Summer

Not sure what is going on here but we seem to have skipped a whole season. Our normally hot dry summer arrived for a couple of days then disappeared and has not returned yet and it's only a couple of weeks until Autumn! We have had rain most weeks - and very mild temperatures generally. Not good for the masses of Europeans who have arrived in hordes to tan themselves at their holiday homes. Normally it looks pretty dry here this time of year but it is still very green and lush - it's also good for us doing work outside. It has meant that the front of our house now looks like this..

Such an improvement. We have now got two full sides of the house done and the little cellar room 90% done. Which is pretty good since we have had a constant stream of guests since the middle of June. Some of them we did put to work but generally it's a time for a bit of getting out and about. We even took a week off and went with our friend Alan down to Collioure then Barcelona before going to Ibiza to catch up with Gabbi. Love most things about Spain - the food is generally great - although my personal opinion is that Paella is a very over rated dish - Paul strongly disagrees with this and would happily order it at most meals! I love tapas and having lots of different flavors to try. Anyway here is some pics of our trip.

We even did a dive at Ibiza - this was not a great idea and after having dived in Greece we should have remembered that we are spoilt West Aussies who actually enjoy seeing some good size fish and corals etc. Suffice to say the dive was pretty uninteresting - however it keeps Paul and my skills up to date for when we can get some real dives in.

At the end of July my friend Sherrylee dropped in for a couple of days - this was awesome as we hadn't caught up for probably over twenty years after having been room mates back in boarding school. As I had expected she hadn't changed a bit and we had a lovely time reminiscing and generally catching up. Since then Gabs has been here with a couple of her friends from Aus, which was great other then one of them ending up in hospital here in Gourdon with a rather nasty infection. Consequently their flights home had to be changed but they are now all back safely in WA. Unfortunately for Gabbi, who would have loved to stay in the UK and or Europe, but alas her visa has now expired and so she didn't have much option. It was nice that she had company for the long flight back though. Definitely going to miss having her always being only a short flight away. One day hopefully us and our girls can actually all live on the same continent again!

Paul has been very busy the past couple of weeks with raising a wall on the "porcherie" or pig sty and replacing the roof. This will mean it actually is a more usuable space. At the moment is has just been a dumping ground for firewood and wasn't somewhere you would hang about in, as the roof was very precariously balanced on some old rotten timber. He is currently putting back the tiles after pressure washing them - then it will be time to crepi the walls and it will be another big job done.

And here is a shot of Paul having a chat to one of the donkeys he drops in to see every now and again on the way into Gourdon.

I am back riding Tolsan most days after his feet and stomach issues - just mostly some casual hacks out. Here he is looking at the sunflower crop in the valley behind our house on one of his favourite routes.

The sad thing this year is since it is likely he is quite sensitive to sugar he's not allowed to have his usual snacks from the fruit trees on our walks. Dieting is just no fun for anyone! But neither is having very sore feet I guess..

Mon cheval malade...

So the good news is I may have found what has been the problem with my horse Tolsan - the bad news is finding what was wrong resulted in laminitis which could have been disastrous (for those that don't know laminitis is the early days of foundering!) My poor guy is now in a 'dry lot' or more correctly known right now as a 'mud lot' being fed only soaked hay and he has been banned from anything with sugar in it especially grass. This is particularly cruel as he is surrounded by green lush fields at the moment. Rather ironically it was potentially my 'track' system that I put in to avoid the grass that maybe did him in, as he got home from three days at the vets after being fasted for a ulcer scope and put on the track, which had loads of very short lawn like grass on it - and a few days later I come out to find a very uncomfortable horse who found it too painful to walk! So I have now sprayed all the grass on the track and am keeping them off it until there is just dirt pretty much. And yes - he did have a large ulcer, so I am treating him for that too. So - we may take a little longer to finish this place as I have spent all the money on vets and meds for him ha. He is walking fine now and I am thinking will probably be ok to get back to work in another week or so as its unlikely he's done any damage to his feet - I have been exercising him in hand a couple of times a day and he seems ok but under vet instructions he has one more week of 'confinement' to go. So currently my day has been consisting of getting up at 6 to feed him his first little breakfast - put a net of hay in to soak - back inside for a coffee - hour later feed him his proper breakfast along with his meds - pick up the poop from the night before - exercise him - get the next bag of hay in the soaker - maybe do something else for an hour - hang next bag and so on until the last bag goes up at 10pm at night when Ambre goes in with him to keep him company. So not surprisingly I don't get a heck of a lot else done at the moment!

