A little bit of French magic

We know that we are incredibly lucky to have a cottage in such a beautiful part of the world. Every morning when I open the front door and look over our garden and the valley, the view takes my breath away. Our youngest son is with us this time, and he took a time lapse video of the sunrise the other day. I love it so much and wanted to share these magic moments with you -

I took a few photos on my morning walk with the dogs yesterday. Some of the clouds were rising up from the valley and drifting across our cottage and garden, which made for a beautifully sunlit misty walk -

And then there is that other bit of magic..........

Shortly after we arrived at the cottage, the dogs became very interested in the half collapsed little wooden playhouse under the pine trees in the garden. My heart sank, because I suspected that we had a litter of kittens in there. My dogs are not fond of cats. Not at all. So for the next few days we tried our hardest to keep them away from there. Nick was sure that he had seen 4 quite good sized kittens in there. I had a look a couple of days ago and could only see three absolutely gorgeous little darlings, but only two stayed put for pics -

 A day later, we heard some very loud mewling from the wood stack behind the house, and sure enough, there was another kitten behind it. It looked like it had come from the same litter, it was the same size, we reckoned about 6 weeks old, and the same colouring -

But because it was so far away from the other kitties, we weren't sure and thought that perhaps it might be another litter. We left it for a day to see whether it was being looked after, but today it sounded very distressed We debated for a long time what to do, but in the end I couldn't bear the distressed mewling any longer. I got it out -

and took it to what I am convinced are its siblings. All three of them were curled up in a corner on top of the kindling we kept in there -

Our wood stack kittie went straight in, found the den mum had made under the kindling straight away and went in. That kind of made me think that it remembered it as home. Two of the three siblings went in straight after, and eventually the last one did as well, and they all settled down together quietly. I checked again a couple of hours later and all was well. Phew. I know these cats are wild farm cats, but gosh, just look at them, they are so beautiful and I can't bear the thought of anything happening to them. I hope they'll grow to be big strong independent cats who'll make their home in one of the many straw or hay filled barns around us, and keep warm over the winter.

Thats it for today. Tomorrow is forecast to be another good day, but after that the weather will turn rainy and much more autumnal. So, more garden work tomorrow!

I have a few more things to show you, hopefully in a day or two. Until then, toodlepip xxx