About

Welcome to my Ramblings

Who I am

I am a British ex pat living in France. I teach English to adults.  I am married to a French man. My daughter is in Lycée. She’s bilingual and laughs at me when I speak French. She won’t let me put pictures of her on my blog or talk about her. I’m an embarrassing mother.

Life in France

hoopoe 011

Although I’ve lived here for a while now I still find new places to go and things to see.  I love taking pictures of things but I’m not a professional. Each spring we get hoopoes in the garden and I try to photograph them through the windows. There are some frustrations like French administration but then some fantastic

Add your aromatics. I added fresh herbs, garlic, onion salt and pepper and a chilli pepper.

Add your aromatics. I added fresh herbs, garlic, onion salt and pepper and a chilli pepper.

things as well like art, great food, wine and lovely people to share those things with.  Cooking is even better when you can use all the lovely local ingredients.

Rambling.

One of my main hobbies is walking. Sometimes I write about walking here. I also put looped walks on my AngloInfo blog although I am getting tired with that one as no-one comments or sends me walks to feature.

Wine grapes

Quite often  I’ll see wild deer, hares, eagles, wild boars and owls.  As I said, I am not a great photographer and moving things are quite difficult to take pictures of.  The landscape and changing crops aren’t though. On my regular walks I love to photograph the changing landscapes.  I started a regular post that I called Vine Watch following this years vines all the way through to wine production.


Jazz night 027

Music

Living in rural France isn’t all country cooking and watching the grapes grow. I do get out sometimes, I force myself to so that I have something to blog about. I love going to the Jazz club and seeing new and old faces. Whenever I have been to a Jazz night you will read about it here.

Rambling again

You will not have missed the large picture of a book top left. So far that book is the only one I have published. I am hoping there will be more. That book ibdbadgeis about rambling in the sense of walking and in the Freudian sense.  Publishing was a relatively simple journey compared to promoting. It’s been fun though. I had a huge book blog tour , managed to get heaps of reviews and even made a video for you tube.  The highlight of my life as an author has been people reading my work and writing that they like it. The Indie book award was also pretty special.

How it all started

This blog did not start to promote my writing or even to tell people about my life in France. It started with a conversation I had with my friend Nadia about how I avoid ironing.  Then a couple of weeks later when she was in a panic to go out and still had her housework to do I told her about my philosophy on housework. She told me that I should write a book about it. I thought that it wasn’t enough to write a book about but maybe a blog post or two. That was when I wrote the Slut’s Guide to Housework. That was really the beginning of this blog. It has evolved considerably.

Highlights

I have met some lovely people through blogging and everything that surrounds it. A comment left on a page or a post can lead to friendship and views into lives on the other side of the planet. It can even involve trips to the other side of the planet, or virtual ones through photos and sales of gin and tonic jelly.

Gin and tonic Jelly

 I scared my editor by sending him a post entitled ‘I think we should kiss more often’  talked about killing my students and had some lovely guests. It has been a great journey and I am looking forward to continuing it. Look around and feel free to comment. I love comments, like book reviews they make me feel ‘read’ which is like feeling hugged.

 

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