Second Week

Sunday 3rd June
Another busy day in the garden, we are now beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, although today I crashed the tractor mower into some unknown territory and ceased the gearbox, which means getting the long suffering lawnmower man to come out and tow it away for repairs. We have been trying to get the local farmer to pop in and use his tractor and mower to mow the large lawn but I don’t think he was too interested in steering around the fruit trees! We have now been put onto the local shire worker who cuts the verges, so need to pop in to his house tomorrow lunch time and try and persuade him to cut the lawn for a fee, we were hoping the farmer would do the job for free in exchange for the hay, but didn’t work out the way we hoped.
We have seen a number of different animals in the garden and surrounding areas, today we saw a tiny stoat (I think) and a beaver down the road by the river, funnily enough it was next to two perfect white (Beatrice Potter) type ducks....cute. I also saw a funny orange colour lizard type animal in the grass and we have two resident toads in the pond. By the way no more noise in the floor boards, the poison worked.
We have yet to explore the local Cave (winery for those uninitiated out there) we seem to getting through the wine for some reason but so far all supermarket produce, talking of produce we went to Nerac market yesterday and bought some very fresh vegetables and a free range, corn feed chicken. We pointed to the chicken which the market stall lady then weighted and gave me the receipt in Australian money $30!!!! Or 14 Euros, then to our horror it still had its head on and feet, which she proceeded to chop off followed by a process of completing gutting the chicken, except luckily (I don’t think) she popped the chickens heart and liver back in the carcass. However, we had the poor bird roasted for dinner tonight and it was the tastiest chicken all of us had tasted.
Its now 10pm and just beginning to get dark, should be dark by 10.30 (its great) everyone is sitting outside, except Terry who is playing with the bonfire. We will keep you updated in a week and hopefully some photos.
Thursday 7th June (Gills 50th)
We have been very busy since my last blog, the garden is beginning to take shape and the contractor actually came last night to arrange to cut the field next week, progress again. We are now working in the flower beds and finding some very interesting plants amongst the weeds. The wild life is amazing for example this evening we have been listening to our resident toads, who has now invited their mates, there was a chorus of toads and frogs in the pond this evening and low and behold we have discovered the pond is teeming with marron, as I write John is making a marron trap of sorts, so watch this space. More wild life .... bats, we are sitting outside (its 9.56 pm and still light) and Judy wonders what is flying out from behind the shutters, yes you guessed bats, we thought we only had 10 bats in the garage loft space but no we have found another family behind the bedroom shutters. Today whilst driving to Castelajoux we had a large eagle fly in front of the car and in the next 50 metres there was a pheasant on the side of the road. This bought back Winterslow memories to Terry when he used to drive through the country lanes and would run over the occasional pheasant, so he swerved to try and hit the bird and luckily missed, following a long conversation about how disgusting a dead bird would be in the back of the car, fleas and all, we decided it was a good idea that he did miss the bird.
Today’s weather has been stunning, in fact too hot to do too much, but we did go out for a ride and lunch and popped into a couple of Bricantes (Antiques/second hand shop) and scored!!! We found this little shop on the outskirts of a tiny village, and what a find, it had some great bits and pieces at very reasonable prices. We bought a chair, a bedside table with a marble top and in the cupboard below a place to put the pissoir (potty), we have put that by Johns bed, thought he may find it useful, especially as the other night he woke up so disorientated he tried to get out the window when trying to find the toilet. We also bought (much to my disgust) a bloody old wooden last for repairing shoes or should I say French dust collector, we should have known it is rubbish because Terry got it for 15 Euros instead of the marked price of 28 Euros. Anyway it was fun and we will be returning.

8th June
Just found that the septics may be overflowing!!!!!!



A bientot