and I told them.

Health and a good state of mind are a very important part of our existence here in France, mainly because we are never one hundred percent sure that we have been understood or that any translation of diagnosis and treatment is actually rock solid or state of the art technology in any language.  It is with this lack of confidence in mind that I came a little unstuck yesterday and had to result to self help and self observation before a trip to the doctor. Mike and I were having a wonderful evening with Graham and Ann, Anna and William, Ann from Appleville and Joe, who is the town manager at Saint Mere Eglise. We were celebrating the 6^th January which to the French is a month long event but all the better done on the 6^th to eat frangipan pie in celebration of the three kings getting to see Jesus in his manger. We all sat down to a fabulous meal well presented and delivered, the conversation was varied and in both languages which I love.  After the first course I began to feel a little unwell and as I tried to continue the conversation and friendly banter I realised that I was not going to shake off my shaky insides and I went to find the toilet and the next thing I knew I was being fanned and dabbed down with wet tissues as I fought my way out of a faint. Blow me down, a simple not feeling terribly well moment became a full on mini crisis as Mike brought me round and fussed over me whilst the dinning remainder continued into the dessert, quietly but in a bit of worry . I pulled myself together, washed my face looked in the mirror and although I looked dreadful I remembered the lighting was low in Ann and Grahams dinning room so I went back to my place, apologised for taking so long and we finished the evening. I was mortified at my behaviour I did not feel so unwell just effected and a little dislodged by the whole event. At midnight before I could turn into a pumpkin as I already felt like a right lemon we drove home and Mike tucked me up in bed to see what all this was about in the morning.

 This morning I was fine, and we are going to document last night  to a bout of low blood pressure, again, we won’t talk of stress and anxiety because I don’t really have any but I must just pay attention to how I am on a daily basis and keep the light headed “wey hey” moments to a minimum.

We took HOSS for his annual injections and I made a point of seeing the vet who had treated him through his attack of mange in the summer. This young and conscientious woman wanted to know how we had turned our boy around and how he had put on five kilos in weight in five months. She was pleased with his progress and he got a full bill of health so now we can relax a little and not fret over huge Euro vet bills and stop those long worrying gazes in his direction in case he can’t get better.

We did lunch with Peter and Sarah and although I felt just minutely under par I enjoyed a good old fashioned, UK style after Christmas curry and we sat and chatted about all the stuff we normally talk about and then Mike helped Peter put their big bits of xmas decorations away for another year.  Sarah is having HOSS while we do a weekend back to the UK this month so she thought it would be good for him to spend a little time with her, Sarah is a big part of my infrastructure here and having such things organised, implemented and practised is essential to living our life with plenty of  help and support..

To finish off our day we got called over the road for a calva with David the new neighbour. His wife Naomi is hard at work making Gallette Des Roi, she works in a Patisserie somewhere so he is busy getting the house ready for the big furniture move this week end. During this precious time  I got lots of info about them. I was therefore well armed to participate at the Brevands Gallettes Des Roi annual gathering and was pleased and a bit proud to be the bearer of a ton of useful  gossip about our new family in the village. I felt like one of the bunch, the heart of the gang, a qualified member of the crew but had to break the news that David  was a fisherman and not a hunter, chase, non,  peche, oui and that was all the “chase de Brevands” needed to know..... and I told them.