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!

Left overs!

A lot of our guests this year asked about the amount of maze/corn that was growing in our area and wondered why the crops had just been left in the fields to the point that the plants were collapsing and the cobs appeared to be rotting, well, on my last walk nearly all of the fields have been harvested and as you can see above this is what remains, all the maze has been stripped off the cobs and the left overs disgarded out of the back of the massive combine harvestors over the fields to eventaully rot back into the soil, always a strange sight after months of walking through 'forests' of corn fields.
Below, now that the nights have turned very cold, an early evening pic of the mist rolling down the Vimont Valley toward the Vezere at Le Moustier, time for those lovely open fires in the house I think!

Bordeaux Museums 1

 This museum, the Musee des Arts Decoratif, based in a beautiful building that was originally built as the Hotel de Lalande in 1770, now houses a fantastic collection of all things decorative, a lot of which was produced in the Aquataine area.

Everything from porcelain, furniture, paintings, glass and a lot more on display from the 17th up to the 20th century so no wonder we spent 2 hours walking around all the permanent displays, even better, it was free!!

A few days off in Bordeaux!

For the first time since the beginning of May we have no people staying with us so it was an ideal time to take a break and visit Bordeaux, a place we've heard about from our guests who have been for a day trip or explored on their arrival after travelling by plane or train to our area. Don't be fooled by the picture above as it was taken on a Monday when the streets were not that busy compared to the Saturday we arrived when we thought the whole of France were shopping in the city!

The city itself is fantastic, of coarse a complete contrast to Le Moustier, magnificent huge historic stone buildings, streets, museums, bars and cafes made for a great stay and I'll post a few more pics over the next few days of a few of my favourite bits.

Timber!

With the fine weather we've been having this week it's meant we've been able to work outside in the grounds of Les Granges, so the island of shrubs and trees at the front of the property has been one area that has been 'attacked' and one evergreen felled in order to get more light to the shrubs below plus it's made a massive difference to the view to and from the house.

Next years gateau noix!

This is the total of our walnut harvest for this year, not a very fruitful year as the unusual wet and cold weather in the spring affected the buds on the trees. We think we have probably only one third of the crop we had last year, never mind, here's to a better 2013!
The weather this week has been excellent, yesterday afternoon got up to 25 degrees so at least what walnuts we have got will be nice and dry ready for storing!

Winter work starts!

Well, here we go, we can't turn back now, our project for November is to sort out the front entrance and patio area outside the house. First thing to do, discover what lies beneath the existing steps to the front door, what there is under a thin stone layer is at least an inch of concrete over what is the original 1889 stone steps, obviously this has been done as the steps had worn over the years.
Our aim is to uncover the original steps and if too worn see if we can turn over each stone to restore the entrance to it's original state.
Time will tell and we'll keep you informed of the progress over the next few days/weeks - keep your fingers crossed!

Spot the lizard!

Things have warmed up over the last couple of days thankfully, still sunny but cloudy now so when the sun comes out it's very warm, so much so that the lizards are still very active, I spotted this one on the outside barn wall where the robins have been nesting, relaxing in the sun but nicely camouflaged!

Cold it is!

7.30 this morning, minus 3 degrees, good time for a walk! As the forecast predicted after a wonderful clear night the frost has hit but soon after this picture was taken the sun broke through the mist and it's been a beautiful day with clear blue sky so a full day in the garden for some hacking and slashing plus another wave of cranes have flown over this afternoon heading south...another sign that winter is on its way!
We'd also like to say that we hope all our american blog readers are safe and sound with the news of the current hurricane sandy on its way to the east coast of the usa.

Cold front arrives!

Yesterday I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts & sandals, today it's jeans, mid layer and walking boots, what a change in 24 hours, today it hasn't got above 10 degrees but when the sun was out it was beautiful. The picture above I have just taken as the sun is setting tonight, as the saying goes - red sky at night etc and it looks like a clear night with temperatures dropping to just above zero, forecast is that the weather is getting better on Monday, so i won't pack away the shorts just yet!

All by myself!

Spotted on the bank of the Vezere down the track opposite Les Granges at the start of my early morning walk, what i thought was a white carrier bag caught on top of a branch turned out to be what I think was a Little Egret, all by itself, I wondered if it was injured but it wasn't there after I'd finished my walk an hour later so maybe it was just passing over and decided to rest for the night.
Also last night at 10pm we heard the Cranes flying over the house, heading south for the winter, we didn't realise they flew all through the night, maybe it's a bad sign of the winter to come.

Fresh from the garden.

Here's just one mornings pickings, fresh mushrooms, figs and walnuts. A nice soup was made from the mushrooms, figs were given away to a guest and the walnuts will be dried and stored with the rest of this years harvest for the future production of Philippa's now famous homemade walnut cake!

....and finally a little further.

 ...you then arrive at the very pretty small village of Tayac which has an amazing 12th

century fortified church. It was originally a priory and survived the Hundred Years war almost unscathed .
The two very tall straight towers front and rear served as a fortress (the front also doubles up as a bell tower) and when viewed from the rear as pictured below, the tower has magnificent stone columns on the facade.

So in just 45 minutes my walk had taken me from the first findings of Man through the Hundred Years war and to the 19th century french railway network....some journey!

Carry on a little further.....

 ...and a few minutes up the road from the Abri de Cro Magnon is the railway station that was being constructed at the time of the discovery. The sight of the magnificent rock face in the distance as the train approached Les Eyzies would have been what all those thousands of interested visitors that flocked to this area following the news of these findings would have seen. 

