July 11th stage 10 route confirmed!

At last stage 10 of the 2017 Tour de France on July 11th is confirmed on the official letour.fr web site as the map above shows, timings (below) are for the publicity caravan to pass our property at approximately 12.47 followed by the race at around 14.43 (french time).

Not many weeks to go now!

Not a happy ending.

Several Black Redstarts have been nesting again successfully in many locations around our property, the pair that built this one decided that an old copper pan hung up in the big barn was an ideal place, which after laying 5 eggs and all of them hatching, all seemed to be well until a few days ago when I went into the barn and there was no usually little squeaks coming from the pan. On closer inspection unfortunately all 5 of the young were dead so for whatever reason the adults had deserted them the day before so they had perished overnight.
Very sad but these things happen for whatever reason but we're sure there are many more young Black Redstarts on their way, 5 swallows have already fledged their nest in the barn already!

Problem sorted!

Another job completed in the main house a couple of weeks ago! Flaking paint and a small crack on the wall at the side of the main stairs from the hallway meant a little bit of investigation was needed to find out the cause. On knocking away the loose plaster it revealed one of the original stone support with a more modern wall that hadn't been joined together properly so problem easily resolved with a binding tape and an appropriate filling.
All finished and ready for our German guests who arrived for their annual golfing break last Saturday and who have probably not even noticed the difference!

One to look out for!

A couple from Barcelona recently stayed with us and on their arrival very kindly gifted us with this bottle of their favourite local spanish wine, a 2012 Crianza from the Protos vineyard and on tasting it we could see why! A beautiful full bodied red wine which according to the internet is available in the UK, USA and other countries, so if you do find any I'd certainly recommend you trying it!

New resident in Peyzac!

Spotted on a walk a couple of weeks ago, this very young donkey was quite inquisitive as to what we were doing standing and staring at him/her! This was as far as it went away from its mother and thinking about it, I don't think either Philippa or I have ever seen a baby donkey before, except for on Christmas Cards!!

Walnut Store freshen-up!

Whilst re decorating the lounge & kitchen of the Walnut Store gite, I took down the lounge oil painting and was interested in the notices that were stuck to the back of the picture. A lovely old Boots label when they actually had an in store picture framing department (from 1894 to 1963) as well as another label telling the purchaser to wear gloves to handle the gilt frame, too late for me but did have a look to see if any of the gold had rubbed off....which it hadn't!

Re-decorating now complete and ready for another full season of visitors!

A good day for.....geese, or was it?

Well, maybe not such a good day for geese, or even humans. Last weekend was the annual goose fair in Sarlat so as we've already missed all the previous events it was decided that whatever the weather we really should go and see what goes on.Unfortunately, as the picture below taken at 11.30am shows, it was all a bit of a wash out! There was a band playing (under the right hand marquee), stalls with everything made that can be made from a goose and even very interesting demonstrations of where all the bits are to be found for the production of all the different delicacies.

After a good look around the fair and the wonderful deserted back streets of the old town (below) it was off to our favourite cafe/cake shop for a warming coffee & chocolatine plus the purchase of 2 mini caramel & walnut tarts for later!
The good news for humans was that by early afternoon the weather had much improved for the event, but for the geese, the day didn't get any better!