Our fourth summer here draws to a close

We sailed through the three-year critical point in July and are still enjoying being here, and intend to continue as long as possible. Summer has been hectic, with a combination of several visitors – very welcome – a lot of work restarted on the house following Rhys’ indisposition earlier in the year, and some rather mixed weather.

The weather is cooling off a bit now – mostly upper twenties °C this week with the odd excursion into the low thirties, and down to minimums of 13 to 15 °C at night, so still usually a good bit warmer than the UK. The pool has been mid twenties °C for a couple of weeks – cooler but still comfortably swimmable.  We’ve had much more rain than is usual here this summer – the stream is still flowing and the grass is still green and growing – both rare in August, but it’s usually been very warm and our guests have been happy with it.

Visitors

We’ve managed to catch up with most of our family this year, with two great visits from Sam, Mike and Elizabeth, two lovely visits from Jennie, Ian and Dylan and a very welcome one from David, Lynne and Charlie. 

Charlie with David and Lynne on the beach

Dylan in our pool with Jennie and Ian

Unfortunately (for us, not them!) Peter, Lianne, Jack and Tommy spent their holiday this year on a spectacular trip to Florida so couldn’t fit us in and although Rhys went over and saw them, Jeanne hasn’t been able to as yet.  Maybe one direction or the other later in the year. 

We’ve also had Rhys’ sister Claire with George to visit earlier and Jeanne’s cousin Clive with Kitty.  Her sister Christine with Jay are booked for later this month and another cousin, Lynne with Tony, are also due to arrive in a couple of weeks.  And a few friends have been staying – some of whom we hadn’t seen in quite a long time – Karen, Martin and Jean, and George and Audrey. As you’ll have gathered we love having guests and whilst we have no intention of turning the place into a B & B, we’ve plenty more capacity.  At the same time it’s great to go over to the UK or the other side of France to see family and other friends as well, but we are not able to do much travelling ourselves this year for various reasons.

Renovations

The house has benefited from attention to some of the walls – Rhys has been pointing sections of the old stonework and to do so, learning about preserving old buildings, as this is, so working with lime instead of cement.  The results so far this summer are looking good but there is plenty more to do. 

First section of back wall completed

New window fitted

Pointing still to do

Hopefully next week will see the last big section of the back of the house finished, and perhaps some more rendering done on the unsightly exposed block walls. 

It’s difficult to keep up with day to day stuff, like cutting two acres of grass regularly, when trying to get one-off jobs done.  We had two people round to look at doing our drive for us but neither has come up with a price or start date so we’re still waiting for that to get done, but otherwise we’ve just a long list of smaller jobs now, though we have just had a few tons of sand and gravel delivered for some of them.  Rhys also needs to finish connecting up the new storage heaters before it gets really cold, but this means doing a major rearrangement to the consumer unit and some more of the wiring so needs a few days of concentrated effort when no guests are here.

Animals

Dusty (the cat) is coming up for her first birthday and is pretty well full size, and although she still eats well she usually seems less desperately hungry all the time – hopefully this is only because she’s stopping growing rather than a reflection of all the wildlife she catches outside.  We’ve seen her with mice, voles, shrews, birds, lizards, a snake and various insects.  You don’t want to know what she does with them.

Our chickens are continuing much the same. The new pullets have mostly been laying well but one laid a slightly faulty egg with only half a hard shell but two yolks the other day – it still tasted good though!  One of the bantams, Beryl, the Belgian, died at the end of July and the others haven’t laid any eggs at all for several weeks.  Two of the three left of them have had problems. Lily, a Pekin, was the most serious – we thought she was dying a couple of weeks ago as she got a severe infection, became very listless and dopey and was getting bullied and pecked at by the newer hens.  We made and moved her into a quarantine pen in the back garden and put Yvette, the other Pekin, in with her as she’d been broody for a couple of months and we couldn’t get her out of it, even trying the cold water dips that had been suggested, but unsuccessfully.  The absence of nest boxes in the temporary pen may have done the trick though.  We now have to consider moving them back in with the stronger birds or keeping them separate.  Wendy, the Wyandotte, seems to have gained a new lease of life joining in with the new hens very actively.

Produce

We’ve had bumper crops from the potager and nearly everything is coming to an end now, though we still have sweetcorn, peppers and lots of second crop raspberries to pick.  We’ve had two pears from the one pear tree – very nice, and three of the apple trees are bearing plenty of rather small apples.

The grape vines are about ready for picking and we’ll probably do that next week.  A couple of the old vines are dying and it will be a while before the new ones do anything useful, but we should get a good crop anyway this year. We’ll see what it amounts to and then decide whether just to turn it all into grape juice or make some wine with it.  

Health

Rhys was due to start another phase of his treatment but is set to decline it as he’s getting better anyway – with remarkably low blood test scores – and the side effects of the treatment are still extremely uncomfortable.  Slightly risky but hopefully the new diet will do as much or more than the treatment, but without the side effects.  It’s been nice to have so many people say to him how well he’s looking, and he does feel much better than before the original treatment started, though still not 100% yet. 

Jeanne has to go into hospital for a couple of days in October for a small procedure but will be uncomfortable herself for a few weeks afterwards and unable to travel so we won’t be up to much for a while.  Rhys has been finding out so much about cancer and natural ways of treating and preventing it, mostly through nutrition, that he’s started to write a book on it as well as follow the information he’s learned.  It won’t be a quick project though – maybe by the end of winter?  (Don’t ask which winter!)

France and French

We’ve continued exploring the lovely area in which we live, trying to take a day out once a week to check out somewhere new, and we’ve enjoyed taking guests to some of the places we’ve found and indeed finding new places with them.  Ile de Ré and Ile d’Oleron have both had recent visits, and we’ve explored beaches along the coast, local towns and cities, cognac and wine producers, and joined in various activities with other English and French people including a dinner club, a wine tasting course and some drama events and most recently a monthly aperos club, though they are trying to get us into the monthly quiz night at our local café bar.  

Our French language is still coming along and we get by quite well now, and when we hear newer British visitors eg. in restaurants, we can really tell how well we’ve improved.  We rarely need to speak any English in restaurants or shops now, but doctors, hospitals and some specialist merchants can be a different matter, though Jeanne is really getting on top of almost all of them as well.