Happy Holidays!

Bloody freezing here in central France today. The grass was all crispy and the trees were white all the way up to 2pm...brrr.

After 3 tours of the garden (yes 3 times round the mulberry bush, lol) with the new pup Kali, I donned my fleecy onesie, on top of my 2 pairs of trousers, 2 long sleeve tshirts and a jumper and decided to make the most of my new found warmth to wish all my friends in blogdom a very merry christmas.

Actually we don't celebrate the festive season...too commercialised, too expensive, and all the meaning of what it was meant to represent lost (if at all we are to believe that particular version of the story, lol).

We shall, however, have a nice hearty lunch on christmas day, with the poinsetta on the table and the log fire roaring. Cheers!

So bah humbug...with lots of love and light :)
Louise (aka mermie)

Project Gratitude Updates 10. 11 & 12

I decide to lump the updates together seeing as they were relatively small. Lots of other things to write about at the moment, just not got the time for it all. It's very difficult to balance life with the things you love, especially when life is filled with so many things you love...feeling blessed that I have so many wonderful and enriching things to do :)

So what's been going on chez nous the last week or so?...Let's have look

Well to start off I had a little emergency situation! After not feeling well on and off for a few months (migraines, arythmia, moodiness and general weakness and fatigue which I put down to possible hormonal changes) I discovered the cause...my laptop is emitting EMF of 0.3 vm2 right in the centre of the keyboard, and that's with everything deactivated -wifi/bluetooth/mains power. This is a real problem because I recently managed to get some work and need to use a safe computer. This means that the priority for funds (in order to be able to create funds) is to buy a new PC. That's about 300 Euros for a basic wifi-free desktop. Fortunately a gentle soul took pity on my plea for help and donated 500 Euros, thank you Roger Hard!

JC and Denis spent the week dismantling an old barn in a neighbouring village. The aged owners said if we dismantle we can have all the materials...that means wooden beams and lots of stones (plus some free firewood) - restore, reuse, recycle and repair!

There was an exceptionally warm day the other day, before it plummeted again, and the council had been trimming the hedges, so a great windfall for me! The hawthorn berries I couldn't reach before, even with the end of the rake, were all around so I went collecting branches.

A perfect spot in the sun

Berry, berry nice!

As well as a huge bowl of hawthorn berrries for jam and a super rice sauce, there's lots of kindling. Got a few jabs though while stripping the branches and breaking them up for firewood, lol.

Feeling very blessed to be living in the countryside where neighbours leave fresh eggs on your gate post and where there is more of a sense of community than in the city...even though there are very few people around.

After the short spell of sunshine came rain, and lots of it, which is great because it's given us a chance to see where all the water flows, and it does...flow.

All the swales that JC and Denis dug last week around the new raised beds filled up nicely and so did a few places we weren't expecting, lol. You fix one place and then have to fix another - we like to call it the constructivism approach.
Anyway, it was a good time to get more planning done and rearrange the tool shed.

The guys have really done an excellent job with the shelves, all built out of the recycled wood from the old barn they demolished...hoping that these new carpentry skills will be put to use in the kitchen soon as the camping table isn't the sturdiest of worktops and I have no drawers! Come to think of it I don't have a real worktop either...maybe this isn't the kitchen, lol.

Keep the well wishes coming and donations too. They all get put to good use - one for motivation and the other for really necessary stuff.

http://www.gofundme.com/chezgratitude

Love & light
Louise (aka Mermie)

Project Gratitude - update 7#

2.11.14

Thankfully we've had a nice few days weather-wise, an unusual 21 degrees on the 1st November :) JC and Dennis have been digging...a lot!

This is just half of what it is now...the rainwater run-off, swale cum duck pond

It works! The rainwater harvesting system part I (it's been expanded since...watch this space)

The chicken coop is almost finished now and they've managed to incorporate a rather ingenious rainwater harvesting system which will not only provide a little pond, made out of an old kids sandbox, inside the coop for the chickens to drink and for ducks (if we get them) to have a little dip - but will also drain off into a bigger pond just on the other side of the fence. Hoping to create a nice little micro-climate there.

The pool inside the coop...nice and shallow and good for a drink!

The best bit of all this is that it's only taken the cost of a bag of cement as we had all the other materials in our recycled/reusable store.

Thanks for all the support ^^

...Actually, I added the last sentence with a little sarcasm as, apart from a family member and a few (actually 3!) encouraging comments the only other support we've had has been from the 2 strangers who made donations.

Hardly a share or a like on FB despite having over 150 friends, hardly a share but at least a few likes from posts on LinkedIn groups with a reach of thousands...to say that our enthusiasm took a hit would be a little of an understatement. Even sharing on EMF awareness group pages generated little or no response. However, saying that, none of the so called 'friends' have ever enquired about the nature of the disability we suffer...even family don't take an interest so...what to do, humans are like that.I'm resigned to the fact that most of all human relationships are superficial. Once you can accept that it makes life a lot easier. I'm so very grateful that JC arrived in my life and that we have the support of each other. Being EMF sensitive is a lonely business...nowadays where there are people there are waves, hence we spend as little time in places where there are people as possible.