But in other news we recently had our Dutch friends Anoushka and Esme come to visit for a couple of weeks. Esme is a very nice rider so she rode my horses a few times and they both wanted to do some outside stuff so we put them to work ha. Here is Es chipping away at the back of the house.

Some of this stuff is rock hard concrete - we will have to get the big guns out to get that off - ie Paul with a hammer drill! While they were here we took them for lunch at our favourite little Auberge in Nabirat. This place is amazing - just a husband and wife team (like most Auberges around here) they do a five course lunch for 13 euros including coffee and house wine - the price isn't so surprising but the food sure is! They make everything fresh using seasonal local food and I have to say this last meal was one of the best yet. Starts with soup - forgot to get photo but its a light vegie broth pretty much but seasoned really nicely. Next course she called a spinach pizza but was more of a tart and it had a really nice salad with it. I wanted to ask if I could just have seconds of this instead of the main - so good. Then it was a platter of roast pork and potatoes - followed by obligatory local cheese then the most delicious strawberry clafoutis with sorbet - this was the weekend before their village 'fete des fraises' - translates to Strawberry Fair - as there is a lot grown locally. Anyway here is some pics of the food.

As I write this Paul is in Monaco with a bunch of Belgian guys living it up in a mansion with a view over Monaco and the bay. It's a tough life for some! He rode down there on his old BMW with another friend who is into the same bikes - they took it pretty easy - According to Kurt's GpS they only averaged 50 km an hour for the trip which doesn't sound right but probably included coffee breaks ha. Here's a pic of him all packed up and dressed up about to leave.

Most of them went down to watch the Grand Prix but Paul's not that interested and went mainly for the ride down and back - they have also done a couple of rides in that area - up into the mountains and across to the Italian coast too. He's reporting back that its all a bit too touristy for his liking although he loved it up in the Alps.


Paul has not got a lot done on the outdoor area - although a few beams are up - instead of building work he has spent weeks pulling out the gearbox and transfer case of the Landy and replacing it with a higher ratio one or something. All I know is it now goes like a rocket or nearly ha - the difference is truly amazing. But anyway here is the 'gazebo' or whatever you want to call it as it is right now.

I am not sure how he managed to wrangle these things into place on his own without doing himself some major damage but he did. Here is a view with my fledgling vegie patch in the foreground. I currently have pototoes, onions, capsicum, spinach, lettuce and eggplant all in various stages of growth - I think I will be in trouble if they all make it to maturity - not sure there will be room for it all!

And here is a pic for my mum - when she was here a couple of years ago we made a flower bed and put in some very rough stone drywalls to outline it. Well Paul had been stealing taking some of the nicer stone out of it and it was looking pretty sad - but he has now started to build a proper one which is looking good. Hopefully he can find enough stone to finish it!

Well I need to go and finish polishing my car - hopefully I have sold it - I am meeting someone from the Paris train at lunchtime who has a bank chq with him for it, so fingers crossed it will meet his expectations. I had been using Pauls Landy all the time so I decided I might as well sell my car and put the money to a little project I have in mind.. its horse related of course ha.

I just checked the forecast and it looks like we are in for more storms and rain - I really would like the sun to come back now. And Paul needs a dry day to get back from down South without getting too wet but it's not looking good for him at this stage. Oh well c'est la vie!

Paddock Paradise in paradise!

