The Art of Fire

No fire in the stove

If you’re reading this expecting some true insight into fire then I’m sorry to disappoint. My Art of Fire relates only to the use of my wood burning stove and my desperation at trying to keep the damn thing going.

 

When arriving in the countryside last summer, we quickly realized that heating the house using the oil boiler was going to cost us a fortune. A cold spell in July meant that we had to have the heating on so to avoid Baby Piglet getting cold. Our house is old, with thick pise walls, great for keeping cool in the summer or keeping the warm in during the long winter months, but when the weather suddenly turns from warm to really cool, not so great.

 

Every moment we had the heating on I spent fretting that we were going to run out of oil. I ended up placing an order and managed to get our oil tank half filled for the grand price of 1500 Euros. Having no idea how long this would last us, we were enticed by the French government’s tax incentive encouraging you to use renewable heating sources and ordered a wood burning stove.

 

The stove has been Mr Piglets domain since it was installed, but a new work challenge has meant that Mr Piglet is no longer at home everyday to keep the thing going. This has left me, not even a girl guide, yet alone a scout, at home trying to figure out what to do with it. I daren’t turn the heating on downstairs for fear of having to re-fill the enormous oil tank again, so I persist in my trial and error with the stove.

 

Each morning, Mr Piglet gets the fire going and leaves me with the instructions on how to keep it going.

 

The first couple of days I kept getting distracted by work. By the time I went back downstairs the fire was out and I spent the next 5 hours trying to get it going again. Each evening Mr Piglet would give me a lesson in the art of starting a fire. Needless to say I failed miserably again the next day as each attempt to start a fire quickly fizzled out.

 

After the first week, I became better at keeping the fire going but then I burnt myself on the door after successfully managing to chuck in a few logs and wouldn’t touch it until my burn had stopped hurting.

 

Now, I can just about manage to keep it going from 9am until gone 7pm when Mr Piglet returns. I’m even managing to do it without smoking the house out and for the moment, without burning myself. My technique? I let the logs burn almost right out and then I stoke the ashes around, chuck on as many logs as I can get in the stove and turn the air vent right up. So far, so good although there really is an art to fire and I think I’m a long way off from learning it. Just so long as the wretched thing doesn’t go out…

Wishing you lots of cheer in the New Year!

I can’t believe that I am sat here once again writing a New Year’s post. Okay, so it’s not technically the New Year yet but in a few hours some of you will already be celebrating 2012 and who knows, I may be asleep by the time we welcome the New Year here inFrance.

 

A quick read over my past posts from 2010 and 2011 New Years and I am left with a sentiment that maybe I shouldn’t set my expectations so high. In each post I spoke of disappointments and hard times, last year of ill health and of better times in the past.

 

This year has been awful, let’s face it, aside from the arrival of my gorgeous baby there’s not been much good to report on any front whether it be health, financial or work. Even blogging became tedious as each time I sat down to write I thought of how awful and boring my troubles are and often didn’t bother posting so not to be a bore.

 

No resolutions only one goal and that is to be the best person that I can be in all that I set out to do.

 

How have you found 2011 and what are your goals for 2012?

 

Happy New Year to all from the Piglet Household

xxx

Happy Belated Christmas

Christmas this year was at our house, I had expressed that I didn’t feel like traveling anyway after having such a rough year and invited both my and Mr Piglet’s family  to come.

A few days before Christmas we enjoyed a couple of day’s snow which unfortunately didn’t last until Christmas Day but it helped set the scene nonetheless.

Winter Wonderland

 

We even tracked down a Father Christmas for Baby Piglet to give her Christmas list to (and for Mummy to take pictures of her with him) but unfortunately it was all a bit of a let down and we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Father Christmas wouldn’t even put down his umbrella (how will we explain that one?) and kept trying to run away. There was no set up or grotto and he was just perched on a bench in the village.

 

Father Christmas lost his grotto & wouldn't let go of his brolly

The village drunk had decided to hang out with Father Christmas too and poor Mr Piglet got accosted. Grandma and Grandpa Piglet had a hard time keeping straight faces.

Next year I have made a mental note to go and check out Father Christmas BEFORE taking the whole family to see him.

