Not another one?

the day after we found Mr. Man - such a skinny little bit

If you've read this blog before, you know that almost a year ago we were outside, heard a crying kitten and found our lovely Colette (who was 4 weeks old at that time).  She's now over a year, healthy, happy and such a love.  Well, it happened again.  But Dashell found this one.  He was barking at a tree on our property and we went over to it, looked up and there was this little kitten.  We couldn't climb up the tree, so I got a rake and got him down.  He was so skinny, his hip bones were sticking out and you could see his ribs.  It was in the evening, so we had to wait until the next morning to take him to the vet.

The vet told us he was probably 2 months old, but because he's feral he's not developing.  He also told us that if he was left outside, he probably would have died.  Not that we need another animal, but cats are pretty easy and Colette could use a friend.

just a funny shot of Colette

Here's Mr. Man now - what a difference a warm friend and food makes

His name is Mr. Man.  He's now 5 months old, fixed and getting bigger and stronger (although his legs are really short, maybe stunted growth or something).  He's not interested in going outside at all - Colette couldn't wait to go out and hunt.  He'd rather curl up with us, or in front of the fire, or with his friend Dashell.  He's now a happy member of our pack.

Big Changes....they are a coming.

We've been here in France for 5 years and we love it.  But, both of us have been thinking, is this it? Luckily we have always been on the same page when it comes to our lives.  It would be so hard if I wanted to go back to the states and Bruce wanted to stay here.  We love Spain, have been many times and continue to visit.  We love  San Sebastian and Bilbao (The Basque Country), but we also love Catalunya.

Our landlords want to sell the house we are in.  We could buy it if we wanted, but it makes us a bit nervous.  What if this area of France isn't it.  What if we bought and then in 5 years we wanted to sell and try something else.  Houses in this area don't sell super fast.  We don't want to be stuck with a 7 bedroom farmhouse in rural France.  We were talking to our landlord the other day and he mentioned that they really want to market the selling of the house, there are things they want to do to the house and then they want to find a buyer.  Because of that, we got to thinking about moving.  If the house sold we'd have to move, but would we stay here or try something else.  After many discussions, we decided that we aren't going to wait for the house to sell and then make a decision....we are making it now.  So, we have decided to move to Spain.  Catalunya to be exact.  Why Catalunya you ask?

Well, we love the area.  The rock-climbing is world class, the Mediterranean is beautiful, the people are so friendly, Girona is a fun,  lively city, Barcelona is cool and the food is amazing.  So, we took a trip down to check out areas.  We stayed in Girona and spent a few days looking around.  We have decided to focus on the area just north of Girona.  That makes climbing only 20-30 minutes away, the beaches of Costa Brava 20 minutes away, Girona 20 minutes away and Barcelona less than an hour away (faster if you take the train from Girona).  We'll be heading back down to look at some houses, stay tuned.

Bruce took this shot and I just love it "open your eyes"

It's been over 35 years

I'm back....it's been forever and I know I've written before that I'm going to get back to blogging.  But things always come up and I get busy and then I don't think that what I'm doing is very interesting to others.  But this time I'm going to stick with it.  I've had this blog for way too long to just let it go dry.

We had a visitor....a person I haven't seen in over 35 years.  Thanks to Facebook, we've reconnected. My friend Janice came to visit to our lovely rural area of France.

here we are at the top of Cordes-sur-Ciel

At the castle in Najac

Reunited

Walking around the beautiful village of Bruniquel

Finally getting a crepe

I knew what she looked like, basically the same as high school, but we hadn't hung out or really talked, besides pm'ing on Facebook.  I was super excited to see her.  She only stayed a week, which really wasn't long enough, but had such a great time.  We took her to all the amazing medieval villages in our area (Cordes-sur-Ciel, Albi, St. Antonin Noble Val, etc...) we drank great wine, cooked excellent meals together and had a really great time.  I was sad to see her leave but I know she'll be back!