Proof that my days are spent doing more than just making imperfect jam!

No.....these aren’t clothes taken from our peasant fancy dress box.....and no....the pitch fork isn’t just for effect - I was actually labouring in the yard alongside Tony the Tractor man!  I think I actually had the raw deal to be honest and I still have to try out the tractor - soon come I’m told!

Today is the big ‘lunch with the neighbours day’ - one of my sisters’ bought me the Julia Childs collection for Christmas so as previously mentioned, I’m attempting the Chicken Fricassee and starting with Ina Garten’s pea and mint soup (seasonal I thought!) - the neighbours are bringing dessert.

As an aside, you don’t realise how terrifying the telephone can be until you move to a foreign country - in Cayman, the phone rings and I answer.....in France, the phone rings and both Tony and I freeze - desperately hoping it won’t be a french number because if it is we may have to actually speak french to a real french person who’ll know we’re not french!

So - wanting to touch base with the neighbours given the weekly lunch arrangement hadn’t been mentioned since our very first aperitifs with them on our very first day in France, we wandered by their house hoping to catch them.....no such luck....so, we returned home and I realised I’d have to actually use the telephone.

I called and Simone answered (the most difficult to understand which is why her husband is usually found saying to her, “Madame - lentement!” (“Madame - slowly”) when we’re in their company).  I invited them for lunch to which she responded (but in French!), “But...why?” to which I responded, “Why not?”, then went on to explain that we’d not only like to see them but we’d also like to improve our french so she agreed and as a bonus she offered to bring dessert - so here we are, preparing for lunch - absolutely terrified at the prospect but excited as well.  Our goal by the end of lunch is to discover where “Tractor Tony” can purchase chickens, initially for us to shelter and provide a home for but in all honesty our true goal is very seriously to see whether we’re up to the task of killing them ourselves so that we can eat them - a test we feel will possibly cross the line of pretend farming along the way.......