So we are having the most amazing Spring weather this year. The past two that we have experienced it did nothing but rain and not a lot of sunshine. This one in comparison has been lovely, lots of sun - occasional rain to keep things growing and mild temperatures that are a pleasure to be out and about in. As a result everything is madly growing - including the grass in the horses paddocks. This unfortunately brings with it some challenges on the weight management department for the horses - not so much Ambre who is still very much growing into her long legs but Tolsan only has to smell grass and blows up like a balloon. He must take after me! Well I decided that I wanted to create the "paddock paradise" system here - which basically means fencing off the perimetre of your land and running the horses in this track leaving the interior to grow and hopefully make hay with. This means feeding them hay which is much better for them for many reasons including the reduction of the problems too much sugary grass can create, including laminitis etc etc. Anyway we went to the saw mill and bought as many of the chestnut posts they had in stock and some electric string and the plan was I was going to install it. Anyway fencing is really one of Pauls favourite things to do and after he saw my feeble attempt to use the fence post digger he basically shoved me out the way and went to work - a day or so later and voila - its pretty much done. We ran out of posts so have left the small paddock they have their shelter in open to the track but so far it is working well. It is designed to encourage movement so the idea is to put out the hay at different places on the track so they don't just stand over a feeder bin all day only leaving to get water - which is pretty much how Tolsan spent his winter to be fair!

This is them cruising on the track - it will eventually have no grass on it at all so the electric fencing is definitely going to have to stay on with all the nice green grass just on the other side! It certainly makes the twice daily poo collection easier! And the best thing is Tolsan no longer has to have his dreaded muzzle on - he and I are both happy about that - I hated putting it on him as he would spend an hour or so sulking before starting to eat with it. Here is the view of it from our bedroom window.

In other news Paul has been making steady progress on his walls and stonework. He is really doing a lovely job of it - his back however has decided in the past few days that he has pushed it a bit too far - hopefully it is just muscular and nothing too serious. Here are some progress pics.

And here is a picture of possibly why nothing gets done in a huge hurry around here. This is Pauls mate Vic who comes to visit most days and since they both very much enjoy a cup of tea or a beer whilst solving the worlds problems, often I have to remind them it would be much nicer to be having said drinks under the shelter of the building he is meant to be working on! All good - part of the fun of semi retirement and since I spend the majority of my days playing with the horses I really can't complain too much. Or maybe I should say I shouldn't complain too much haha.

Anyway this is the courtyard as of today - no wonder Paul has a sore back you can see there is now no stone where there was once a very high mound of it!

Next job is getting the concrete slab laid - lucky we have our huge cement mixer - it's a reasonably large area. We are still trying to locate a couple of oak beams for the roof - we have plenty of shorter ones but finding a couple that are over four metres is a bit tougher. It would be so much easier for Paul to use new sawn straight wood but we both love the look of the older timber - and it's always nicer to upcycle!

I'm back!

So - Paul has recently spent a month in Australia doing some maintenance on our house there and he found himself getting harassed by everyone he met about the lack of blog entries! And I thought no one cared haha. No - like any long term commitment it gets difficult to stay motivated and find interesting things to say about our life here, which is really very simple and mundane for the most part! But thanks to popular demand I am going to try very hard to regularly update the blog from now on.

Since I last blogged Paul spent many weeks prior to winter getting the heating system plumbed in. I had spent a lot of time researching the best way to keep warm without spending a fortune both on the system itself and then on running it. Most people here spend at least a couple of thousand Euros a year on oil or gas as well as having wood fires. We didn't like the sound of that much! Anyway what we decided on doing was having a thermal store that can take multiple fuel sources which then can run the underfloor heating downstairs and some radiators upstairs. One of the fuel sources can be a wood boiler which is currently the only source we use. It is quite a complicated system with lots of electronic safety valves etc and is a system more common in the UK then here, so we had lots of fun trying to work how to install it. But the final result after lots of work by Paul is a very efficient system that doesn't cost much to run and keeps the house nice and warm. Result! And we are both closet pyromaniacs and like starting and keeping the fire going so it suits us perfectly! Here he is up on the roof installing the flu liner.

We spent four weeks over Xmas with Chels and Hunter in Chicago doing some work with them on their apartment. Poor Paul really can't escape renovation work! We were there during the cold snap North America experienced in Jan - several days of sub minus 20 Celcius. We didn't leave the apartment much to be fair! But we had a great time with them and can't wait to go back again maybe when the weather is a bit kinder!

Our house is looking pretty good - only some fiddly snagging things to do really. Things like curtains, light fittings and some furniture are still to be sourced. But we are in no rush and with the Aussie dollar dropping about 20% against the Euro in the last six months or so I am trying to be as frugal as possible. I also prefer to find something unique and possibly cheaper at one of the second hand places here then just buy something new. Much more fun too I think. The weekend Vide Greniers will be getting going again soon so we will be keeping an eye out for what we need then. Paul has built me a hall way divider with boot box and coat rack which makes the entry and living room more functional and I think looks great too. This is one room that still needs some furniture and some finishing off but it will get there.