Far from the crowds!

Tucked away at the opposite end of Les Eyzies to where all the main museum and tourist attractions are, is this very small but very historic site. Even though it is a UNESCO World Heritage site, it doesn't really get the visitors it deserves considering this is where Cro Magnon man was discovered, here on this very spot, in 1868 by accident as a road was being built to service the nearby railway station. The Abri de Cro Magnon was unearthed and the discovery of five skeletons were later proved to be 28,000 years old.
A lovely little spot up a little track next to the historic Hotel De Cro Magnon, it really is well worth a walk up the road from all the souvenir and fois gras shops to say you've been there and done that!

Not so little beauty!

Just as I was about to reach over some flowers to dead head them at the front of the house (the walnut trees are in the background of the picture), I spotted this rather large spider waiting to catch its dinner. About 3 cms long, it had positioned itself above a zig-zag thread it had created on the web which I take it was to attract its prey. Needless to say I left it alone!

A special lady flys in!

Another first for us here at Les Granges, we've had Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Lexus, Honda Goldwings, a Harley Davidson trike plus all the other makes of cars, but never have we had this special lady float her way onto the drive. She had travelled all the way with her owners on Saturday from East Sussex in England and they will all be staying with us for a couple of weeks, the sight is already causing a lot of heads to turn as they drive past!

Also, so that our other lovely guests Dennis and Lois from England don't feel left out, there's a very nice black Audi on the drive too!

A swarm of swallows!

Look very closely at the picture above. As we drew back the curtains yesterday early morning, this was the sight that greeted us, a gloomy rainy morning but as you can just see the sky was full of hundreds of swallows circling and feeding over Les Granges.
An amazing sight that we've never seen before and as the morning progressed the weather got better and most of them eventually settled on the cables at the side and to the rear of the property as if to rest after a full mornings aerobatics. By mid afternoon they had all gone, we take it south for the winter, it would be nice to think that the four swallow families that were raised in the barns over the summer were all part of this fantastic display, very sad to see them all go but it will be great to see them again next March or April!

Jet streams.

For the first time in a few months we've had a cloudy day, up until a few minutes ago when the blue sky has broken through above La Roque St Christophe to reveal this criss cross pattern left by the airliners heading north, south east and west.
Consequently with the clouds and breeze the temperature has dropped to low twenties but according to the forecast it's heading above the thirty degrees again by Saturday so our new arrivals on Saturday have nothing to fear!

Painting the town red - or i should say building!

We had a day off yesterday so decided to have a trip out and explore a village brought to our attention by a couple of our guests Lynn & Jack from Yorkshire in England a couple of weeks ago.
To the east of Brive in the Correze region is the village of Collonges-la-Rouge, all of its buildings are built of red sandstone which makes it a very different sight compared to the yellow sandstone of the Dordogne region.
A village has been here since the 6th century, most of its buildings though date from 16th, 17th and 18th century.
It was well worth the visit, a major tourist attraction as it's a member of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, 'The most beautiful villages of France' and is actually where the association was founded, with so many cafes and shops we have ever seen before compacted into such a small village.

First bunches!

Our first grapes on the vine outside the house that's using the railings as a trellis, ripening in this afternoons sun.

Low river level.

I thought this would be of interest to our guests who visited us in May and June this year, at that time the Vezere was very high and there were few canoes available to hire due to the dangerously high and fast flowing river. This picture taken from the Le Moustier bridge this afternoon looking towards La Roque shows what a contrast there is now, the island you can see here with the canoeists taking a break on had been well under water for most of the year, now parts of the trip toward Les Eyzies are so shallow that you have to get out of the canoe and drag it to the next deeper part of the river to continue your journey.
Still no sign of any significant rain as the forecast for next week is full sun and 30 degrees plus temperatures....lovely!

Summer nights!

Our local restaurant in Le Moustier, previously known as the Auberge du Vimont which now has been re-named the Restaurant Napoleonienne (now there's a name to test your french pronunciation!) has been very busy serving our customers over the last few weeks now that you can sit outside until any hour in the evenings. Good reviews from everyone who have visited so far so well done the new owners who have made the outside eating area so very nice.

July festival

Every year Montignac holds a festival of music and dance in the town, groups from all over the world take part and when we arrived the events were in full swing. Chilean dancers took over one of the cafes and after this we walked further up the main street where an Italian group made the centre look more like a mini Sienna with their flag waving routine. We'll make sure we see more next year as it really was a spectacular show, even better, it was all free!

Birds eye view

A photograph taken on a recent bike ride in between Le Moustier and Plazac shows what i think is a military Sea King helicopter flying over Le Chateau du Peuch. This chateau has been featured before on this blog but every time I pass it always looks so grand.
A little bit more research has found that the original castle on the site was burnt down in mysterious circumstances in 1754, apart from that there's very little known of it's history.

The village next door!

Plazac is a small village just 5 minutes drive from Les Granges. Situated in the Vimont valley the church is at its historic centre and this and many parts of the village date back to the 12th century where it was used by the Archbishop of Perigueux as a country retreat. Rumour has it that there are underground tunnels beneath the village that were used during the many conflicts over the centuries. There's a spring which feeds underground passages sending water to the church and its attached presbytery.
It's a great place to wander around and there's always the cafe/bar to relax in and watch the world go by.