Thank you to all of you who have given me so much encouragement this year, and helped me take pride and a passionate pleasure in the country where we live. You have been so kind and so welcoming – and it’s now time for me to give something back to you. This is your chance to win an original piece of signed and dated artwork, a large Provençal scene Continue reading “Giveaway – Win a Signed and Dated Piece of Original Art”
Thank you so much to everyone for entering the giveaway draw. I was totally overwhelmed by all the fabulous comments here on the blog, on Facebook and on Instagram. I read every single comment, some brought tears to my eyes, I truly had no idea so many people gained so much enjoyment from reading this blog, but I am so happy that you love it. I tried to reply to each and every comment, I believe I did, but if, by chance, I accidentally missed someone then I am extremely sorry.
We put every single name into a big leather bag, the hat we had initially chosen wasn’t big enough! With eyes closed, Gigi and Hetty rummaged around inside and drew out the first name for the first painting. Then Jack and Millie followed doing the same for the second painting, and the winners are:-
For the Street Scene – Stacy Goodhart-Elkin
and for the Waterfront Scene – PWBlogger
If the two lucky winners would like to leave me a message on this post I will then receive your email address and can contact you for your address and to arrange for me to mail these to you. Congratulations.
I am really sorry to everyone else, I would have loved for each and every one of you to win. Thank you once again for entering, I will be back tomorrow with a more regular blog post and am so looking forward to another year of sharing our life and our adventures in France with you. But most of all, once again thank you to all of you, for without you there would be no blog. xxx
A year of blogging! When I started, I never imagined I would be writing and taking photos and posting regularly here a year later! I am quite overwhelmed by all the followers, the comments, the friends I have made. In case anyone missed my blogpost on Thursday I am giving away, not one, but two original pieces of art by Margot Rampton, my late mother in law. This is my THANK YOU to you, my personal CHRISTMAS PRESENT to you. Margot studied at The Slade School of Fine Art in London and exhibited in London, Paris and Provence. Later in life she settled in the Channel Islands where she held many local exhibitions and supported many local charities. Very rarely does her work come up for sale nowadays, but occasionally it does and an original is sold from £300 ($450) upwards. Many local Channel Island shops sell limited edition prints for £25 to £50. But my giveaways are NOT limited editions – they are ORIGINAL signed and dated pieces of art. She lived for many years in Provence, she adored France and spent a lot of time in the Charente Maritime. The two pieces are from her portfolio of French scenes, many of which hang on our walls, one measures 22″ x 16″ (56cms x 41cms) and the other 17.5″ x 14″ (45cms x 36cms).
All you have to do if you want to win one is subscribe to the blog (if you are not already subscribed) and leave a comment below and please feel free to share this post with friends and invite them to come over and follow the blog too.
So many of you have already left fabulous comments, I have read every single one, they have brought tears to my eyes, such wonderful words, I never ever realised so many people like so much of what I write. For once words fail me! So for now I urge everyone to enter and everyone to comment and in the meantime I will leave you with a photographic recap of the past year in the blogging world of Our French Oasis and my family.
And what a year it’s been; we’ve cycled around the Île de Ré, shared the excitement of the arrival of chickens and our first eggs and we’ve introduced you to the animals
we’ve cooked, visited local markets and embraced winter
we’ve toured local churches, shared our crazy family and our animals and met local artisans
we’ve welcomed the arrival of spring and the start of our vegetable garden
we’ve looked at local houses and French architecture
the excitement of the hatching of our very first chicks. We’ve visited brocantes and welcomed the care free days of summer
we’ve been on wine tours and harvested so many fruits and vegetables from the garden
we’ve loved sharing so much of the summer, eating outdoors and our wonderful Atlantic beaches
you’ve met Evie and been blackberry picking with us
we’ve toured local villages, welcomed friends from around the globe, visited châteaux and enjoyed it all rain or shine
With the arrival of autumn we’ve visited the Atlantic islands so close to us and been inundated with apples
we’ve even talked about doors and gates
it’s been an incredible first year in the blogging world. Thank you and I look forward to many more to come. Susan xxx
FIRST OF ALL A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF MY AMERICAN READERS AND FRIENDS – keep reading because as a huge Thank You I am giving away both of these signed original paintings
What a journey; I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that a year ago when I started writing this blog that it would still be going from strength to strength today. It all began as a way of staying in touch with friends; showing a few photos and telling them about our life in France and now I can still remember how nervous I was when I hit the ‘publish’ button for the very first time, my finger hovering over the keyboard; did I dare do it? Then, within a couple of months, I had one or two complete strangers following along, for I realised I had never made the blog private! I also just never imagined it would go SO public either!
