Thursday, July 30, 2015

Somewhere down the crazy river....

We had rain yesterday, yes really, from early morning until mid afternoon, it actually came down quite hard at times but it has made little difference to our grass and plants, even the river Vezere, pictured, is still at the lowest we've ever seen it this morning when we did our walking circuit.
Customers are still having good fun on the canoe trips down the river, even more fun when they run aground and have to get out and drag their canoes over the river bed stones to get to deeper water!
Rain is forecast again for tomorrow afternoon but temperatures returning to the mid 30's by Monday.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Is that rain?!

This picture taken by our son-in-law David as he and our daughter Charlotte took off from Brive airport last Saturday to return to England, shows what must be the closest we've been to rain since mid June as rain fell over the north of Brive area.
Temperature as I write this post are now up to 35 degrees in the shade, even a family who are staying with us who live in Dubai are struggling in these conditions, although it looks like a change tomorrow for a day of showers, something that has been predicted before but has come to nothing so far!

Monday, July 13, 2015

Our favourite tipple!

Last week we had to take a trip to our favourite vineyard as our wine stocks were getting low in our barn. Domaine du Grand Mayne is about 20 minutes south west of Bergerac in the Duras wine region, the area is amazing with mile upon mile of vines and this years growing is looking as though its going to be another good year for the area.
We managed to purchase some more 2009 Merlot Cabernet red which is proving very popular with our customers along with some more Rose and White, So from field to barrel to bottle, it's all on show when visiting and all ready here for our customers to try on arrival!

Monday, July 6, 2015

Stunning pictures!

 A few weeks ago we had a couple of guests arrive here and it soon became apparent what his hobby was when he unloaded his car, a keen wildlife photographer with all the equipment needed to take these stunning pictures. He was out early most mornings to capture some amazing shots of the wildlife that surrounds Les Granges.
Above, taken from the road side in front of Le Roque St Christophe, the young peregrine falcons sit in the early morning sun on a dead tree branch 200 feet up on the rock face waiting for their parents to bring some food.
A hare sits in the field  over the road and this wonderful picture below of a butterfly taken in the orchard.
Many thanks to Tony Marsh from Cumbia in England for sharing these and many more of the photographs he took, more to follow in the future on my blog!

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Dead wood!

Some of you may remember a year or so ago I did a post about the 'dripping wisteria', unfortunately, this year, after a bit of rather over pruning it has decided not to flower or leaf from the main trunk, but has from the younger branches as you can see over the front door on the picture above. The decision had to be made to cut out all the dead branches which took us quite some time having to untangle it all. All will be well as new shoots are already working along the wires to fill in the gaps.

No such problems for the Pink Mimosa tree in front of the barn which has flowered very early this year and looks amazing!