Sunday, June 26, 2011

Phew - it's a scorcher!

Well, just as predicted and warned of by the weather forecasters today has so far reached the dizzy heights of 38.6 degrees and the next 2 days are going to be hotter, somehow i think we're in for a 'spot' of rain on Wednesday accompanied by a very spectacular lightning display!!

Oh, and we had a visit in the house of one of the young swallows that mistook our open front door for the boiler room entrance, thankfully no mess though!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Market day in Sarlat


Last Wednesday Philippa & I went to Sarlat and decided to have the morning off and have a look around the market. Athough it's early June the town was very busy with tourists and locals alike. Some amazing stalls with beautiful fresh produce, one stall we went to to get some canard for the bbq we queued behind a family who bought 125euros worth of duck - now that's some bbq!!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Swallow up-date!

All 5 of the baby swallows have now left the nest as of this morning, albeit about 1 metre across the boiler room onto the top of the linen cupboard, i'm sure it won't be long until they venture outside, i'll update you when they do!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Boiler room babies!

It seems ages since i put on a post saying that swallows were nesting in the boiler room, well, here's the result, there must be at least five young swallows getting bigger by the day, usually they are sat on the side of the nest stretching and flapping their not quite fully feathered wings, as soon as we appear in the room they crouch down to hide from us, amazing that one of them doesn't get shoved out in the process but they are all well so far!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

...somewhere down the lazy river....!!


Last week Philippa & I, for the first time since we moved here, went on a canoe trip with our daughters & their 'fellas' who were visiting us from England, we set off from nearby St Leon Sur Vezere, a beautiful village 5 minutes away from Les Granges. above is the lovely Chateaux on the banks of the river just upstream of the departure point, we proceeded down river, passing Le Roque St Christophe (and Les Granges) and many other sights. Two and a half hours later we arrived at Thonac where the canoe company were there ready to transport us back to our cars at St Leon. A fantastic time was had by all, needless to say, some of us were rather wet at the end of the journey after some cooling off drench paddling by some members of the party!!!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Les Grangeswatch!

After emptying the gite swimming pool ready for a new liner to be installed i found this little devil in the empty pool struggling to get up the 1.25 metre walls and so too safety. Now i'm not great with snakes but this was only about 40 cms long (which is long enough) and after some research on the computer by Matt it turns out to be a juvenile Western Whip Snake. They can live for 20 years and grow to a length of 100 - 150 cms, now that's long enough!!
More info at:-
http://www.herpfrance.com/reptile/western_whip_snake_hierophis_viridiflavus.php