Bartonangel

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Location: Plaigne, Aude, France

I am an author and mother of 7 children ranging from 8 years to 26 years, who has been living in France for 18 years. Angel Cuddle Publishing is dedicated to all sorts of writing, world peace and environmental solutions to heal Mother Earth. Enjoy my blogs and sites!

Monday, January 28, 2008

The Rose

I sang The Rose with my twin daughters, Demelza & Verity, in a concert last April.

They didn't know the Rose, so I showed them a video of a very dear friend singing it, when we did a concert in England, a good number of years ago.

My friend died just a few months after singing the song, from a brain tumour. When she first sang it in rehearsals just about everyone in the room had a tear in their eyes. There was so much communal emotion in the air. So, when I hear the Rose after some time of not hearing it, I have a tear in my eye.

I often think of my friend Peggy. She was like a mother to me. Peggy told me once, that I should follow my heart and follow my dreams. "Don't leave it too late or you will regret it," she said. I'm following her advice.

When I hear the Rose, it is stimulation and inspiration, albeit a tear at my heart too.

Here's to following our dreams.

Angel cuddles,

Sarah

for the inspiration.


Thursday, January 03, 2008

Thank you





A Simple Poem from the Heart


A Simple Poem from the Heart

Daddy, I don’t want you to suffer,

But Daddy, I don’t want you to go.

Sarah, I won’t be gone, ever,

But my suffering has to go, you know.


Daddy! I love you my Daddy.

My Sarah, I love you too.

Daddy, please don’t ever leave me.

Sarah, that I will never do.


Sarah, it’s almost his time.

We’re all with him; I’ll give you a call.

I’m waiting, waiting; it’s just a matter of time.

Daddy, Daddy, can you hear me call?


Sarah, are you there? Please take my hand.

I’m here Daddy; here’s a cuddle for you Pop.

I’m just about ready to go to the other land.

Daddy, keep me in your heart; don’t ever stop.


Oh Daddy, your angel guides have come.

Don’t worry Daddy; just follow their light.

Here, place your hands in their hands. “Welcome.”

Oh Daddy, you look so peaceful and, like them, so bright.


Daddy, I love you; you’ll always be a smile in my heart.

Sarah, I love you; I’ll always be here for you, your guiding light.

The Angels, take care of Daddy; put the strength back in his heart.

We’ll always be united in angel cuddles, love and light.


By Sarah & Raymond Barton

© Copyright Sarah Pritchard October 2007



Newsletter from Plaigne Jan 2008

The winning photo of Dodo

Away in a manger

La famille

Loupio and Polly
Bonjour from Plaigne, 2007

Yes, another year has gone by, and I hope this newsletter finds you in good health. Thank you to those who sent cards, presies, messages, wishes.

At the beginning of this year, we added two animals to our family, Polly the pony and Loupio the donkey. David converted the wood shelter into a stable for them. We are greeted with eeaws and winnies every morning. They are lovely.

In February, David and I did a couple of days business/pleasure trip to London. Had a great time, despite it being freezing cold. Went to the theatre to see Billy Eliot. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend that you get tickets.

The tennis team now includes Raymonde. She now has a collection of medallions which she won at tournaments. For her age, she’s a very good player (but she does have her personal, resident coach to train her). Johnny and Benjamin had to play each other in the local finals. Jn won. In the same competition finals, they played together as the doubles team and won. So the Pritchards were famous in the local news! David and BJ have started skiing again. D bought some new skis. They thoroughly enjoy it.

GC usually spends the week in Toulouse and the weekends here (along with his washing!). He didn’t like uni, so he left at the end of the first year and is now doing a correspondence course, while working as a temp.

BJ is working in Mazères and studying at home for his Bac. He’s still the tennis coach at Belpech Tennis Club. He also still does jobs for the ‘fat lady,’ the handicapped lady in the village. He even went to help her on Christmas morning.

Jn declared that he was leaving school and the last school year spent a lot of time awol!! He has now become an apprentice electrician. He found a very good boss in Belpech (who also happens to play tennis). He spends one week per month at the CFA in Toulouse (so stays with GC), and the other weeks he works. He is having fun. At last, he has found his niche.

D & V have finished first term at the lycée in Pamiers, but they don’t like school and are trying to find their niche. Watch this space!

Raymonde has started proper school and came home with an excellent report. Apparently, the teacher tells her to cover her work so that the others don’t copy her. Oooohooo!

