2010: The year we make compost.

It’s probably time for an update on the details. So often the day to day things change and we forget to mention them. Or for various reasons we don’t mention them until they’ve become an ingrained part of our lives, so we forget to relay them as news, and civility / humility / fear of boring others prevents us from enthusing about them to anyone who’ll listen.

But not me. So brace yourself for a Christmas-round-robin level of sweetly enthusiastic updates and summaries.

Firstly I’m very much in love with a wonderful girl named Ali. We met in Verbier last winter, and she’s quite brilliant, wears big glasses,  has big knobbly brown bird legs, and finds glee in despatching miscreant dogs with her knitting needles, which she carries everywhere.

It’s quite wonderful to meet someone, and to be ready to meet someone, who is quite so ideal. Knowing that everything I want is right there, neatly packaged in a foxy little body, and that we’re a team working together for the same goals, and taking joy in the journey in similar ways. I could go on, but I shall save my whisperings of sweet nothings for her ears. Ah, love!

She also has a dog, Lola, who is increasingly ideal. A beautifully gentle weimaranananana. At times she can be mischievious (in this photo she is replete with stolen pizza), and can be seized by her inner wolf when she smells quarry… but she is getting better and better every day as she settles in to her new life.

The new life is in France. We’re renting this house for the year (at least). It’s in the Pyrenees, not far from Spain (map). If you walk south, it’s just forest all the way.

The plan is to use this as a base whilst we find a place to buy and do up (possibly with you?), probably in much the same way as the owners of the house we’re renting have done. We then aim to be reasonably self-sufficient within about 3 years. So in addition to house hunting and making money (sigh), we’re learning lots about permaculture, seeds, and preserving. Hopefully I can follow in the footsteps of my namesake, Charles Dowding, and become a (Monty) don of greenery.

Work is coming in steadily via Igloo59 (tell your friends!) and I have a few other nice big projects on the go which I hope to be able to tell you more about soon.

I think that’s probably enough for now. We do hope you’ll come visit?

(It’s £120 return on the train , which can be an overnight sleeper from St.Pancras if you do it right, and living here is cheap. There is a £50 kitty tax for flyers.)