Selfsufficientish.com

Here's the funny bit! When they came home from school I asked Pia and Luca to ask Geneva about her trip to the creche. This is the conversation... Pia "Did you have a lovely day?" Geneva "Yeah!" Luca "Where did you go?" Geneva "Inna car to see Lally" (the lady...

OK, next instalment. I took them both this morning. Vivi dashed in as normal, ignoring me totally once she was through the door. I told Geneva we would go home and make some cakes and then come back when it was time for Vivi to come home. As soon as I got her strapped in the car and took off she scr...

We have two of these strange beings. One is placid and easy going, the other is vaguely hyper, into mischief and usually a complete pain. I think you can probably see from the photo which one is which, despite them being identical. They are now a year and a half old and have begun "socialising&...

Thanks for that reassurance. I will try siphoning and hope for the best! As you say, the pectin will be useful for when we have the next glut of strawberries and I make jam. The wine dregs should make it tasty too...

Last summer we brewed a lot of strawberry wine. It's never got beyond the brewing bottles but has been racked and is as clear as a bell. It also tastes lovely. BUT each and every bottle (we don't have many demijohns so use 5 litre flagon type bottles which just happen to take a cork and then we airl...

What's yours like this week? I know it's been pretty good in the UK but it was high 70s here in the Charente Maritime yesterday and likely to be more today. We've set up the paddling pool for the twins - who are happily splashing about (along with Morris Lurcher, who loves water). The polytunnel is ...

My mother-in-law (from Waterford) absolutely believes in all these things. Sometimes she almost convinces me too...

We went to a reasonably nearby "vide grenier" today and introduced a new concept - selling without actually using money! This is what we did: We packed up all sorts of things for our stall. This included: - potted-up herbs, beans, cabbages, peas & tomatoes we have spare (I've been grow...

... and peace reigns in the Abbott household. Eve is probably wreaking havoc aboard an Air France flight from Paris CDG to Los Angeles at this very moment! We had an "interesting" visit. We had the benefit of her opinion on everything from the workings of the fosse septique (of which she h...

More later on the trials and tribulations of Xmas with my Mom, she is about to leave so I'm feeling pretty frivolous today... In the meantime this is what our brood had for Xmas. Pia and Luca certainly didn't expect more and had a lovely time. Our Christmas decorations were home-made and our enterta...

Mine is driving me crazy. She is here for a 3 week visit and in the two days since she has arrived she has created absolute mayhem. Thank goodness she has now taken herself off "to the Mall" for the afternoon. The main problem is that she will insist upon this "compare and contrast&qu...

The book is a "work in progress" - about half done. Knowing at what point to stop is going to be a problem! I have lots of time to work on it though. In the early days when I had to wash everything by hand and haul water in with buckets etc I seemed to be running to keep in one place. I've...

I know, it's been nearly a year since I last logged in. I can't possibly cram what we have been up to into one post so suffice it to say... House Done, all three floors. We have showers, baths, electricity and water. Bliss! It took some doing and of course we are broke. We are still managing to live...

Thanks for the pm , Mrs H. I'll see if I can type out or even scan some of the info and pm it back to you. In the meantime I spoke to my MIL this morning who had somewhat similar problems (she is in Waterford). She now takes something called Bimuno which can be bought online and finds it a huge help...

Mrs H I have a huge book called Healing with Whole Foods - Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition by Paul Pitchford. It's from the US so I'm not sure if its something you will have seen. It has several paragraphs on IBS, nausea and vomiting which are hard to summarize. It doesn't seem to mention n...