Bears, flowers and Mischka.....................

Guess I will have to start with feedback on Mischka. He is progressing very well and is now able to stand on his front paw without it sort of folding up. The back leg is still a little sore but he is not hobbling around quite so much. The weather has been extremely variable, sunny, then raining, overcast and lots of wind. The monster is not quite so keen to be outside all the time, think he might have learned a valuable lesson about the vagaries of the countryside! Anyway just had to share the pic of him sitting on a hot water bottle looking very pleased with himself! Almost completed his course of antibiotics and I have started giving him yoghurt which he loves.


I have always loved orchids but never really bothered with growing them as I felt they were fussy and needed lots of care. Any one who has travelled through Singapore Airport and seen the amazing displays of hundreds of different varieties of orchids will understand my fascination. I decided to take the plunge and bought two plants for the house. It is a fairly dark house and needed brightening up. So here are some pics of the flowers.

In response to a challenge from one of my on line groups to make a rainbow bear, I discovered that I only had cream and brown fabrics with the exception of a tiny piece of hand dyed long pile. So here is the watermelon bear, quite small only 3.25". The ribbon is an exact match! Not really a rainbow but she is very cute.
I also completed a jersey for Benedict who is now ready for e-bay. He is wearing overalls in blue check with contrast pocket and tiny polymer clay apple trim.
From the amount of noise coming from the nesting box in the garden there must be some new hatchlings! The parents are darting in and out of the box trying to keep up with their obviously hungry offspring. Hope I get to see the young birds, wish there was a camera in the box to watch their progress.
This is a picture of a field of buttercups just up the road. The fields around the house are filling up with amongst other things, peas, lettuce and oats. The farmers here work long hours and it must be a hard life, notice that a lot of them are not very young. Had a smile at a farmer driving a big tractor with a very big dog sitting next to him enjoying the ride! The French seem to love dogs and take them everywhere and they are all very well behaved. The three dogs who live in the shed on the next door property make me feel very sad. They spend their entire lives in this shed, though they are well fed it is not much of a life for them. I had a good laugh this week to open my front door to discover that two of them had 'escaped' overnight and had a great time in the rain and mud. They are the most beautiful retriever type of dogs, very friendly just bored.
We have been living here in Brittany of almost three months. In some ways the time seems to have passed so quickly but in others it seems to be dragging. The vet who 'fixed' Mischka also organises EU passports so I will take all my documentation to him during the coming week to see just how soon I can move my kitties to the UK. I do enjoy living here but it is isolated and quite lonely without any contact with friends or neighbours. Mervyn is enjoying his vegetable garden and the lettuce are almost ready, the climbing beans have finally surfaced now that the weather is warmer. Hope we get to enjoy the results before we leave here. The cherries are setting on the tree but a lot have blown off in the wind. The grape vine over the front of the house is now flourishing so we might get some grapes, I have no concept of growing grapes but my pruning does not seem to have done much harm. This is an old plant and very woody and I had absolutely no idea how much to cut to cut it back.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and tomorrow is flea market day and we have to decide just how far we want to drive!

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. ~Author Unknown