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