Renovation project - The easiest way to send birthday cards when you live in France

The house is still freezing and stays that way until we light a fire and as we are actually starting to run short on big wood, we do not light it till the evening. Not all that long ago we had a shed full of wood, so we are going to have to look at investing in a delivery of logs.

We are also reconsidering our ideas on heating the house, John has seen a la kit de distribution d’air chaud, which roughly translated means a box in the chimney with vents into other rooms, this means all the heat that is lost via the chimney will be re routed to other rooms, we have seen it in action in other houses and seems to be a very inexpensive way to heat the house. So we do spend a lot of time researching this.

It is also my daughters birthday tomorrow, I have managed to get a card sent to her by the internet site funky pigeon, we have realised this is great as we can just program all relevant birthdays in and they will send a reminder to us and post the card out, fantastic. Also managed to order some flowers to be delivered, at this rate nobody will believe they are from me as normally cards can arrive a month before or after the actual birthday, this is not one of my strong points.

We also have our new cooker being delivered this week so it’s time to do some work on the kitchen floor, this involves me on hands and knees scrubbing each individual tile, but they do look good afterwards and I actually feel a little bit warmer by the time I finish.

We end the day with a nice meal, a glass of wine and a good film, we also rearrange our seating area so that we are almost sat on the fire and oh to feel the warmth, I feel the ice in my bones begin to melt and think I may actually have blood running through my veins again rather than an ice slushy.

All is well until it is time to go to bed and that means going to the top floor and trying to dive under the covers in as little time as possible, it does not take long for bones to refreeze!

Top tips

1. Use an internet card site (inexpensive and guaranteed to arrive on time)

2. Find internet flower delivery sites, it means those left behind can get a nice surprise and you feel part of any birthday celebrations.