St. Fraimbault

Here's my lovely home in St. Fraimbault, Normandy, France.  It's on one of the main drags of this very small town--Rue de l'Abbe Jolly.  The town is known for its summer flowers--not many out right now, unfortunately.

Here's the view from the front door.  

Look down the street to the right and this is what you see.

The white car is my brother's.  He shipped it over here but has been unable to get through the French bureaucracy to get it registered here so it still has Minnesota license plates.  Very strange driving around with those plates sometimes, but I figure people give me the benefit of the doubt since I am obviously not from around here.

Looking left from the front door, you see this.

The street turns a bit at the end of the block and goes down past the church and town hall to a very pretty lake.  I'll have pictures later of the lake.  The town itself is about four blocks by six blocks I would say, though that may be exaggerating a bit.

At the end of my block, about four doors down is this Irish pub, run by a couple from Donegal--although they have apparently not lived there for many, many years.  I've been in there once--hope to go again soon.

The main room in the house houses the living room and the dining table.

Here's the kitchen--a pretty good size, I think.

Upstairs are two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and a bath on the third with a room that can be used for sleeping but really needs finishing, which we have just decided to have done.

Here's my bedroom.

It's really quite comfortable.

But the big advantage of this place is the backyard--or actually courtyard.

My only contribution to the house so far is this sign that I bought in the flower garden in Paris.

The weather has been quite cold for the last week--and looks to be the same going forward.  But I'm hoping to spend some time outside planting some flowers in the garden.

Although I am in a small village in the middle of France, the technology here is unbelievable.  We have a satellite dish that gives us British TV.  I have slingbox that lets me see TV from New Castle on my computer--and my brother Jim has Boxee Box that includes Slingbox, so I can actually watch TV from New Castle on the actual TV in the living room here--including shows I have taped on my DVR at home.  He also has MLB to watch ballgames, though most are played in the middle of the night French time.

And the internet is great so I have no trouble working from here.  Amazing!

All in all, a very nice place to spend time.