Here's the entry wall with boot box.

And our living room with our great wood boiler.

We have had a very mild but wet winter. One of the French guys told Paul when he was at the museum yesterday that it has been the wettest winter for forty years. We only got one lot of snow and that was in November. And the spring has been lovely so far apart from a week or two here and there of rain and wind. My spring bulbs are all out looking lovely and some wild violets that mum and I transplanted from the forest a couple of years ago have really taken off. I am currently loading up the veggie patch with some lovely horse poo mulch which we have a small mountain of thanks to my very productive grass converters.

Paul has happily got himself back into a Landy too although I often have my horse trailer hitched up to it which doesn't impress him much.
Here he is in his "Bordeaux Burgundy" or pink ha little 90.

So at the minute Paul is getting back into building the stone walls in what will be our outdoor kitchen/entertainment area. He started this job about 18 months ago but I decided we needed a kitchen first so I took him away from it. Will be great to have somewhere to sit and eat outside though. I will be getting back to chipping off the crepi or old cement render from the house and uncovering the stonework. This is a big job but will make a massive difference to how the house looks.

You can see from this picture the various stages of the job. The far left is the stone that has been cleaned and pressure washed ready to be jointed out. The wall under the kitchen window is the new one which has been finished. The whole house should look like this eventually!

Summertime fun

Ok - so I do have a little excuse for not blogging for several months - I've been having some major technical issues with our computer in that it had a pesky virus which I fixed by deleting a heap of stuff - but inadvertently deleted some of the necessary photo software too, so I have been putting off doing it as I knew it was going to take a while to sort out. Anyway enough of my petty excuses. The good news is that we have both been working very hard for the past few months and the interior of the house is getting very close to being finished - although Paul hates me saying that whoops. However although every room still has lots and lots of fiddly little jobs to do, they all are close to being fully functional with no major jobs to do. We have finally moved out of the attic this week down to our bedroom and now only go up there for showers as our own bathroom needs some plumbing done to be ready. The kitchen has been finished for about two months now and I totally love it. It's so easy to cook in and keep clean. And seriously - I am NEVER going without a dishwasher again! Here are some before and after pics of it.

Before

During

After

We ended up after contemplating long and hard what we could use for a splashback, finding some lovely, very old cement 'encaustic' tiles at a salvage yard. For the sum of 120 euros and about an hours work each tile chipping off the old mortar and sanding them clean and smooth they have really worked out nicely.



Paul has also tiled and built up the fireplace ready for a wood burner in the living/dining room and it really only needs some furniture and it will be done. Here is a pic which shows the lounge mentioned later!

We have finally got the front door in and painted - after hours and hours of sanding the old paint off (after my mum and dad also scraped most of the outside layers whilst they were here) we debated whether to do a final sand blast or something to get the old paint off, but I decided that the frames and the door were such different timbers it would look nicer painted, so voila - I think it looks great. The inside is still just bare wood and looks good too.

So yes - it's all been happening. We have had some visitors too - our friends Gary and Lyn came for a few days in May and Chelsea and Hunter came in June for a lovely week of touristy stuff but mostly just hanging out chatting in the jacuzzi -luckily we had perfect weather while they were here because for several weeks after it got quite cold and rainy again. However the past few weeks have been hot hot hot and no rain. Losing the lovely grass very quickly so hopefully we get some summer rain as is usual here. Last week we went to Spain and met up with Gabs in Ibeza for a week off - there are some beautiful beaches and not much else unless you're into clubbing but it was good fun. Chels and Hunter met us there for a few days on their way back to Chicago after spending a few weeks in Australia. So was great to be all together again. Not sure when that will be happening again - was a bit sad saying goodbye to Chels at the airport as we normally always have something organised for when we will see her again. But she's a big girl who has found a great job and life in Chicago and I'm sure she will be back here or us there again real soon. Gabs is happy for now with staying in Ibeza and her daily routine of sleeping until late morning, eating, beaching, working and partying - (not necessarily in that order haha). Good life for a 21 year old!

