Moving on

St Jude

Hey Jude!

Now all our visitors have left it's back to work with a vengance, for Jon if not me. As always he says there's no room for me to help as he lays the floor in the loft.

The air was rather blue yesterday as he laid the first two rows and the pieces just wouldn't join together but with a firm anchor to work against now, it all seems to be going down much easier.

Our 'little man' is booked to come and fit our three loft windows in about three weeks time, before he goes back to England for Christmas, so we've been checking local stocks ready to make a trip or two to go and collect them. We took some time deciding how large to have the windows and checking on sizes available so I was a little horrified to discover that there aren't many places that stock the size we need! Luckily the shop we had originally wanted to buy them from does have them and isn't too far away, just an hour's drive.

Lucky for me the shop isn't far from my favourite fresh produce shop and I'll take advantage of being there to stock up on 'exotic' vegetables and cultivated 'wild' mushrooms, looking forward to making some delicious soups and curries in the coming weeks.

Praying for .....?

St Dimitri

This little lass turned up yesterday afternoon as we were outside enjoying the sun.


She climbed onto the table and tapped Jon on the wrist. We never did find out exactly what she wanted!

That time of year again

St Florentin

Very sadly we have just said goodbye to our last staying visitors of 2008. (Bookings now being taken for 2009!).

Readers may recall this time last year when we celebrated our virtual Christmas with a virtual Christmas dinner, virtual gifts and probably thought we were all mad. This year was even better.

Our friends arrived from the UK on Tuesday evening (Christmas Eve). We greeted them with a glass of champagne and enjoyed a Thai meal before sitting in front of a roaring log fire. At 11.30, as is traditional, we sang carols round the piano.

Let me just explain something for the uninitiated: This couple are very old friends with whom we never managed to spend Christmas, so whenever we could have a few days together, usually a rented cottage at half term, we would have a 'Christmas Dinner'. The tradition has expanded a little over the years.........

On Christmas morning we were very lucky to find the shops open (?) and armed with a maximum budget of 5 Euros each, we bought presents for each other in a little shop. The ladies had separated from the gents, I had to buy a present for my friend's husband, he for me, she for Jon and Jon for her.

We had great fun trawling the aisles of this little shop and found some fantastic little gifts. However, as we left we noticed a marquee in the car park - Christmas gift shop! Wow, us ladies were in our element and had to go and look at (I must add) some of the tackiest Christmas decorations we have ever seen in our life! We had to buy just one or two as we couldn't believe our eyes.

After a light lunch we prepared all the vegetables for Christmas Dinner and, since it was drizzling outside, we stayed indoors playing silly quizzes and games all afternoon.

The traditional roast turkey had shrunk and became chicken, but it was none-the-less tasty. However, before that we had to open our Christmas presents to each other. Sadly my photos of the gifts didn't come out very well, so you can't see the fantastic cow socks that Mrs Y received from Jon or the wonderful mobile phone holder that I bought for Mr Y, but here is Jon's gift ....


.... and here are my lovely socks (Mrs Y also received the same pair) which came with a lovely knitted hat (not matching).


Not bad for under 5 Euros, eh?

Yesterday (Boxing Day) was a beautiful day so we drove over to Rocamadour a medieval village and pilgrimage site which our friends had not visited before. We had a lovely time looking around the sanctuaries and gift shops before coming back home for a traditional (?) afternoon of moving logs and burning garden rubbish.


We've waved our friends off on their way to Toulouse airport very early this morning, but we're looking forward to seeing them again at their home soon to celebrate New Year's Eve - on 6th December.

Showers, visitors and chutney

St Géraud

We are having a wonderful Indian summer. 26 degrees and a lovely warm southerly breeze. The trees and hedgerows get more colourful day by day and every excursion out is 'worth a wow' (family joke).

And what have we been up to in the last week or so? Well, the fig crop has been marvellous again this year and was supplemented by some friends crop (they don't like figs at all and end up with sacks of them), so the freezer has a plentiful supply and the other day I made 14 jars of chutney with the others - plus a few desserts of baked or stewed figs.

Jon had to remove the shower to repair the leaks, and has since relayed the floor and is currently revarnishing it.

