There are four types of French dogs.  There are handbag dogs, hunting dogs, tied up dogs and dogs on the loose.

Georgina of Les Fragnes arrived today - very quickly! We missed her arrival, despite checking mum Gabby several times an hour.

My purse is bulging with cartes de fidélités (loyalty cards). I’m a sucker for them. But to be honest I’m not entirely sure how some of the loyalty schemes I've signed up to work. So I decided it was time to take a closer look at these ubiquitous little bits of plastic that are an essential part of French life. 

I never thought I'd have to milk a llama! However, baby Victoria, who arrived yesterday on Victory in Europe Day, is stubbornly refusing to suckle. So we've been bottle feeding her colostrum, as much of mum Katrina's milk as we can get, and now we've moved onto goat's milk as well. She is drinking more and more each time we feed her. She gets very close to latching on to Katrina, but hasn't managed yet.

Snow in May!  Creuse is experiencing its coldest weather in May since records began in 1946. Today it hovered around 1.7 degrees most of the day and it snowed for several hours. It's warmed up to a toasty 3 degrees this evening! It touched 30 degrees a week ago.

We inherited a huge pile of newspapers and magazines, dating back to the 1860s, when we bought our farm, Les Fragnes. The journals were stacked in the attic of what is now the gite. A lot had been ruined by the weather and an obviously abundant population of rats at one time! But plenty were in a good state. These included two years’ worth of La Prosperité a la Campagne, a very practical, hands-on monthly magazine for country dwellers. Every issue opens with ‘dictons’ or sayings for that month. Here are the ones for May from 1932 and 1933.