Two Year Update

It’s been just over two years that we’ve lived here in France, so time for another review.

The house

Building work is almost at an end ( hooray !) and we’ve been putting in finishing touches all over the place. 

We now have a fully functioning new salon / sitting room with log burner to keep it warm in winter in a new stone fireplace, and although it’s a big room, we’re very comfortable using it. It makes the house feel more balanced and complete as well.  The hallway is complete apart from the skirting boards which Monsieur Jolly – the brother of the staircase maker  – is making for us at present. It has a nice little cloakroom and of course the new oak staircase. The old living room is now the formal dining room and the old elm staircase sold very quickly. The old kitchen has also been dismantled and just awaits redecoration, now that the new kitchen is working. It’s great having it at the back of the house overlooking the garden and pool. Upstairs the landing has just been finished – new landing floor and skirtings, the new main bathroom is completed, the en-suite in the master bedroom is done and we’ve nearly finished the one in the main guest bedroom, which should be done this week.

Outside

The garden and the rest of the land continue to demand a lot of time and effort.  Jeanne has planted potatoes, onions, sweet-corn, peas and beans, strawberries, tomatoes, courgettes, melons etc. in the potager, to go with the permanent stuff there. The borders are full of new bedding plants and the perennials have been in full bloom for a few weeks. The lavenders are full of humming-bird hawk-moths.  All but one of the fruit trees we planted are doing well and most have a few fruit on them. The old fruit trees are also cropping; this year the cherries have done well but the two plums have a only a couple of fruit, possibly because of their heavy crops last year.  Jeanne has made jam from the cherries (and it’s delicious, especially the jars with a little cognac in with it).   Our new trees are mostly coming on quite well and this year we have about fifteen oak saplings which we are growing on to plant out – thanks to our friends Audrey and George who gave us acorns and some little saplings. We’re spending a lot of time watering our veggies, and fortunately our well shows no sign of running dry.

The site of the old barn is becoming a little overgrown and badly needs some time spent on it to turn it into a proper garden, and we’re hoping to do that later this summer. It does show, though, that the mortar that was between the old stones the barn was built of is little more than soil, and will support plant growth.

Meanwhile the pool has been getting plenty of use, almost every day in the current weather, at or above 30°C for a few weeks now.

People

Rhys’ mother has been staying with us since the end of November and has recovered her health and strength a lot while she’s been here.  She wanted to return to Swanage, however, and we arranged for that to happen in early July.  

Before then we had friends from the US staying and we’ve some more visitors coming later on in the year, but we’ve still got diary space for more visitors this summer.

Here are our friends Phil and Carole, on the left, together with Rhys' mother, in the middle, and us outside our front door at the end of June.

Whilst in the UK, we went 'up north' to see family and friends, We were right on time for the arrival of  Dylan - Jennie and Ian's new baby. We were delighted to be able to see the newly enlarged family several times during the week. Here is Dylan at just a few days old.





We had a day with David. Lynne and Charlie on the way north, spent time with Peter, Lianne, Jack and Tommy duringn the week, iincluding a fun day out in Blackpool with Peter, Jack and Tommy. Here is Tommy driving Jack on one of the rides at the Pleasure Beach.

We’ve very much enjoyed seeing several sets of friends we have made here in France, some very local and others a little further away, both at our own home and at theirs. 

Finally, we plan to take on some geriatric chickens in a few weeks time. We went to visit them last weekend and here they are - all show varieties somewhat past their laying days. 

That's all for now. More soon.