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

First Week in France May 07

Bonjour

We arrived at the house at 7pm (still day light) and what a shock, the grass was up to our waist and the weeds are higher still should have got a lawn mower man in!! We got into the house, no problems there except a few cobwebs in the corners and of course boxes and furniture all over the place. So we straightened out our bedroom first and went to bed very tired but happy to be in our house at last. The next day was a day of moving furniture and thinking about mowing the lawn, as it happened the battery on our tractor mower was not working so two days later and three trips to the lawn mower man, Terry has made a start on the lawn at the front of the house, did I say lawn I really mean meadow. After speaking to a kind English man in the village he got straight on the phone to his farmer friend to ask him to bring in his tractor mower to really tackle the job, he should get enough hay for his cattle for at least a couple of months.

Luckily the days are long in France, we get up about 6.30 – 7 and here we are now at 11pm still working, we have made progress by getting the washing machine plumbed in, not as easy as we thought. Terry being a plumber and all, he really wanted to plumb it into the garage but I won’t even begin to tell you problems that would have caused so we carried it up the stairs, I have never been so scared I was convinced it was going to fall down the stairs and taking Terry with it, but luckily it is now in a bedroom upstairs. Sounds strange, but this is where the last owners had their laundry room, so with some Australian plumbing adjusting we now have a working washing machine..yeah.

I still feel like we are camping albeit being upmarket camping, John, Judy, Mum and Val arrive tomorrow thank goodness, I am looking forward to some help to straighten up the house. Its all very exciting, today we travelled 46km to find the biggest L’Clerk in the area so we could buy some essentials, coffee pot, toaster, cutlery, glasses, etc etc etc also the most important item ..... RAT poison, we have an uninvited visitor in the roof space, so war has been declared, I said to Terry before you do anything you must put down the poison, so at 8pm tonight, torch in hand he was up in the loft of the garage putting down poison, I am almost feeling physically sick at the thought of the vermin and Terry comes down about half an hour later filthy dirty with a big grin on his face and says “ you know, there is a huge room up there we should look at sorting it out” I won’t say my reply but the big grin didn’t stay on his face.

Our French has started to kick in very slowly, I don’t know what we would do without our hands, today we needed to buy 12 pillows for the beds and there was only two on the shelf, so in my best French I asked the lady if she had 10 more in the back and she looked at me very oddly and then held up 10 fingers as if to say have you got that right, so I was quite impressed that I had. We find if you make the effort to speak French people are only too keen to help and its quite amazing within the few days we have been here we have picked up some words we have forgotten and for me some words that I had learnt in my lessons and had forgotten, but I am finding I am understanding alot more since having the lessons.

We are really enjoying the fresh French food, especially the cheese and the bread, apparently our local boloungerie is famous and people come from miles around just to buy the bread.

We will keep you updated in a week and hopefully some photos.

Abiento

Places to Visit

Nerac, there are some stunning restaurants on the canal, this particular one is called they serve a Tarteen dish, and make their own ice-cream and sorbets, their latest ice-cream is brie and another one with curry!! However, I have had the most beautiful flavour ice-creams. The couple that own the restaurant are delightful and the lady is always keen for a chat in fluent English.

The pretty village of Nerac - where Henry IV built for his mistress a magnificent chateau. The village is very pretty, with a lively market, as well as lovely restaurants along the side of the River Baise. Nerac itself is a great place and only about 20 minutes from the house, it is very interesting historically with the most beautiful buildings.

A fantastic market on a Saturday through the centre of town, it has fresh fruit, veggies, seafood, meat, clothes, household wares, furniture etc.

Our address is: M & Ms Terence Trim, Capet, St Maure de Peyriac, Lot Et Goronne, 47170

Directions to Capet Ste- Maure de Peyriac 47170

Route one from Nerac D656 Nerac to Mezin to SOS

½ Km after Poudenas Rt hand bend, left hand junction, Green sign follow signs to Ferme Auberge De Boue (or follow the green signs until you find Capet), left hand bend over bridge. 4Kms cross roads, Rt hand branch marked with 5t Limit. 1 Km second crossroads take right hand branch, by rubbish bins, sign showing Capet and Le Boue, stay on lane passed Le Boue, Capet gates at the end of the lane.

Or from Lavardac

Coming out of Lavardac, roundabout left towards Nerac 150 metres take right hand turn to Mezin at the end of the road take right hand turn to Mezin / Poudenas as above.

Or

Lavardac roundabout straight across to Barbaste. In Barbaste talk left fork showing SOS, in SOS turn right into town, stay on road past the town (mechanics workshop on right) take next left hand junction show St Maure de Peyriac 400m left turn shoeing Le Gare (old SOS train station) follow lane over bridge, right bend crossroads, sharp left at the bins, Capet sign on left then as above.