Sunday 16 October 2022

A world turned upside down.

What goes around comes around, a phrase never more true than when it refers to my life it seems.

I’m safely back in France again, less than 40 miles away from where I used to live and in a very familiar rural locale. Here there’s a sense of timeless peace that oozes up from the soil. A geological pace of life that makes you realise how trivial many of our cares are in the grand scheme of things. There is also a sense of a great wrong now almost made right. I’m back where for some reason I feel like I belong.

Part of the new back garden. Gotta love the Creuse. It’ll be nice to see some snow again too. Never had any when we were on the Welsh coast.

The move itself involved a sixteen hour drive and the separate services of a Romanian removal specialist who I kept calling Bogdan, (even though I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his name). Everything seems to have arrived intact but it wouldn’t be me or indeed France without at least one mini disaster so on the first day we had a major flood when I turned the water on, the wife fell down the stairs, and the cat did a runner.*

On the plus side we have internet, of sorts, TV, walls, floors, and furniture - so a definite improvement on the first time around.

The new chez broom has seven bedrooms and I’ve already marked down one for a dedicated gaming and modelling space. I’m thinking of using kitchen cabinets and a  6 x 4 tabletop for a gaming surface, perhaps with the whole shebang on castors, but I’m not sure about the height of the thing overall. Might be nice not to have to lean over something at regular kitchen table height for extended periods of time.

Anywhooo… just thought I’d throw this post out there, in order to see if the internet here will allow it. Might still be a little while before any gaming takes place I suspect. Next week is all about dealing with officialdom so we’ll see how damned calm I remain then! Lol.


Kiki the wonder cat would like a word about the “unpleasantness” that occurred upon her arrival.

Toodleooh for now mes amis.


* Turned back up eventually and now keeps waking me up at 4 in the morning to remind me how annoyed she was.

Saturday 1 October 2022

Vive la France

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do - and that’s amusing when you consider that I’m both singularly Ill equipped to deal with stress and that I’ve moved 15 times since 1983. Lol. I’ll spare you the rollercoaster hell scape that was my September (this post was originally entitled « for the want of a nail ») and skip right to confirmation that I’m now finally bound for France at last… despite madam Truss and her genius Chancellor.*

Special thanks should go to everyone who’ve kept me entertained via their blogs during this period and an even bigger thanks to master Crook who completely unbidden sent me a lovely big book about Elizabethan England. Essential reading…and just when I needed it. It does make a change to get post that’s not just death threats written in cut out newspaper letters. 

We’ll be departing blight (y) on the 10th October and living in what will be our gîte while the sale on the main French property concludes in mid November - (whereupon we get access to the whole site).

Meanwhile I’ve been stocking up on essentials to see me through the winter.

A bulk order of cravats will provide essential attire while I learn to smoke…

…these…and sneer disdainfully at anyone who has not read this chap…

…in the original French.

Painting miniatures will hopefully recommence in early November and gaming in the Spring when I’ve evicted the last of the family members sucking on the Broom family Christmas teat.

The only thing I’ll be able to report on over this period will be my homebrew Star Trek ship to ship combat rules so it’s going to be slim pickings for a little while I’m afraid!

Toodleooh for now, or as they say in France…erm…Toodleooh.


*Apparently there are three types of people in the world…those that can count…and those that can’t.