Bonus post: introducing the animals!

Marcus and Diane have quite a few animals and they are all such characters I thought I would just have to introduce them!

Firstly, the two dogs, Fripon (French for rascal) and Billy. Fripon is a big black softie and is incredibly loyal. He will run along side the dumper truck when we go out to work in the morning and sits and watches us in the field all day. Having tired himself out, he'll quickly nod off in the evening and snore loudly over the TV. Fripon spent years in a kennel before Marcus and Diane rescued him, and he is clearly living the good life now. He loves cuddles and belly rubs, and if you're not doing anything he will shove his head under your hand to get a cuddle.



Billy is a cute little white dog. He's a bit lazier than Fripon, so he waits for us at home while we are out at work. After dinner he likes to hop onto someone knee and have a cuddle. Billy has a party trick of giving Tom (the cat) kisses.




There are also 3 cats, Charlie, Tom and Tilly. Tom and Tilly are both grey and Charlie is ginger. Tilly is quite timid and we have only had the honour of an occasional cuddle from her. Tom and Charlie are both really friendly, probably the friendliest cats I've ever seen! They could both happily sit on your lap for hours. In fact, Tom was on Craig's lap within about half an hour of us arriving on our first day! Charlie is unbelievably friendly and will run the full length of the garden to come and sit on your lap. She will make sure she can sit on you no matter what you're doing. One evening this week we went for a walk to check on the sheep up the road, and both the dogs and Tilly and Tom came with us! It was very sweet.

 

The donkeys, Eric, Armandine and Alouette are quite friendly and often come over to the fence for a head scratch. Eric is a Poitou donkey, which are native to this region of France, and they are quite tall and have long tassled hair. We have taken them for a couple of walks to help with their hooves, but the Donkeys were a bit grumpy and they can certainly be stubborn! Craig had to let Alouette run off up the lane because she was getting huffy!



There are also other farm animals. There are about 40 sheep at the moment, lots of these are lambs that were born this year.

Two little black lambs have been born since we arrived and they are adorable.



There are also around 10 chickens. Three of these look like little mini chickens and are apparently Vietnamese.



There are three geese, one of the geese has been sitting on some eggs since we arrived so we are hoping some baby geese might appear any day now! One of the other geese bit me in our first week here so I have fallen out with that one. Every now and then when I'm working in the garden it comes running up behind me hissing. And I run away like a big scaredy cat. Craig has to escort me past this goose if it's around because the goose isn't nasty to him!

My goose bite

Lastly there are three ducks; one of the ducks is also sitting on a nest, but sadly I don't think we'll be around when they hatch.

So there we have it! A brief introduction to the animals we are spending our days with.