What a difference a day makes!

A couple of days ago we took off the gite pool winter cover, fixed the pool pump back on, filled up to the normal water level, treated the water and 24 hours later, the result is as below, much nicer!
If you have stayed with us before, you can also see we have taken out a flower bed that was next to the Walnut Store, an area we are creating to allow more room for a table, chairs and parasol for the use of that gites customers. We're just awaiting delivery of the furniture, when it arrives I'll post another pic of the completed area.

The parasols are out!

Philippa has been busy, she's potted up 8 hanging baskets and they are now all on display in various places (as last year) around our property.

We've had a couple of days now of very strong sun, everything is looking very colourful, the only things that are not are the walnut trees which traditionally are late to leaf. Much work still to do, the pools will be opening in the next few weeks as temperatures begin to increase, all is ready for customers though, we have 3 people arriving this afternoon all the way from Albuquerque, New Mexico in the U.S.A, what a lovely time to arrive!

A peaceful Easter Sunday in Tursac!

This is what some of the locals get up to in our area on an Easter Sunday, the Grappe de Cyrano, a two day motorcycle event that takes in several courses starting from and finishing up in Bergerac, the nearest to us being in Tursac last weekend.

It's the first time I've been to the event and it was a very enjoyable and entertaining morning with nearly 500 competitors taking part, the best way I can describe it is that in England it would be a cross between 'Scrambling' and 'Trial' biking, all the riders set off about a minute apart and compete to do a circuit as quickly as possible through woodland and fields ending up negotiating a very difficult assault course before the finish line. All good fun!

New Cro Magnon visitor centre.

If you look back in my blog archive to 29th September 2012 you'll see I wrote a post about a world heritage site that was tucked away from the main tourist centre of Les Eyzies near to the railway station and a historic hotel pictured below. The Abri de Cro Magnon, the cave that was discovered when they were building the railway station in the the late 1800's, used to be behind a row of rather untidy houses, but now the area (not the hotel) has been bought by the same person who owns Le Roque St Christophe and the row of houses are being converted into a visitor centre (pic above) with car parking. Work is well underway and the new visitor attraction should be open soon for this years main holiday season, I'm really looking forward to going to see it.

Taking a break!

The swallows are back in the big barn again, a different pair this year not sitting on their usual perch, this time making themselves at home in the storage area
There is much nesting activity at the moment, well it is that time of year, 2 pairs of swallows, the above plus a pair in the boiler room, black redstarts, goldfinch, nuthatch, blackbirds, blue, long tailed & great tits, rock sparrows and dunnocks are all setting up home within our property boundary, a little further, the peregrine falcons are in their usual habitat in Le Roque St Christophe and kestrels are also somewhere around but I' m not sure where!

Dripping wisteria!

I thought I'd better take a picture of the wisteria after its major pruning session last autumn, it's in full bloom now and the scent that is coming off it is very strong, after a beautiful hot sunny day today there's stormy weather hitting us possibly early this evening so not quite sure how many of the flowers will survive, at least this is a record of how good it was looking!

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!