Christmas Day was a marathon, I’m still not used to how long Christmas dinners go on for inFrancealthough I am more used to it than my poor parents. 10 hours at the dinner table finished them off and they headed off to bed exhausted.

 

Artistic Looking Dinner Table!

Thankfully it wasn’t too tiring for me as I had asked each couple to look after a course so I only had the main course to deal with and even then Mr Piglet very helpfully took over as he could see the stress building up.

Baby Piglet had a fantastic day, she started opening her Christmas presents at 8am and didn’t finish until she went to bed at 7pm! She played all day and was her usual smiley self but with lots of posing for the camera. She loved the outfit that her English cousin had sent her and was very proud to be wearing it as you can see from this pic:

All in all a good Christmas, different from what we’ve been used to in the past but good nonetheless.

 

How was your Christmas this year?

When did everyone get so young?

I feel old. My frequent trips to and from the hospital in Lyon for my eye have meant that I’ve spent more time than I dare consider sitting in waiting rooms and hanging about in hospital corridors.

 

Whilst in the beginning I couldn’t see and Mr Piglet’s comments about how young the Doctors looked fell on deaf ears (I thought he was having a crisis as his birthday was coming up), as I waited on Tuesday, I was astounded by how young these Doctors were!

 

I cringed inwardly as I watched Converse clad feet, holey jeans and ribbon bracelets parade around in white Doctor coats. Spots, nose piercing and those weird things that make your ear hole get bigger were everywhere. I knew that it was a teaching hospital and automatically assumed that all these kids were just out of high school and on work placements.

 

But no! Alas! These ugly ducklings were fully fledged Doctors (or ophthalmologists) and were totally qualified to treat me. As I watched the young girl examine my eye and provide notes I felt as if she should be asking her Dad permission to stay out late (it was past 6pm). Thank goodness that there were more senior members on the team too although they only looked about my age. What happens to the older members of staff? Do they evaporate somewhere?

 

I have another question though – whatever happened to dressing up for work? I know they spend a lot of time on their feet but their clothing hardly looked clean yet alone suitable for a professional person. Maybe times have changed, they obviously have and I am obviously getting old.

 

I always assumed and was used to being treated by Doctors that were older than me not considerably and noticeably younger than me.

 

This is going to take some getting used to. I had better start putting plenty of anti-wrinkle cream on.

 

When was the first time that you felt old?

Redefining my role – thank you France for saving my sight

There’s been lots of moaning on behalf over the last few months about the French medical system as I’ve not had much positive to say about it due to all the bad experiences I’ve had, however, today I would like to thank them for saving my eye sight.

 

Since I posted last week about the One Eyed Blogger, things took a turn for the worse and I ended up back in Hopital Edouard Herriot Eye Centre inLyonthe very next day.

 

One of the funny things about eye problems is that you can’t see. Actually it’s not very funny at all but you lose a lot of perspective and things that you take for granted. I couldn’t see the Doctors that were treating me at the hospital and whilst I know that there were 4 different Doctors that saw me last Tuesday I cannot say what any of them looked like.

 

My pain was so great I had a cover on my head at all times to protect me from the light. The Doctors kept referring me to someone else, it became painfully obvious that my case was serious and when the Chef de Service of the whole eye hospital came to see me I knew that something was majorly wrong.

 

The hospital made it clear to me that I had to go in every day for cortisone injections directly into the eyeball. This was time for me to get over the all consuming fear of hospitals and medical staff that I had developed since this summer. The first time they went to inject me, I actually crossed my legs and wriggled away screaming “non, non”. Obviously the trauma from my birth experience was still very real.

 

The team at the hospital were excellent and listened to what had happened. They offered me tranquilizers and explained why it was so important that they inject into my eyeball. They needed to control the inflammation quickly as it was getting out of control and as a consequence by sight was suffering.

 

Mr Piglet and I made arrangements for me to taken toLyoneach day. It was very stressful trying to organize child care, juggle work (neither Mr Piglet nor I were able to work) plus not know how long each hospital trip would last.

