What goes up, must come down!

Eeeeeeeee!

I believe dear hearts, that I am in the midst of that post move, post birthday funk! Everything feels a bit blue but also a little bit pink!

It's just two short months since our great French escape, but already feels much, much longer! Is it really just two months since we hopped on the ferry, with one well placed middle finger in the air to the weirdest, most unfriendly French provincial town ever?

Apparently so!

The living on hope and adrenaline thing has soon faded into everyday normal living, routine and an eagerness to bed in, get our stuff here and soon. This is to be expected I suppose but also those rose tinted farm glasses have slipped down my pretty liitle nose somewhat! This ramshackle farmhouse is in need of more than a quick do over folks! I honestly don't know what I was thinking? This kitchen is well past it's sell by date and then some, a lick of paint, new tops and handles would have never helped when the carcases belong to the stone age! Of course, these potential renovations aren't within our control, so it's tough to just wait for action and this I guess is why people buy their own properties eh! However, these views are still saving me every day rain or shine, medicine for the soul, so there's that at least.

My name is Donna and I am a country girl and I will never recover!

The communication as to what is happening and when, is pretty missing in action at this present time! We the inconvienced have to chase for a response and when they come, they are very vague. Meanwhile, everything we touch in the kitchen falls off! Toilets won't flush, floor boards are all over the place and the patio door and other handles are broken! Gotta laugh. I believe the last long term tenant here wasn't keen on landlord interaction and so the place fell apart at the seams! To be brutally honest, I think the Landlords should look after and invest in their properties regardless, then this situation wouldn't have happened and they wouldn't have to suffer such a hit on the family piggy bank, there's no excuse really. Head in sand stuff isn't it?

I personally rather prefer to think of the tenant/landlord relationship as a partnership but there's only so much we will benefit from works done here and so we must limit what we are willing to spend ourselves right? I'm very happy to work with them but just want to know WTF is happening please! I also have lots of decorating on the back burner but there is zero point with a new kitchen going in but when will that be? No clue! I'm also not sure how we will cook and wash up but it won't be the first time. Never mind, we will absolutely figure it out!

Our landlords are doing that thing where they will only speak or answer the chap tenant which absolutely boils my blood!

*****I've actually just seen the new kitchen footprint and it's the same, almost but missing out one whole side of cupboards! I give up. So we will have less of a kitchen in fact. There's no modern island and I think its a penny pinching design! Why am I not surprised?

My no.57 birthday was an absolute triumph, such fun and all the better for putting my family on mute. I just don't fit there, never really did and I'd rather be parent and sibling less than put up with their BS frankly. I have honestly never met a more self centred bunch of bullying, misogynist, narcissists in my entire life and thats me being kind. I'm so over it all and honestly, I'd rather be alone than chucked in with that lot. They really think the world owes them something and that everything is a conspiracy! Any deviation from their views are taken very personally and I'm sick of being abused! I honestly don't care to placate them anymore, maybe they should use a mirror, look at their own actions first, the consequences thereafter and get out more! I like people I can comfortably disagree with but still love and who love me back. I do not and never have seen the world their way, never will. I've lived away for more than 36 years and I am rudely reminded why! Grief is not an excuse for their behaviour and even though it often brings the worst out in some people, I can't tell you all how ashamed I am of them right now.

Luckily for me, Philips Family and my close friends turned out and although the setting was equally lovely, the food wasn't great if I'm honest. I've also ended up glutenised, so care and attention to preparation clearly wasn't a thing as was promised either. Very disappointing. Those that had the brisket said it was super salty. Those that had the burgers felt they were under seasoned. My coconut rice bowl with salmon was almost tasteless if it hadn't been for the pickled ginger. The rice was stodgy and the salmon weirdly bland. Yawn.

The dessert for me? A really dense polenta and almond lemon cake, which was just vile. It didn't taste of lemon and more like stale potatoes! The texture wasn't great! Actually, It was truly awful. I often wonder if chefs actually taste the Gluten free food they make? Also, one dessert choice for a birthday girl? I'd rather have had fruit and cream than that less than interesting offering! Again luckily for me H made a splendid birthday lunch and cake on the Friday, so I didn't feel terribly cheated.

I've just remembered how I watched with horror as my restaurant gluten free cake slid into the gluten coffee and walnut cake. Inept! Just think of gluten as raw chicken and you will get it! The waiting staff as always, need further training! Despite the food being lacklustre, the service being rather Hotch Potch, the company was a great tonic. Our 3 year old great niece Hattie was there, bringing all that super charged pre school energy and I'm so looking forward to spending more time getting to know her. We do miss so much being abroad! It really is swings and roundabouts, we get to stay away from the nut cases but miss real live contact with those we love.

I was very spoilt this birthday and felt yet again, that the decision to come back to the uk was very much the right one. Cranky farm house aside, I feel like life is certainly more real here and I've definitely felt more myself lately. My MOJO is returning and I don't feel trapped anymore!

The birthday day itself was rather muted until H arrived fresh from the london fog. Then on the Friday, my DIL arrived and we started partying at 1pm prompt through to bed time! Tut Tut! So of course, the next morning was one of the roughest I've had in decades, so much so I'm actually surprised I made it to my own birthday Lunch! Yuck and I obviously haven't drunk a drop since!

My energy may be a bit sapped but I'm very happily working on my floral design business launch at the end of September. It's always daunting starting something new but I would advise you to just get started, cut out the noise, find a good mentor and crack on which is what I am doing. Hopefully I will receive the same support I've metered out in bucket loads over the years?

I've been arranging flowers for years one way or another as most of you already know and I've always wanted to do a short intense course but never found one worth the cost or time. Then my SIL did a career change course with Tallulah Rose Flower school in the Lakes last year. She absolutely loved it and has gone on to build a wonderful floral design business in Yorkshire. My course is booked for September and so I'm keeping busy already doing some ground work behind the scenes, so that I can get going as soon as I'm finished with school! No point wasting all that fresh teaching is there eh!

This course offers me the skills, both practical and business to launch my own creative floral design business and I cannot wait! They focus on seasonality, British grown flowers and no plastics which is perfect for me! I've always been super creative, so I'm thinking I don't really mind working hard when it's doing something I really love. As it is, I'm not really reinventing myself, more like being true to who I am, what I already do and building on that. We all have to invest in ourselves don't we, in order to feel really connected to this life, this planet we live on and I can think of nothing better than playing with mother natures finest, can you?

D x