A touch of wisteria!

The patio is coming along fine, over this weekend the border has been fixed into place and now it is a case of filling in the space within ready for concreting and levelling in preparation for the top stone layer, not long to go now and all will be complete.
Last Friday saw a vintage racing car race around a circuit which included the road at the front of the house, a strange sight with many old porsche, ferrari and lotus cars racing at great speed with a couple of motor bike policemen heading the race to escort the leaders whilst there was also the everyday traffic driving on the roads at the same time in both directions....only in France (possibly) could this happen!

Henri who?!

Nearly 40 years ago, I was at college in Leicester studying graphic design, our group went on an outing to that citys New Walk Museum, on that visit, there was an exhibition of Henri Matisse works, whilst looking at one of the line drawings, the art lecturer looked over my shoulder and said "well Paul, what do you think of that Matisse work, the simplicity and beauty of the lines?", "rubbish" was my reply! To this he replied in anger "if you think like that of such a great work of art, you'll end up being a ditch digger"
Well, Mr Wisbech, after all this time, here's proof above that you were right, a ditch I've just dug in preparation of the new house patio border foundation! Only another couple of weeks and it should be completed, the patio that is, not the ditch.

 

Whilst I was doing that work, I got the feeling I was being watched, maybe I was just making a bit too much noise and was disturbing her egg laying! 

Taking a break!

Is it really 12 months since I last posted a picture about our barn visitors, where has the time gone?!
So here are this years couple of swallows that are building, although I should say converting, a nest in the main barn. sitting on their usual perch which they retreat to when we go into the barn to wait patiently until we leave. There are also another couple making a nest in the boiler room, so there is much frantic activity all day long bringing in the building materials.
The blossom on the fruit trees in the orchard is all out now and the peach tree (below) set against the clear blue sky is a delight to look at.

 

It's looking like it's going to be a bumper year for walnuts which is a relief after last years poor crop following the terrible 2012 winter...so there'll be no shortage of ingrediants for Philippas now famous fondant aux noix, walnut cake that is!

A very good morning all!

It's a perfect morning here in Le Moustier, at last! The cherry tree at the road side is nearly in full bloom, clear blue sky and it's in the upper 20 degrees in the sun, good job we've just opened up the gite pool yesterday, although it may be a little bit on the cold side in there, I think I'll leave it a few days to heat up before going in!
Another first for this year, happy hour at the Le Paradis campsite just up the road has returned, it was so nice yesterday early evening we had to go and have a Stella and a Leffe Blonde ... ahh, summer is nearly here!

It's all go.

Work is now well under way to create a new larger patio area at the front of the house. We decided to do this as the previous area (shown below) wasn't big enough to have a large table and chairs closer to the front door for our guests, thus making it a much easier and more convenient place to dine at lunch times or in the evening.

So first it was to take away the old rock flower beds, which in turn led us to discover why the flower beds were there in the first place, to cover some pipe work, then to lift up all the old crazy paving. Hard work, but it will all be worth it....in a few weeks!

In the meantime, the gite pool is now being cleaned and prepared for the new season, new pump installed, cover off and will be ready for using when the temperatures get to the mid 20's next week!