 

After a few days someone piped up that I was entitled to travel by taxi for my hospital trips and that Mr Piglet didn’t need to take time off work to transport me. This was such a relief and a great provision by the French health service. Not only were they taking care of my physical health, my mental well being and peace of mind was also being looked after.

 

So far my sight is improving, the pain is greatly reduced and I am no longer requiring daily Cortison injections. However, I have had to come to terms with my disease and realize that I need medication to help control it right now. This has been hard to admit as at the same time it means admitting I am ill. I have taken the decision to cease breastfeeding Baby Piglet even though I had not wanted to, I do not feel comfortable with the risk of her having medication via my milk.

 

This is the start of a new chapter in my life, a chapter which will redefine my role as a Mummy after only 6 months and a bit, a chapter which will redefine how I look after myself. Now is my time to get well and what better place for it to happen than inFrance?

The One Eyed Blogger

This is the most close up pic of me I’ll ever publish on the web!  I think I’m totally rocking the dark sunglasses and hat inside in the dark although I’m pretty sure that some of the local people who have seen me skulking around the village in shades and hats despite the fog will soon start asking me for an autograph “a la Kate Moss”.

I guess this is what you get from trying to convert from Girl gone mild back to Girl gone wild: 3 emergency trips to the eye Hospital in Lyon, sinusitis and acute inflammation of the eye equals minimum 1 week (so far) of no seeing anything and sitting in dark rooms. Obviously Blogger meet ups, crazy weddings and lots of rants have worn me down.

So that’s me taking yet another break from Blogging until I can see again!

The Go Back Home Brigade

Have I become old? It’s been suggested that I’ve become old and less ranty but I think I’ve been keeping a lid on my rants lately, partly due to not have enough time to write but also due to the “go back home” brigade.

 

Yes, that’s right, the GO BACK HOME brigade.

 

Do you know who I’m talking about? Some of you will, some of you won’t. The GO BACK HOME brigade are a certain breed of expats that I have come across this year that tell you to go back home whenever you say anything negative about France or about missing anything from Britain.

 

But they have failed to understand one thing.FRANCEIS MY HOME.

 

This breed of expat is one of the reasons why I have not been so keen on blogging recently and certainly one of the reasons why I have tamed my rants, but pants to them! If they have such a problem and cannot recognize thatFranceis my home then tough luck!

 

I got a lot of stick, nasty comments and horrible emails when I dared to say anything negative about the French medical system and how I was treated after the birth of Baby Piglet earlier this year. I was verbally attacked by people who knew little of my life and who assumed that I was non-French speaking and profiting from the system here.

 

I was called a liar and told to go back to theUKif I was so unhappy with what had happened. This left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth and I found myself censoring my posts and my will to write disappeared.

 

On another blog I was told that I showed no respect for the French culture because I missed certain British foodstuffs and that I should sod off back to theUKif I wanted to eat Branston pickle. I mean how daft is that? Should French people be told to go and live elsewhere when we see them eating in McDonalds?

 

I have never had much to do with expats in the past as my friends tend to be French. I arrived here when I was 16 so grew up here. Since I’ve started blogging I’ve loved feeling part of an expat community and exchanging experiences and I’ve missed it recently.

 

Franceis my home, it has been for the last 15 years and will remain so in the future.

 

There. I’ve said it. Rant over.

 

Happy Halloween

I’ve seen quite a few blog posts about Halloween today and have come over feeling nostalgic and sad that we won’t be having a party. I love Halloween (okay, I love any excuse for a party) so I will miss not having a party this year and none of the French people I know really go into Halloween so I don’t have any invites to parties either.

It’s rather a case if I want to “do” Halloween, it’s me that has to throw the party. I guess next year will be a childrens party so not quite the same (the goriness will need to be toned down). I have learned that for some people Halloween isn’t all about scary costumes and witches and what not, but more about fancy dress. This has got me wondering why? Is it cultural, does it depend where you grew up? In the UK Halloween was all about the ghouls for me and even now anything scary is good for Halloween.

I may make the effort to try and find some of our old decorations and put a few bits outside just in case there are any trick or treaters but I would be very surprised if there were! In the meantime, here are some pics from one of our previous parties, Happy Halloween!