We'll make it, of that I'm sure - even if it takes 10 or 20 years (Divine willing that we're around that long, lol).

So here it is 'The Link' - share, share, share and please DONATE! Consider 5 Euros as the price of the coffee you would most probably offer to buy us should we meet.

http://www.gofundme.com/chezgratitude

Love, light and hugs
Louise (aka Mermie)

Project Gratitude - update 6#

28.10.14

The broken part of the roof is finally covered, though we had to make do with the cheaper quality cover as the really good stuff is over 100 Euros. Hmm...12 Euros or 100 Euros let me think ^^ Anyway once the cover was on we had a storm and incredibly high winds so it was put to the test...it's still there so fingers crossed it'll last till next summer when hopefully we'll have raised enough to fix it. Plus the landing and stairs won't get all slippy and wet now either so we can use the first floor a bit more easily and safely.

The cover, which unfortunately already has a small hole in ir!

Not looking forward to deep winter though as the 'open part' is unfortunately above the passage to the bathroom! Eeks...HELP!

So, as I mentioned in a previous update of the updates, there's a hole already appeared at the top of the apex due to all the rubbing from the high winds which batter this side of the house (damn HAARP!). Plus we get a lot of clunking from the bricks holding down the corners. You'd think they'd be heavy enough not to move...but no! We did manage to secure one end using a couple of tyres, though they too tried to wave around, incredible strength nature has.

As always, here's the important link to share, if they can raise $70,000+ for the family of the pilots of the space flight that crashed (even though I'm sure they'll get well compensated by Richard Branson) and if a chap who lost his dog in the Lake District for 3 days can raise $50,000+ - surely we can get enough to cover our roof and plumb in the toilet and shower!!! HELP!!!

http://www.gofundme.com/chezgratitude

Always smiling and always grateful,
Love & light,
Louise (aka Mermie)

'Project Gratitude' is born!

After returning to Europe in 2012 after living in India for 7 years I very quickly began to develop EMF sensitivity to the point where I can no longer support being in an environment where there are mobile phones, wifi, dect phones...and the like. As you can imagine it means there aren't many places left other than home. Home in Ile de France, Paris for almost a year was the in-laws 3rd floor apartment 50 metres over which loomed 3 mobile phone masts. There were 2 'smart water meters' in the toilet...and that was just our apartment. The minimum RF(microwave frequency) measurement, all day long, was 0.25vm2 (Bioinitiative safe level being 0.02vm2!) Needless to say I was tired all the time and didn't go out much.

Hubby is also a sufferer and his lymph nodes had swelled to a worrying size and neither of us are able to work outside home because most places (offices, trains, planes and even the local doctors surgery) now have wifi and nearly everyone has a smartphone/tablet...all of which causes me to get an instant headache, nausea and worst of all heart palpitations which can be very frightening. It takes a day to recover from a short supermarket trip. It's a debilitating and very real malady, and it causes us to be severly disconnected from the world.

So, we finally managed, by the grace of the divine, to find an old farmhouse in the remote Auvergne countryside, 4km from the nearest mobile tower and with a calm 0.01vm2 reading. However, using all our funds to purchase we have run out of resources to repair and to build our dream - which is to create a self-sustaining, profit generating homestead where other EMF sufferers can take long or short term refuge away from the waves (nearly all hotels now have wifi too!).

Here's the deal....There's just the two of us; we survive on around 500 Euros a month (from the state, which doesn't pay me because I'm not French) - which is ok and we're very grateful; I've managed to grow enough food to sustain us in the 5 months since we came and am studying permaculture and medicinal/wild plants; and we've repaired as much as we could before our budget ran out. We're recycling all the materials possible and have found free sources for certain things like wood and tyres for future building.  We're not lazy and I try to get freelance editing/VO work but it's slim pickings I can tell you.
Project Gratitude is a project being built on thanks and with love and sincerity.

We desperately need funds to:
- fix the roof - 15,000 Euros
- get the bathroom plumbed and a shower installed (presently taking bucket baths and flushing toilet with waste kitchen water) - 3,000 Euros
- create an income generating food forest and aquaponics system (a la permaculture) - 2,000 Euros
And then, if we are blessed to do so and because we are so thankful that we have a safe environment, we would love to be able to offer others a microwave free place to stay which would consist of four double occupancy solar powered cabins with individual shower/toilet - approx 20,000 Euros.

As it seems that crowdfunding is the way to go to raise cash for viable projects I searched around and found 'Gofundme.com' which seems less comercialised than the likes of Indigogo.com who seem to send marketing only for the techie projects, nearly all of which are based around 'wireless' (read 'wifi and microwave emitting') techology. And so 'Project Gratitude' is born! There are a few updates I posted there which I'll continue to repost here for now until we set up a separate blog - not having time to sit at the PC much (nor the inclination to be honest).

Check it out and please, please, please donate and share the link...if you can spare the price of a cup of coffee or lunch we'll use the cash for cement and roof tiles :D

Every euro, every cent, every blessing is received with gratitude!




DONATE NOW!

http://www.gofundme.com/chezgratitude

Love & Light
Louise (aka Mermie)