June Update - a bit late - sorry!

Visits

Our stream of visitors continues, with two bookings for the summer and one more possibility so far, but still plenty of room and time to fill.  Anyone who fancies a working holiday would be especially welcome!  The weather has been hot for the last few weeks but we had over an inch of rain in the last 24 hours – very welcome to us for the veggie garden and, no doubt, for the local farmers. But it’s sure to settle down to the customary hot and dry summer weather – we’re in the second sunniest part of France here.  We have made a visit to friends in the Dordogne for a couple of days’ break – that was very nice.  

Our animals

Dusty (the cat) continues to grow and thrive, though she’s had a couple of frights very late at night that got her running in with great speed and a little blood. She doesn’t like to go out in the dark now.  She’s becoming very defensive of ‘her’ territory, chasing off other local cats quite vigorously. We took her with us on our Dordogne visit rather than put her in a cattery.  It seemed to work quite well and she is less unhappy in the travel box than she was now – it’s not only for trips to the vets with painful consequences!

The bantams have run their laying down to an average of one egg a week between the lot of them, but even that is good going.  But the new browns are up to speed and we’re usually getting four or five eggs a day from them, and delicious they are too.

The house and garden

We’ve been making progress with a few of the smaller jobs on the to-do list, and several that were not on it.  We got the interiors for a long (4 metres) wardrobe run a couple of weeks ago and have installed all that, and are just waiting for the doors to come in to install them.  We’ve spent a lot of time on the potager – the veggie garden – and now have six rows of potatoes growing very well, french and broad beans and tomatoes just starting to crop, courgettes another couple of days, sweetcorn a few more weeks, etc.  We’ve cropped all the blackcurrants and redcurrants and Jeanne’s made jam from them, and we’re taking raspberries most days. So quite a successful year so far despite the early rain and the recent heat.  Elsewhere in the garden the grape vines have never looked so full – we’re in for a bumper crop and may have to make more wine with them (oh dear !) Similarly the two plum trees are bearing fairly well and one of them is just starting to ripen its fruit. Even more jam coming up, I suspect.  Our developing orchard has two apple trees bearing fruit and looking healthy, one pear and one apricot, which I don’t think is a bad rate considering the difficult land there. We’ll get some more fruit trees for it this winter.