Walnut brownies

We had a lovely  afternoon; after  a service in Magné (shall I say half a service because we were late) near Gencay we found our way back home without getting lost!
Our 9 friends and Ray's dog Bobby, arrived at 2pm as Steven had moved the bbq by Christopher hut in case it rained!

Written in 2018

Summer best 2017 photos!

Just a normal Saturday in an unusual life...

My first fudgy coconut brownies are in the oven now! click here for the recipe!
The only change I made was to use gluten-free self-raising flour only because I had some and it saved me from adding the 'levure' to the French flour. You cannot find in French shops self-raising flour so you need to buy the 'levure' separately and then add it in the flour according to  the instructions. Oups, there was another change i should mention, I put some roasted cob-nuts that Steven picked up from under the tree, sorted the bad ones from the edible ones and then roasted on the bbq as you do...Well it took him lots of time to do this..still as he is a retired gentleman, why not, his word not mine! 
I kept a bag of gluten-free flour for Camille whose diet is gluten-free.
Well it's been and is still very hot out there. When we went for an ice-tea at the local café, I compared today to an August day.

Exciting time ahead

Dear friends, you may or not be aware that we have moved to France since the end of February and I have been pondering over the future of this blog. Should I end it and start another one, one matching a new exciting time ahead in our life. 
Then again, I thought that bearing in mind that time is precious and my knowledge in blogging hasn't improved much, I will abstain from changing blog.
So what's new?
1 Shall I pick on Steven first? Is he learning French? ..nop
2 One question for me...Have I found a job? ...nop
3 Is Steven still practising what he is best at...bbq?....yes with a gas bbq! Really as Verity Yarwood told him, he's become a traitor to the charcoal bbq league!
4 Have I found another friend to Christopher rabbit yet? ...nop..
5 Do we have a French TV...nop...English thank you very much and we enjoyed watching the two programmes for our Queen's 90th birthday, the BBC one and the ITV one. 
Hugs and blessings :)
More to come....

Christmas celebrations in the Kerygma bus!

Ems baked a delicious ginger house!

Joy, Sarah and Brian

Tonight, thanks to Colin and his team, the youth in Hixon had a great Christmas celebration. There were games, a quiz, gifts and carols. We all had a great evening! We had party food and delicious deserts. One of the game had a twist, somebody would call out a card, i.e. the queen of club and if you had it you could retrieve a gift that someone had, but it was not yours because somebody else could get it back ...so those gifts were only yours at the very end of the game! The children were very excited and keen to get their gifts back, the most popular were those, funny big plastic glasses, chocolate orange and a big box of chocolate bars (I can't remember the name now, oups!)
Have a lovely evening and God bless you! Remembers the Lord loves you so much, He is a loving Father and is looking after you. :)

A 'moelleux' or gooey chocolate cake

As winter is at the door, here is a treat you can take to your friends, for a social or eat by the fire with a hot chocolate drink of course. Here are the ingredients, 
200g sugar
200 g butter
80 g flour
150 g sugar
200g chocolate. I used one bar of milk chocolate and another dark 80%

Instructions.
Preheat the oven at 200 degrees
Add 4 table spoons of water with the chocolate and melt in the microwave
Then melt the butter
Transfer the butter in the bowl where the chocolate is then add the 4 eggs taking care of folding them one by one slowly into the mix. Then add the sugar and the flour.
Transfer in your tin and cook for 30 min. It should be gooey in the middle. Drop me a comment if you have another recipe that you can recommend!

A working holiday!

Though we are on holidays, at the end of the day we are pretty tired. We knew that we had lots of things to sort out here and as the days go by, there is a time to relax and a time to work physically. We enjoyed the company of our friends who came to visit us all the way from Limoges and Bordeaux! Also, we managed to have a break most days sitting down at the terrace of a cafe in the center of Civray, meeting up with our expat friends and basking in the autumnal sun. We love walking by the Charente river and biking to the house and back to the campsite. Time to work physically, I must confess that Steven did all the hard work, mowing the lawn seemed to be a Herculean task, then trimming the palm tree seemed dangerous, finally treating the wood was messy. I battled with ivy and wasps that we find in the kitchen. We can't figure out where they come from! We had an appointment with the Edf engineer to sort out our outdated French electricity meter and he gave us another appointment as there was so much to do. As we can't be there, our neighbour kindly agreed to be around. Choosing a cooker was easier once we found But in Ruffec, the equivalent of |Comet. Finally, we spend another hour with 'our' chosen electrician double checking the details of the 'earth wiring' renovation..

Tuesdays and Fridays are market days and we bought some pink garlic, pink pears and goat cheese. 

Here are more photos. Have a blessed evening. 

Walking by the Charente at dusk

Goats by the edge of the campsite of Civray

Un grand creme s'il vous plait!

St Nicholas Church in Civray

An amazing week!

Dear friends, I hope that your week went well. What did you do?

I have spent most of my amazing week doing those:

- getting up early, not fun! It would be fun if I went to bed earlyish but as don't, I feel exhausted...still I love going to work and I can drive to Leek now without the satnav! 

