Lames de terrasses - fitted!

After a couple of days hard work, the new terrace boards outside Le Roque gite are all fitted. We've still a fair bit to do, new hand rails to fit, a few cosmetic bits to do but the main heavy work is complete. Hooray!

Roque terrace progress.

This last week has been such fantastic weather that we took advantage of the fine spell and we both got stuck into sorting out the Roque gite terrace at the front of our property. All the new timber was delivered on Tuesday, then on Wednesday we stripped off the old floor boards (above) which revealed how much the terrace was in need of refurbishment!

Over the next couple of days we replaced the main joists, followed by adding extra joists between the original ones for extra support (which was the main real problem with the original structure, apart from the rotten wood!).
After a coat of wood protector the terrace base is now ready for the next phase (below), the laying of the terrace floor boards which will have to wait a while as the nice weather has left us for a while. More pictures to follow shortly, we hope!

On display now!

What a week it's been weather wise, everything in the garden has wondered what has hit them, daytime temperatures in the mid twenties has brought the colour out everywhere and the easiest way to demonstrate this is to put on the blog what Philippa collected and arranged using the flowers that are out at the moment.
It's also looking like the major pruning/thinning out of the wisteria on the front of the house has worked , there's hundreds of buds waiting to flower so once they are out I'll post them on the blog also!

Sun lover!

Just found this little fellow in the Haybarn Gite whilst getting it ready for our new guests who are arriving from the UK tomorrow, after being in the gite all night it was a bit too cold so managed to move him or her into the sun. It only took about 15 minutes until it flew off, fully recovered!
It looks like our arrivals are going to have a great week as the temperatures are going to be in the twentys all week, except at night of course!

Spring watch!

The daffodils are nearly all in bloom now in front of the house which is one reason for the pic above but it also shows my first ever attempt at pointing stone work where all the previous filling had been completely eroded by the wind, it took me ages just to do the small area behind these flowers but it's turned out very well and at least there's no holes in that piece of wall now!
Also, at last, after being gifted a mini cctv camera from my youngest daughter and soon to be son-in-law for christmas, we've managed to set up the camera in the bird box next to the Roque Terrace gite. One of the suggestions was to cut a small window in the side of the box to allow more light on the subjects and as you can see below it's certainly worked as after only a few days blue tits have been visiting regularly and all is very clear to see, won't be long now until the building of nests start.

As one door closes....

....another opens!

As some of you may have already seen on Facebook, our new front door was installed yesterday. Unfortunately the original door was beyond repair as both the door and surround were very rotten in parts. A local carpenter did the work, made entirely of chestnut wood, copying the original door style plus using the original iron work which we cleaned and re painted. The main difference, apart from the black paint, is the panel underneath the windows which is now a traditional perigordine design consisting of uneven pieces of studded wood.

Window seat.

An interesting picture I took on the return flight from London Stansted to Bergerac last Tuesday after a quick visit to England for my Mums birthday, shows a very clear view of Jersey, one of the Channel  Islands, from 35,000 ft.
Back in France, winter projects now under way, a new terrace for the Roque gite and a new front door and renovation of the hallway of the main house are just 2 of the major jobs in progress....pictures to follow asap!