Yet here we are, one year later with 63 blog posts, thousands of photos and over one hundred thousand views (I still am in shock over that number) down the line and I’m loving it! So many of you have become virtual friends; I look forward to your comments and I so enjoy chatting with you. I love sharing our life here in France, the antics of Bentley, Evie, and the chickens. The ducks are quite another story, but I’ll share that one with you in the New Year.
So now it’s time for me to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone around the globe; thank you for taking the time to read my posts, and thank you for taking the time to comment, like and share our experiences and stories. This blog is far more about you and my family than me. I have the easy part, I just write the stories and take some photos, but you all listen, and my darling children have got so used to me stopping and taking photos, one after another. When we go somewhere, anywhere, they used to ask WHY; now they just assume “this is for the blog!”. Of course Roddy also takes photos with me, and he listens to my ideas, so it’s really a family affair for without them, and you, there would be no blog! But I have enjoyed every second of this. It has been far more time consuming than I ever imagined, but I have, as a result, a far greater appreciation of everything around us; there is so much I want to share and thanks to you all I have an audience to share it with. Thank you also to many other bloggers. When I started this, I had no idea how blogging really worked. I read blogs, I followed blogs, but I had never ventured into writing my own. I asked advice from several people and I was quite overwhelmed by how friendly people were; everyone was willing to help, point me in the right direction and teach me things I certainly did not know. I still have much to learn, but I’m getting there and I always welcome your ideas.
Anyway, to say ‘thank you’ I would like to give away, not one, but TWO original pieces of art. These are original pastels by my late mother-in-law, Margot Rampton. She studied at The Slade School of Fine Art in London and exhibited in London, Paris and Provence. Later in life she settled in the Channel Islands where she held many local exhibitions and supported many local charities. Very rarely does her work come up for sale nowadays, but occasionally it does and an original is sold from £300 ($450) upwards. Many local Channel Island shops sell limited edition prints for £25 to £50. But my giveaways are NOT limited editions – they are ORIGINAL signed and dated pieces of art. She lived for many years in Provence, she adored France and spent a lot of time in the Charente Maritime. The two pieces are from her portfolio of French scenes, many of which hang on our walls, one measures 22″ x 16″ (56cms x 41cms) and the other 17.5″ x 14″ (45cms x 36cms).
All you have to do to win one here on the blog is (1) subscribe and follow (if you do not already), and (2) leave a comment telling me that you’re either already following, or you are a new follower. If you would like more chances to enter then you can invite a friend to follow; if they subscribe and leave a comment telling me they have done so and also telling me who invited them, then you will get a second entry and they will also get an entry themselves of course…..I hope this is fairly simple. You can also enter on Facebook and Instagram and I have details on both of my pages, so hop on over there and enter again if you want to and double, treble or quadruple your chances!
You have until next Wednesday morning, the 2nd December to enter. We will then do this the old fashioned way and the children and I will write down everyone’s name (for in France there is no school on Wednesday afternoons), we will put those names in a hat and draw out two lucky winners and I will announce the winners later in the day, a week from today, so I can get these wrapped and mailed out to the two winners to arrive in plenty of time before Christmas. They are a thank you present, a Holiday present, or a Christmas present from me to you and it’s open to absolutely everyone, everywhere.
Finally whilst you ponder which one you would like to win, I once again hope everyone celebrating Thanksgiving has a wonderfully happy day. We do not celebrate Thanksgiving in either France or England, but I am still extremely thankful to my wonderful family, my husband and best friend of 20 years and our incredible five children who make me laugh and smile every day. And again a huge, heartfelt thank you to you, for your support and following and I look forward to another fabulous year sharing our French lifestyle. Susan xxx
Our French Oasis 