We are currently enjoying the company of friends who have suffered a damp, cool summer in northern England and are delighted to find sunshine here so late in the year. They have been enthusiastic about the area, views, countryside, quiet, sun, wine, wine, cheese and wine, and we are delighted that they are so excited about everything. Our visitors do make us take another look at life here and, although every day we love the life we are living and the area we are living in sometimes, when we might just be starting to take it all for granted, along comes a new visitor to stir up our own enthusiasm and it is just like seeing the whole area through new eyes again.

Drip, drip, drip

Ste Pélagie

Our super new shower has been installed. It's lovely. A big overhead shower, a hand held shower and side jets to massage aching backs.

I love it but we've had to disconnect it.

(Sighs dramatically.)

It took two days to install. The main problem being that the bathroom is very small and the shower is very big. Our plumber (and friend) worked on the pipework. Jon put the shower together in the lounge. They both took it apart again, having ensured that everything was there and then re-assembled it in the bathroom.

It became apparent that, although the shower fits really nicely in its allotted space, there wasn't enough space for Plumber to get behind it to connect all the bits and pieces.

Ooops.

OK. Cue scratching of heads, a bit of bad language and suddenly.... the idea lightbulb switches on and... the answer is to, disconnect the hand basin and remove it, pull the shower unit into the middle of the room, go into the loft and drop through the (oddly placed) loft access hatch that used to be directly over the bath.

Plumber, being a very slim person and, after all, the expert here, duly climbed into the loft and down the ladder behind the shower unit. Eventually the pipes were connected and the sides were ready to be connected to the base. Silicone sealant was put in place. Bits and pieces bolted together and, eventually, the whole thing was put in it's proper place (with Plumber safely back on the right side of it).

Wonderful. We loved it.

This morning, a lovely shower followed by furrowed brows. Where was that dripping sound coming from? Dammit. Right at the very back of the shower. Further exploration revealed several little 'oozings' from the side jets.

The only solution is going to be to move the whole thing out again and that means taking the hand basin out again... you get the picture ... and people are expected for lunch in an hour.

So tonight all is quiet. The shower is disconnected. No more drips.

And tomorrow we start the whole thing over again but this time without Plumber.

Joy, oh joy!!

Bit of a shocker!

Ste Fleur

We've had some mixed weather, but it still came as a shock yesterday to see a frost. I hadn't been keeping a close eye on the overnight temperatures or I would have taken precautions with the vegetable plot.

The tomato plants have been shivering, the courgette leaves are shrivelled and only the figs seem to be, so far, unaffected. I went over this morning to gather up what was left and ended up with this little lot...

Quite a lot of green tomato chutney on the way this year, I think! Note the rather medium sized water melon grown by yours truly on the left - we are looking forward to cutting it open and trying it soon.

The sweet chestnuts in their prickly coats in the background were gathered by daughter #2 and her husband on a walk the other morning. They looked for wild mushrooms too but I think we get up a little late to beat the locals in the search for cepes and pied de moutons.

We've been rather disappointed with our walnut crop this year, there have been very few from our three trees and those that looked good were pinched by the red squirrels before we could get to them. Our main tree had none at all. We think it must have been upset by the flooding earlier in the year. We hope to get it back on track for the 2009 crop though.



The hedgerow was looking particularly colourful this morning, reds, yellows and still some greens are making our little corner of France look very pretty these days (not that it isn't normally).

Who ya gonna call...?

St Léger

The day has dawned. The foot is a lot better, if not completely recovered. The whip was cracked by yours truly and I insisted that my ghost buster got up there in the loft and treated the woodwork for woodworm and termites.

He looked very fetching....

...and when I had stopped laughing I took a few photos.

It wasn't too hard a task luckily, and we'll be blocking it off tonight just to make sure the cats don't wander up there and get any of the noxious stuff on their paws.

The next job will be moving the wood up there to lay the floor. We have heard nothing from the mayor to let us know whether our application not to apply for planning permission has been refused (they have one month from the submission of the application to let us know if it's going to be refused or needs to be changed in any way), so with fingers crossed this time next week we'll be able to call our builder to fit the windows.

So things are moving on at last. It may even be done by 2010!