Renovation starts!

Yesterday we started work on the front of the house, the rendering needed looking at and once the scaffolding was erected it was clear that it was in need of some attention, before it dropped off the wall! So the task of taking off the rendering was started, a time consuming job but as you can see above the beautiful original golden stonework has been revealed.
Anyway, we got up this morning to prepare for another busy day and this is what greeted us, our first snow fall of the year...work now on hold for a while, at least for a couple of days as tomorrow the temperature is forecasted as dropping to -10 degrees! 

....and a happy new year!

So, 2012 has been and gone and what a great year it was, more people visited us than the previous year from many more parts of the world, as the following shows
                 2011     2012
Australia       27      35
Belgium        -          1
Canada        8          2
Denmark      -          2
England       87      133
France         38       19
Germany      25       21
Greece          -          2
Ireland         3          4
Netherlands  12         1
New Zealand 6          5
Philippines     -          5
Poland          6          -
Portugal        -          3
Scotland       4          7
Swiss            -          1
United States 43       25
Wales           2          4

We're now looking forward to 2013 and all that it brings, a big wedding being held here in May, the return of quite a few of our 2012 guests and new ones aswell, much hard work to be done in the meantime which ofcoarse will be reported on the blog, so happy new year to you all, wherever you are!

Seasons Greetings....

We'd like to wish all of our blog followers from all over the world, a very merry Christmas, it's not going to be a white Christmas where we are but I'm sure some of you will be having more than enough of the white stuff!

Have a great time!

Time for a walk!

A while ago we decided to take advantage of a fine day and drove the short distance to Les Eyzies, parked the car and walked part of the french route nationale (RN89) which runs through this area. Parking near the Hotel Cro Magnon we walked upwards to eventually get a spectacular view of Le Grand Roc (shown below) in the distance which is another rock face, similar to our own Roque St Christophe.
The walk was excellent, about 2 hours long, through woodland mainly and we spotted the above fungus clinging to a fallen tree that looked amazingly as if it was camouflaging itself as wood. 

Make over.

Work started a few weeks ago on the renovation of our village church, everyone who has stayed at Les Granges will have seen the eglise St Robert in Le Moustier village opposite the boulangerie, it is having major work done on mainly the exterior, the whole stone roof, one half at a time, is being removed and re-laid and the stonework cleaned and re-pointed.

Work will be finished by March, not sure I'd like to be repairing a roof on a day like today though, as you can see below, it was -6 degrees this morning when we got up!

Bordeaux museum 2

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The second museum in Bordeaux we went to was the musee d aquitaine, another 2 hours spent in the presence of some amazing pieces from the whole of our region, including many prehistoric items from our village of Le Moustier, but the part of the museum that really took my eye was the massive collection of roman relics found in Bordeaux over the years.

Most of the items can be viewed 'up close' without any barriers between you and the history on display, just like the item above, a headstone from the grave of a young child dated at the year of 7AD, which shows the child with his favourite possession of a hen and also holding what appears to be a pet cat. Amazing detail, just as the mosaic floor on display below, great stuff and we look forward to our next break over there!

Winter's here.

Just seen the weather forecast showing the wintry conditions for all of you looking in in northern europe, usa or canada, don't worry, it's cold here too. You can't beat an open fire on a -3 degrees evening, so i hope this makes you all feel a bit warmer, or, if you're in Australia or New Zealand, get the BBQ on!