Thursday 19 March 2009

APOLOGIES

Apologies and then some more!
We have been without convenient internet connections and I have been without my computer and so unable to do any work on photos for you.
We have loads of pictures to show you and loads of stories to tell.
At present we are both in Cyber-base a free internet site that is part of the local library in Maubourguet, the small town close to the village where our future home is to be.
Cyber-base is a fantastic resource but we hope soon to hava a landline and internet connections of our own.
House buying has been a huge saga just as you would all expect or have experienced. We hope to complete the purchase next week - this was delayed by a week due to the unsurprising problems of moving money around when all financial nerws is so bad.
As soon as I can I will post pictures of the smallish house that we are buying.

Meanwhile the mouse in the van still is on board and nest building! he/she ate her way into the top of a carton of tomato juice. John still wanted to have it for breakfast but I explained that mice dip their tails into cartons of juice so that they can suck the moisture off the tip and no I wasnt even going to drink it with vodka!
We had an excellent three weeks in England and saw friends and family and had such a good time that it is hard to know why we would live anywhere else but there - except of course for the weather.
It is spring here and deliciously warm however - perhaps you will all come and visit?

Wednesday 11 March 2009

CRASH!

Ruth's computer has crashed, so here is a nearly-finished post she wrote:-

MICE, MOVES AND LA MAISON DE JOHN AND RUTH

It has been a long gap since our last blog.
We have spent three weeks in England and a week driving back to Tarbes.

The weather has been terrible everywhere in Europe. We left Tarbes Lourdes airport in a rainstorm and arrived in a Cambridge thick with snow and freezing.

Back at our campsite a family of mice were in charge of the wheely cabin. We are not sure when they joined us. Possibly somewhere in Eastern Europe – maybe they are Romanian mice – or they could have joined us in Sicily straight off the raft from North Africa. It is most likely they are French country mice as this is where we have been stationary for the longest period.
I woke one night to the sound of tiny feet scratching their way round the van. The next night an owl hooted and we heard its claws scrape on the top of the wheely cabin. A search revealed a nibbled cardboard box of biscuits and not much else. Before we left for England I spent some time storing food as carefully as possible and blocking up some of the gaps around the hot air ducts under the cupboards.

In Cambridge I bought humane mouse traps at that wonderful ironmongers, Mackays. We hoped that the mice would have perished in the below zero temperatures in the van while we were away or met their death at the claws of the owl or in the flood that threatened to overtake the wheely cabin from snowmelt and rain, but as you have guessed, they had made themselves more comfortable while we were away. They used the sheepskin for nests, explored the rolled bedding and investigated the cutlery tray. last heard behind the electircal box that works everything in the van.
You can't see them or catch them or persuade them to leave.
First thing at the new home will be une Chatte or cat or both!
We have been struck by financial blow after blow or crash!
Perhaps we will just have to continue our lives as trailer trash with the economic migrant mice!