A couple of weeks back I had started chipping off the old crepi (lime render) from the front of the house but I am now finding it difficult to get back to as I ride in the cool of the morning and then it just gets way too hot to be outside working for the rest of the day. You can see where I have done it already on the pic of the front door. Unlike where we lived in Aus here it starts off cool and just gets hotter and hotter culminating in the hottest part of the day being around 7 or 8 in the evening. Bit too far from the coast for sea breezes here!



And here is Paul today - doing some work on the lights and electrics in what is going to be our cinema room.

This room was the original little wine store complete with running water for temperature control and we have been vacillating between it being a formal dining room or tv room but the decision has kind of been made for us by me ordering a lounge suite off the net only to have it arrive this week and it is far too large for the living room but will fit perfectly in this room - so there it will go! Big TV is going to be sorted soon or at least before winter as I can't remember when I watched TV last (actually I do - it was in Ibeza watching the Aussies trying to play cricket ha).

Ok - I think that's us up to date. We have a busy week coming up with some friends coming to stay and me going on a two day hack to Domme (in this heat -eek) then after that two more lots friends coming in August and Sept - and we are going to try and get stuck into the outside entertaining area in the meantime. And I also need to start to source decorating stuff without blowing the budget - which is difficult. Although we have found some great second hand furniture stores that are fun to search for stuff in. Hopefully I will be back with more updates before this time next year haha.

My little wild summer garden with Dahlias in full bloom.

Le long hiver!

Yep - it definitely still feels like winter! The past few days have been ridiculously cold and we have had lots and lots of rain. I went back through my blog from last year though and it appears this is normal. The problem is every now and again we have a super warm sunny day and it gets us all excited for spring but then it goes back to like yesterday with a day time max of 9 degrees! However all the trees and plants are acting very spring like and blossoming and sprouting. My tulips have arrived at the front door and have multiplied a lot from last year. My one little garden bed has some color in it too although it could do with some more plants!



Since I did the blog last we have been for our skiing holiday in the Pyrenees. We went with some friends who have kids so it was the school holidays. Bad idea ha - it was super busy - but we still managed to have a good time although we have decided we are too old to do a full week of skiing. We did get great weather and snow while we were there but our friends all got sick with the flu and shared it with Paul who ended up spending a few days in bed when we got home. Luckily I had already had my share of the flu over the new year period so managed to avoid it this time.

We have been very busy with the work on the house or I guess Paul has. Since I blogged last he has finished the plastering in the kitchen and dining room and also tiled the kitchen floor. I helped him with the grouting and I think it looks awesome. He also had to build a new little wall for the kitchen window. It used to be a very low door but we needed to have at least one wall without an opening and it was too low to be much use anyway. Here are some pics.



We have organised one of the local carpenters to make the actual double glazed kitchen window - hopefully once that's here it will look less like a pizza shop ha.

In some very exciting news our kitchen has arrived - all looks ok although I can't really tell much as it is currently in this state;



So in the next few days after the floor has been sealed we should be able to start installing it. Still need to get the work tops - I found a slab of marble for sale on Leboncoin that I am going to see on Friday that should fit on the island bench so that should work out. Will be having oak on the other cupboards. Have decided not to put any cupboards on the walls as they have some really nice features and didn't want to cover them up. So anyway here's hoping next blog I can put some before and after kitchen pictures up! Only a few weeks until we have some visitors again but we now have a completed spare bedroom and bathroom so it's not a problem. Would love to have the kitchen operational but if it's not - c'est la vie!

Sorry this is a bit short but not much else has been happening. I have just signed up to play hockey at the masters games in Italy at the beginning of August for a team from WA - this is either being very brave or stupid considering I am currently recovering from a fall from my horse (who normally is very mild mannered but decides every now and then to buck when I least expect it) and have a very sore shoulder after landing quite oddly on my right armpit! I also haven't played for nearly two years and haven't been for an actual run for nearly as long. Will be a good impetus to do some fitness related activities that don't involve a horse!

Winter hibernation!