Isabelle started in the maternelle in September, Lord bless them all. She is a real ‘character.’ She does mornings only, so goes off on the bus and I collect her at midday. She loves it. She sometimes has “no” days, when she doesn’t want to do anything on offer, but she’s so sweet that she gets away with it, and does her own thing. Wonder who she takes after!

I still do choir and drama with the amicale. For Easter, I was asked to write and produce a sketch for the amicale annual meal. They wanted something very English, so I wrote a mini panto, with an Easter twist, in English and then translated it into French. It was difficult to convert the humour. Everything about a panto was new to the French and I had to do an explanation of panto and cross dressing, before they watched it. I had to teach them that audience participation was required, but they really enjoyed it, and I’ve been asked to do another for next Easter. I’m contemplating publishing the English version. Ray, V & D were in the panto and I was the Fairy Queen. Little did I know that I was getting into practise for being a queen.

I’ve been working on the net and this week I was voted Person of the Week on Adlandpro, a business social networking site. Not bad, as there are over 66000 members. They are addressing me as Queen Sarah (don’t that sound grand). Last week, I won $50 in the photo competition, with a photo of Dodo on the creeper. So, I’m a happy bunny!

Been writing. Have a number of projects on the go to be finished off. Am working on a website, www.angelcuddlepublishing.com and have started some forums. Still teach English on Thursday afternoons. Sadly, one of my students, Edmonde, who was a very great friend, passed on, this year. I miss her a great deal, as do the other students. She is with the angels now, as is Daddy. (I was recently inspired to write a poem about that). You can read it on my blog. It is a poem of love and comfort, written from the heart.

David is a team captain at the tennis club, and as I said earlier, he likes his skiing. He continues to do building and maintenance work. He gets a lot of work via word of mouth, and has so much work that the chateau renovation has slowed up, but it now has windows on the ground floor.

We did well with the gites this year, despite a slow start. An American gent has been in the Grange since October, while his house is being renovated. David is down to work there in the new year too. D is going to do improvements in the apartment bathroom, including putting in a new window, so we’re not taking bookings for that one at the mo, but we’ve started taking bookings for the Grange.

We didn’t manage a holiday together this year. Missed taking the caravan to the seaside, but bookings, work for David, and D&V and a number of other issues meant that we didn’t manage it. I took the girls out for daytrips and David joined us when he could or wanted to. Sometimes we did girly things! We visited all sorts of interesting places. Had a good time.

David & I flew to London for a 5 day break, in September. We had beautiful weather and a great time. Visited Buckingham Palace, St James’ Park (every day!), Foreign & Commonwealth Office (like a palace), the theatre to see “Wicked” (and it was wicked), pub lunches, were invited to lunch with some friends, Karen & Adrian (we had a lovely time, thanks) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We love the children, but it was wonderful to have some time just for us. That doesn’t happen very often.

We plan a visit to England with the 4 girls, in February. Visiting friends at Caister, London and family. Looking forward to it. Hope it won’t be too cold!

For Xmas, we did the usual evening in the village church. The girls sang (including Isa) Away in a Manger, in English and French and they were in a sketch. The little ones were tramps, as you can see in the photo on my blog.

I hope you all had a merry Xmas and wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year.

Angel cuddles,

Sarah

Organic gardening

I came across this news item. I found this very interesting, especially as I've started a forum about taking care of Mother Earth.

If you would like to see my beautiful forum, or should I say Mother Earth's beautiful forum (as it is she who creates the beauty for us to wonder at and be peaceful with), or better still, contribute some beauty yourself, go here. Please note that if you wish to contribute you need to join the social network first. Here is an invitation where you can join.

This article applies to all of us.

I found it interesting that the article says that the farm workers on an organic farm are working in a healthier environment too. As you know, my children work for an organic farmer in the holidays and some weekends. They used to work for a non-organic farmer and David sometimes helped out there too.

One summer, a few years ago, whilst doing the maize, GC collapsed in the field. I had to take him to hospital. B and D were also unwell and had breathing probs, along with some other workers on the farm. At the hospital, they couldn't find out what the problem was, but I have my suspicions that it was something to do with the products that had been sprayed on the fields.

Here's the article:



In my mission to take care of my bit of Mother Earth, I've joined an online gardening club, Green Wiz.

Perhaps you'd like to join too. You can take a look here.

Angel cuddles,

Sarah