- reading the Bible, this is a joyful time. I have also been pondering about memorising verses better  and as I was talking to my friend Lilly, she mentioned the 'writing' and 'reading' method. I almost dismissed it to start with because I have done that for a while and I am not sure it works. Then thinking about it again, I realise the time I spend on a passage is not repetitive enough, what i mean, is that instead of reading a passage on Monday and moving on, I decided that I am going to spend two or three days on the same passage i.e. last week, I practised on Galatians 5 and this week I am reading Luke 6..guess what? it works! 

- meeting up with my friends on the days I'm not working; that's great and I feel so blessed

- having great fellowship at Milwich village hall for another session of the Pilgrim course. 

-  baking brownies, I managed to do one lot following a recipe without butter or oil, replacing them by low-fat yoghurt (only 6% fat) and they came out nice and gooey. Let me know if you want the recipe! 

- looking after our rabbits, mainly stopping them from visiting the neighbours' garden hopping through a protected hedge! It's hard work, the minute you fill up a gap, they find another one!

-  listening to worship music on my YouTube channel and you may want to subscribe to my channel! 

- I've just added a Po.st sharing button on the right side of this blog. It was not too difficult! Sharing the good news using sharing buttons..

A prayer now, Abba father, thank you for the many blessings this week your pour on our lives lavishly. Though we don't deserve any by our own merit, you surround us with your tender love and you look after us day by day. When we fail, we cry out to you and you hear us and pick us up because you are full of compassion. We ask you to bless us and to protect us as well as our family and friends in the powerful name of Jesus, our saviour and redeemer. Amen.

Have a blessed week-end and good night. 

Who are the street pastors?

Street pastors describe how they help youngsters who have had one drink too much ... 
Going out clubbing tonight? 
A few advice given by the street pastors
Top up your mobile phone
Charge your mobile phone
Make sure you stay with friends
Don't get so drunk you don't know what you are doing.
A short film about the work of the Stafford Street Pastors and the potential dangers faced by young people out on the town late at night. A big thanks to you, Street Pastors. 

Have a blessed week!

All good things come from our heavenly Father

He is the one who knows our heart's desires.

Thank you Jesus for your abundant love

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5 8

Photo album

After the week-end..

After the week-end, I don't know about you, but I feel lethargic it's just as well that I have the afternoon off! 

It could be because we had a fantastic Saturday evening with our friends, Leslie and John, celebrating their fourtieth wedding anniversary with a wonderful diner and an exciting barn dance! Exactly, how cool was that! I just thought that it was the best idea ever and I know that everybody else thought the same! I confess that my dance moves were slightly hesitant but no one cared, it was so much fun. The company was terrific, the music, singers and guitarists were outstanding. We were thinking that this event was soooo good that we should organise every two months!.

Sunday was great too, there was a breakfast at Weston church and a great service at Hixon church. Later on, my hubby Steven cooked a superb bbq with a salad made of home grown betroots. After I joined more friends at an evening service in Beacon church in Stafford. I hope you too had a blessed week-end. 

Have you heard of this charity: hands at work. 

Photos to come soon!

Best appetizers pour l'apéritif

In my opinion, as Imo would say, here are the 5 best appetizers,  but then I am not keen on salt or chilies so you may disagree! So, light chips, vol au vent, prawns on skewers (best if you prepare them yourself!),
If you wish to have the recipe for the cheese twists, let me know. I will ask my friend Julie. Hers taste yummy.
Don't these look fantastic, click here for the recipe! Do you favour one special appetizer? Let us know and even better, give us the recipe.  Have a great party!

Worried about ?

Let's pray about it!

Oh my dear, I'll wait for you!

Have you ever been in a situation when you keep on doing the wrong things and you feel that nobody wants to listen to you. For different reasons, maybe you weren't there for your friends when they needed you.. Maybe the only friends you ended up having were your friends because they 'added' you in the gang that was 'following' them - there is a bit of 'celebrity' in this kind of false friendship, to be counted in the 'in' crowd can lead to dangerous situations. Or not only you feel rejected by your friends but also your family is experiencing huge problems, whether financial, emotional, you thought they were strong and stable, there for you..no everything you thought was a rock is crumbling fast around you. What do you do?

The good news is that if you ever need someone to talk to, God is there 24/7 for you. He loves you, He is patient and full of compassion. He wants to welcome in His family, the family of all the Christian believers who believe in Jesus, his beloved son. He'll listen to every word you say, and cleanse your heart. He already knows everything about you and all the things that you have done that are bothering you and filling you with guilt.

Ponder on what Jesus said: 

 “Come to me,all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Blogroll

Hi everybody, just to let you know that all the inspirational blogs I followed have moved (much to my regret but I cannot seem to change it) in the blogroll section of this website (click on the word website). I hope that you are enjoying your week-end.

Hixon harvest supper 2012

Time really flies! However as this week-end we've had beautiful evenings that remind me of an 'Indian summer' it is hard to think that autumn is on its way! Hixon PCC is getting ready for the harvest supper hence the poster above. Do come along, bring your friends and have fun! Yours in Christ! N.

The wardens' evening ....december 2012

A few photos taken at Phil and Paola's home for the warden's buffet.

We had a great time in amazing company...
Pic 1...Elaine and Liz
Pic 2...Alan and Pat
Pic 3...John and Lesley
Pic 4....Phil, Elaine, Paola, Stuart and Steven

Lots more people were around, still at times I feel that taking photographs can be intruding ...as I've already mentioned...
Thanks from all of us to Philip and Paola
God bless you all