So - I have managed to scrap in a blog entry before January has been and gone - just! As usual we have had a busy last six weeks. Starting with going snow boarding in Andorra for a few days in the middle of December with Chelsea. Andorra is really beautiful and we really enjoyed it - although Paul was having some co-ordination problems and couldn't seem to stay upright for any length of time - I think he was just trying to go too fast and losing control. Looked painful anyway. Here is a pic of the view from the top of one of the runs. That's my board you can see in the bottom of the pic. I did manage to learn how to do turns during this trip which makes it more exciting then what you do first when you're learning - the falling leaf as they call it - kind of scraping your way down a slope ha. It's very easy to pick beginners out on the slopes ha. We have a week booked in the Pyrenees with some friends at the end of February so we should be even better after that!

The week or so before Xmas was pretty miserable - lots of rain and cold - so we didn't do too much whilst Chelsea was here. I think she just appreciated a little relax after her hectic year at college. We then all drove to London a couple of days before Xmas. Was a long drive but not too painful. It took us about 12 hours all up I think. Had a lovely five days or so in London just shopping for xmas food - cooking it - watching movies and generally just hanging out together. The weather was typically English - rainy and grey but we did manage to get out one night to see the "winter wonderland" in Hyde Park which was fun. Here is me and the girls all rugged up for it.

Paul managed to make contact with someone who had a motor bike he had been looking for, so after debating what to do about it we decided he might as well try and get it. Was easier said than done as he had to buy a bike trailer too. It was also in the south of England so the day we picked it up we went from dropping Chelsea at Heathrow at 7am - down to Salisbury or somewhere near - a couple of hours checking it - finding somewhere to give us enough cash - loading it etc - then headed for home. We hit some traffic jams on the way to Portsmouth and so it took twice as long as it should have - then the channel tunnel train was running late so it was nearly midnight by the time we got into France. We did just keep driving and eventually got home over 24 hours after leaving London - both pretty shattered! But Paul was happy as he now has a bike with more of the power he is used to - although I quite liked being on the back of his 450 as I knew he couldn't go too fast on it! He has been working on it quite a bit at night when it hasn't been too freezing as it hadn't been ridden for a few years at least. Its a 78 BMW 1000. Apparently it's a classic - so he tells me anyway. Here is Yves and him all done up ready to go for a ride yesterday.

We have finally experienced some actual decent snowfall here in the last couple of weeks - was so much fun. Unfortunately we also have had a lot of rain so it didn't hang around for long. I am not missing the freezing temperatures that come with it though. We have only had the outside pipes freeze once or twice so far this winter although last year it was February when it got really bad so we're not out of the woods yet. Gets difficult trying to keep the horses water up.

As far as the boring renovation stuff goes, Paul has been doing the ceiling plaster on the ground floor for the past few weeks. I feel sorry for him as it is so painstakingly slow and back breaking - he is always complaining of a sore neck which is understandable. Getting the plaster sheets as tight a fit as possible to very crooked beams is really fiddly. He has completed the living room and is in the little TV room now. I have been designing the kitchen and getting quotes etc - trying to get as much bang for my buck whilst avoiding the Ikea route if at all possible. We have also decided to swap the kitchen into the bigger living room. I had mentioned that we should have done this a few weeks ago to Paul, who said way too much work as been done to change it, but now after a chat to one of his mates who told him we would be crazy not to do it - what do you know - it's now on the cards. Men - I don't know haha. Mind you it's Paul that is going to now have to do all the extra work so I can't be too bitter. I also learned a lot doing the original plan so it hasn't taken me as long to do a new one. This also means we can make the most of our big Cantou fireplace - it can just have a big log burner in there now and not be filled up with ovens etc. And the kitchen will be big enough to have a dining table in it so will be a nice farmhouse style. Looking forward to getting it in and being able to entertain - it gets way too cosy here in the attic for dinner parties!
Anyway here is some pics of the work done in the house. I ended up doing the grouting just before xmas in our ensuite. And Paul has hung one of the french doors for our bedroom after spending days sanding it up. They are so nice - the photos don't really do the door or the floor justice but you get the idea.

Well - I think that is our news for now. Paul is at the museum today having a break from work - I was meant to be going to a friends place to help practice loading her horses onto her new trailer and going for a ride with her but the forecast turned out be wrong and it came in rainy so we cancelled. But it looks like the sun might have come out again now so I will get outside whilst I can. Am really looking forward to some warmer weather. We got a taste of it yesterday - it was lovely and sunny and I think it got up to 16 degrees which won't sound warm at all to you Australians but for us it was amazing!