
No Mow May
Hello Everyone
Finally I’m back. May was a challenging month, with little spare time. We have had exams (my son’s finals), tooth dramas, pool dramas and, for me, confirmation of an eye problem. Perhaps this post should be No Blog May!
Exam time is over at le petit château. Now the anxious wait for results but in the meantime a small celebration to mark the achievement that getting to the end of the degree is for my son. For him really against the odds.

After the stress of the exam period I was counting on catching up with jobs both in and out of the house, as well as some long overdue blog posts. As luck would have it I developed a problem with one of my teeth. Oh the pain – tooth pain really is quite unbearable. The pain worsened dramatically on a Sunday (of course) – a day when there is only access to emergency dental treatment in the morning (we missed it), but an on-call pharmacy saved the day for pain relief (we found it late on Sunday afternoon in Carmaux, half an hour away). Dentists are hard to come by in our area. I had been looking for a while but sort of half-heatedly. You know how it is – no problem, no urgency! Anyway eventually I found one near Toulouse, an hour and a half from us, but easy for navigation as it is 10 minutes from the airport. Off we went after many sleepless nights for me, Max driving as I was in such pain, to find a lovely dental surgery. They were really helpful and as it turns out the problem was not as bad as I had imagined. I was assuming teeth extraction, maybe more … abscess, infection? There is nothing like an over active imagination. My tooth has broken a little and they plan to mend it.
Shortly after that Max lost a crown so our list of dental appointments near Toulouse has grown! As they say with buses, you wait for ages and then they all turn up at once. Well that seems to have happened to us with various things! I have to confess to a slight jealousy as Max’s dentist speaks immaculate English. Much easier I hate to confess – the vocabulary of crowns, teeth etc. is not my speciality. I am still not entirely clear what is being done to my tooth – I will find out very soon! The good thing is we are now registered with a dentist, and it turns out the tram stop for the centre of Toulouse is 5 minutes away, with free parking, so we can combine dental check-ups with days out in Toulouse.
May also brought an invitation to la fête des voisins (neighbours celebration). One of our not-so-near neighbours invited some of the scattered neighbours for an apéro partagé. We each brought some food and wine to share. It was lovely meeting a few more people, catching up with those we already know and a great chance to chat in French. Their garden is gorgeous with an absolutely breath-taking view of the sunset across the hills and valleys. Wow! I would spend every evening just watching the sun go down.
We have had some very hot weather, no rain and France is now experiencing water shortages. We are trying to make sure we save salad cleaning water and any leftover water from the dog’s bowl for the plants, but the poor garden is gasping. The grass is already brown and it is only early June! We have had some gorgeous roses, but they don’t last that long. I have had to cut down on my potager plans for now. We really should have bought and installed that pump for the well. Next year…!






On the subject of grass, as you know our ride-on lawn mower arrived rather later than expected so the grass had reached head height in places. Max has valiantly strimmed the entire lawn before setting off on the new machine. It has taken quite a long time, but the upside is that by default we have managed to go through most of May with an unmown lawn. This is apparently to be encouraged to help insects out, so at least it served some good.


Now I am back, I will aim to keep you updated regularly again. There is so much to catch up on. I am looking forward to sharing some of the places we have visited recently and some delicious recipes with the latest seasonal produce, as well as a little catch up on some produce from earlier in the year. Plus there have been more brocante purchases!
I hope I can welcome you back to the musings on our life in France. Projects are finally afoot. Paint brushes, sanders and dustsheets are ready. In the meantime we enjoyed some spectacular skies in May and a treat early one morning when a hot air balloon passed over our terrace, close enough for us to see them and exchange waves!



A bientôt
Ali xx


One Comment
Deborah Tate-Smith
Hi Alison,
So happy for you all that exams are over. Our 3rd son is in 2nd year uni in Belgium and started his exams at the end of May, they are still ongoing with one more to do. Bible Studies! His degree is Business Management ( hard to see the correlation ) Just to make you feel even better.
We opened our pool a month ago to find an absolute pea green soup mix. We now have a clear blue pool, just in time for this canicule (heatwave).