Mr Piglet will need to tone it down

Butchers Wall

Spooky!

More spookiness

And to think I couldn't even buy a pumpkin this year!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Booze

All Creeped Out

So just what does happen to a city Piglet when she’s in the country? Not turning into food, that’s for sure!

Apart from the obvious fact that Baby Piglet has been growing up and been taking up a lot of my free time and that I have returned to work, which takes up all of my day time and most of my energy, we have been slowly adapting to country life.

First of all, the creepy crawlies and all things icky.

I can’t think of one fun “countryside” activity I have partaken in that hasn’t ended up in me running away, hiding from or being bitten by an insect. They seem to be everywhere. I didn’t know I’d have room mates here and whilst I’m trying to adapt and get used to them sometimes it’s just too much.

Spidered In

The Spider

The morning I got up early and decided to make a hearty breakfast, Baby Piglet and I ended up camped out in the kitchen, hiding away from the biggest, scariest spider I’d ever seen. It was seriously huge and I didn’t even need to zoom in on it to take a picture with my phone.

The spider was hanging out at the bottom of the stairs and there was no way I could get back upstairs without going passed it. And do you know how it feels to have a spider looking at you? There was no way I could put Baby Piglet back to bed or wake up Mr Piglet to get him to rescue me.

A route around the kitchen proved useless, I had no spider killer stuff, just pots and pans and a pair of Mr Piglet’s shoes. With some courage from Twitter tweeps and a desperate desire to escape the kitchen

Eventually I plucked up enough courage to hit it really hard with a shoe. A huge wack and it was gone… now was not a time to gently try and get the spider to go outside. Phew!

Punished by a wasp
What’s the best way to be put off eating sugary things or going on fridge raids? Wasps! I tell you, they are the best repellent possible. Last week I helped my self to a mid afternoon snack of apple crumble and on my way to clear the dish away I inadvertently squashed a wasp in my hand whilst picking the dish up. The pain! It took two days for the pain from the sting to go away. Not something I will be repeating in a hurry.

Watch those sleeves!
You would think picking up walnuts from the ground is a fairly harmless activity, right? I mean, what is the worst that could happen? A walnut could drop off the tree in hit you on the head? It wouldn’t exactly make you unconscious now would it? Wrong! Well, not about the walnut falling off the tree, I wouldn’t know about that (and I’m certainly not volunteering to test it).

After a great session and a cardboard box full of nuts, my arm starting itching. Really itching. A look at my arm showed the end of a creepy, hairy (not in the cuddly toy sense) caterpillar sticking out of my sleeve. Urk! I literally ripped off my clothes to get rid of the hairy thing, all whilst shrieking. Mr Piglet wondered what on Earth was wrong with me, I was like a spinning top trying to get my clothes off at the same time, pretty fun to watch I can imagine. He didn’t get to see the caterpillar and I think he thought I’d gone mad until we came inside and my arm was covered in a horrible itchy rash! Yuck!

Not the caterpillar that was up my sleeve (that one was far bigger) but another one I saw in the garden a few weeks ago

What creepy crawlies creep you out and what else should I watch out for?

I’m still here…

Hey! Sorry for no updates or recent blog posts, my feet haven’t touched the ground! Here’s a few things I’ve been busy with:

- Baby Piglet of course! She’s 4.5 months now and is rolling over and giggling like a champion! She’s just started with the nanny so when I’m not working I’m dedicating all my time to her.

- Work! After nearly a year off (I worked very very part time) I’m back at work and loving every second of it! My return to work coincides with new directions and I’m pretty much investing all my baby free time there at the moment.

- Ankylosing spondylitis: Since giving birth, I have had major complications and problem after problem and have been diagnosed with Ankylosing spondylitis. Rather than manage it with anti-inflammatories. I have decided to go on an anti-inflammatory diet. No gluten, dairy or sugar. For a girl that practically lived on ice-creams and pasta before giving birth this is one hard task as I hadn’t a clue what to eat and all my habits needed changing!

So, that’s what’s what in the Piglet household these days. Do drop me your news in a comment below or link to any important news on your blogs so I can catch up.

Keep well!