Backstreets of Sarlat

 We had a wander around Sarlat last week and decided to get away from the main tourist areas to explore around the many back passageways and little streets, a lot of the buildings are still empty and ready for renovation but some beautiful old stone work survives dating from many centurys ago. Even what appears to be an old fireplace (below) remains a metre up a wall in a small outer courtyard area that has a wheely bin looking quite bizarre standing against such an old piece of original stone.

There are even old gas lamps in certain areas, still in working order, you can just see 6 old mantles at the top of the lamp in a circle at the centre of the reflective white disk that when lit produce the very bright light. As all our previous guests know and this years are yet to discover, there's always something to see and do in Sarlat!

A post at last!

Apologies to you all for the lack of posts, we've been amazingly busy finishing off several projects, the complete re-decoration of the 3 bedroom Tobacco Barn gite being the main one, is now finished and our first guests of the year, a lovely couple from Canada who have joined us for 4 weeks, are now in there and are enjoying their stay.
We've also been digging up the drive to find where the water supply runs to supply the gites, had a delivery of 5 cubic metres of wood for the fires, all of which had to be moved and stacked into the barn, a big thanks to friend Dave who joined us for a weeks stay but who was a massive help with the later projects!
Philippa's broken arm is getting better, only one week to go now until we go to Perigueux hospital for the removal of her 'pot' and an xray to see if all is well, she's really hoping that will be the end of it, but isn't counting on it just yet.
Whilst sitting out for lunch last week, the bird below was spotted soaring above us, pretty sure it was one of the Perigrine Falcons that reside in Le Roque St Christophe, it was rather high hence the blurred picture!

House facade finished!

Last Wednesday saw the return of more scaffolding and the final part of the house facades renovation, just a small part of the side of the house that adjoins the house to the barn was to be sorted out. After stripping off a part of the barn roof, Gary (a good friend and stone mason) and I managed to pull off all the old ivy and vine that had attached itself to the old rendering, cleaned all the stone and then finished it off by pointing the area as per the already completed front.
All we need now is spring to arrive, with it all the colour of the wisteria and vine that will look great against the newly revealed stone.

Perigueux visit.

A few days before 'the accident' and our trip to the hospital in Perigueux for Philippa's arm, we had to go to there and I was able to have a wander around an area of the city that has many historic building remains from the Gallo Roman era, the above being one of them, built in 2AD, this huge cylindrical building was the inner shrine of a temple, at 24.5 metres high and 17.5 metres diametre the original entire building must have been huge! Nearby there's also the remains of an Amphitheatre that once could hold 20,000 people, a fascinating area to look around.
There is also a very large museum with many artifacts and remains that have been uncovered over the years, time didn't allow for a visit inside but I will be going back sometime for a look!

 

Cold, crisp mornings!

Over the last week or so we've been very busy indoors decorating the Tobacco Barn gite, unfortunately missing out on the last 3 days of beautiful weather, the nights have been crystal clear and with that brings the cold frosty mornings as above, all the snowdrops are out now and daffodils nearly in bloom...a lovely sign of things to come!
But decorating has its problems, the main one being that Philippa fell and broke her wrist 9 days ago, she's ok BUT she's not allowed on any steps to do any painting for a while!  

1st stage done...

...the scaffolding is down now as the top half of the house frontage is finished, interesting to see how the pointing, between the now visible original stonework, is drying, the upper left half (completed a week ago) is much lighter as than the right (finished last Sunday) and eventually it will all dry out to be an equal lighter golden colour as and when the sun does its job.
To do next is a small portion of the house outer wall next to the barn which needs attention, then it will be onto sorting out the patio area!

The big thaw!

People who have visited us know of the track opposite Les Granges that leads to the river, the above picture shows how high the Vezere was a couple of days ago, very nearly over the river side footpath, after 2 days of snow followed by a warmer day resulting in the river level increasing by 2 meters or more.
You can see on the opposite bank a tractor, after being used to help with tree felling, it had been left perilously close to the edge of the very fast flowing river! Fortunately for whoever left it there, the river level has now dropped before it was on its way toward Bordeaux!