied up the balloons.  He did enjoy the afternoon tea though.