Bon anniversaire!!

Yes - incredibly we have been here for one year now! So time to reflect on the year and our new life in France. Has it lived up to our expectations? Well I would have to say yes although we didn't have too many expectations because in a lot of ways we just came here with open minds and an open agenda - if we hated it we would have only stayed until the house had been done and moved on. It became pretty clear early on that visa allowing, we weren't planning on going anywhere else anytime soon! We have met some really great people - had some great times and are really looking forward to lots more of the same. We love our little place here - it really is very peaceful and the living is easy in many ways. Do I think we would have been further along in the renovations after a year here - well I would have to say yes but realistically it really is basically like building a house from scratch - and Paul has pretty much done all the work himself so it is a very good effort I have to say. We have also had lots of distractions like horses and motorbikes to enjoy and I would prefer to have a bit of a life outside of the house and it take longer anyway. Hopefully this time in another year we will be close to having everything done. Mind you we have met a few people here still renovating their houses after more then 5 years at it! So we are in the early days yet! I have been trying not to think too much about the fact we are meant to be in Chicago this week for Chelsea's college graduation - this is what we missed out on :) Never mind - we couldn't be prouder of her! The past couple of weeks have been spent working on the two rooms we want to have close to finished when our friends Mark & Narelle and their two teenage girls arrive in a week or so. And Paul has also been doing the huge job of breaking though a very thick stone wall to put in a new door. We were fortunate to be able to get some stone and lintel for it from our friends Don and Anne who had bought them many years ago but had not had to use them so had been sitting in their garden. This huge job culminated in Paul borrowing a tractor with a forklift attachment from another Dutch friend and finally being able to put the big lintel in today. Here are some pics. The tractor was also useful as we have a very heavy claw foot bath going into the spare bathroom - I have spent the last few days painting it white. Should look good eventually! And a very old cupboard - also from Don and Anne's barn! I am feeling pretty good now after my accident. Still can't do too much as I get pretty tired quite quick. Here's me in action yesterday! And finished window.. I have a scan next week to see how I am healing - hopefully will get the ok to ride again. I have had Hans from the equestrian centre come and ride him a few times a week so he doesn't get too fat as I hate leaving him in one of the smaller paddocks on his own so he can't graze as much. It's much nicer for him to stay with the other two and help out with the fly chasing! Here is a pic of Ambre tonight doing her trick of reaching as far as she can under the electric fence. She is turning out to be a lovely little girl - very well mannered and friendly and she learns very quickly. And here is the little man Will having a lovely little break on the citern in the evening warmth... A bientot!!!

Quel dommage...

Well the best laid plans and all that... I should be getting organised to travel to London with Gabbi at the end of the week, then on to Chicago for Chelsea's college graduation. Unfortunately I am virtually on bed rest after spending 12 days in hospital and not going anywhere! The drama all happened two weeks ago when I agreed to help a neighbor with one of her young horses. Long story short but as I got on, the horse bucked and threw me against her side quite violently. I didn't actually fall down - landed on my feet and initially thought I had just been winded. I even got on again and rode for about 10 minutes until the owner agreed it had been enough for the day. When I got off I felt more pain and started to think I may have broken a rib or something. So I made my apologies and drove home - then struggled to get up to the attic to where Paul was - the pain at this stage was very strong and I couldn't sit in any position and be comfortable. We called our friend Kathleen who is a nurse and she said she would come and take me to the emergency department. After getting x-rayed at Gourdon and no broken anything the doctors then called the ambulance to take me to the bigger hospital at Cahor with suspected internal injuries. So it all got very dramatic very quickly - two very large catheters put in for the trip which was in case I started to bleed out on the way which very thankfully didn't happen. Anyway after the 40 min ride and an MRI they told me I had a ruptured spleen and they were going to try and save it by not operating but monitoring the bleeding over the next 48 hrs. It was at this stage they told me if they didn't operate I would have to stay in hospital for 15 days. Well thankfully it turned out it was 3 days in intensive care and 'only' another 9 days in the surgical ward. But I guess I should be happy as I still have a spleen. Although I was very upset when the surgeon told me it would not be advisable to fly any time soon. The only good thing was Chelsea was able to fly out from Chicago and meet Gab in Paris and they both came down on the train together. So I have had the two of them here with me at home since leaving hospital a few days ago. I am still not really able to do much yet and I am trying very hard to do very little but we are all going a little stir crazy from watching too much crappy tv and not being able to get out and about much. Poor Paul has also had an awful couple of weeks too, traveling to and from Cahors most days to visit me - consequently not getting much done to the house! Although we did have the plasterer come and finish off the plastering on the second floor.

Paul has also started doing the big job of constructing a stone door opening from what was the window in the kitchen.

Well I won't be riding anytime soon. My boy is getting fatter by the minute. Hopefully in a week or so I will be able to do some groundwork with him but for now he is enjoying a little holiday. The day before my accident the same neighbor dropped off a yearling to keep Ambre company and settle her when I took Tolsan out riding. So we now have three horses to look after. Lucky Paul likes animals! Although he loves complaining about them equally as much ha. Ambre has filled out nicely from the skinny gangly little thing only a few weeks ago - all our lovely grass has done wonders.

Here is a shot from yesterday of my gorgeous girls in the market at Sarlat. Lovely weather at the moment - not too hot but not cold either.

And here is me and Chels - she is going back to school for her finally exam and then is starting her post grad studies in the summer before her hockey season starts in August. We have postponed our trip until the end of August so it won't be long before we see her again. Gab is due to start her big trip through Europe in a week so we will take her to Bergerac for her flight to London on Friday. Has been lovely to all be together for the first time in over 18 months but it's a shame it had to be under these circumstances!

Ok - hopefully next blog I will have more positive news! With luck I will be back 'en forme' and we will have got further along with the renos..Nearly a year since we got here - still can't comprehend where the time has gone - so fast it's ridiculous!

C'est tres froid, encore!!

Not sure if the title makes any sense but you probably get the picture - It's cold again today and not just a little bit - enough to turn the heater back on at lunchtime. And this is after we have had a week or so of lovely warm sun - no rain much and it finally looked like it was going to warm up towards summer. Oh well - the forecast has it getting warmer again in a few days so I will just have to get the winter clothes out of the barn again! We had some weird thunderstormy weather last week - I got this picture of the clouds brewing over Jouanicou. Pretty specky.

We had a lovely day on Sunday - we took Paul's little BMW motorbike for a bit of a long run with our neighbor and his girlfriend on his big Honda. We went to watch an Endurance horse race at Beaumont du Perigord. The weather was perfect for it and with all the spring flowers and crops looking amazing it was very nice. It was interesting to watch the Endurance goings on too - would love to do one but I don't think my chunky boy would make the 20km distance let alone 90ks! Here is Paul in the square at Beaumont.

In other news life has just been speeding along as it does - I am sure when you have deadlines the weeks just disappear into the ether. We have come to the conclusion that no, the spare bedroom and bathroom will not be ready when Gabbi arrives at the end of next week and possibly unlikely to have it all done when our friends from Aus are due at the end of next month. It should be nice weather for camping by then anyway ha. It's not like we aren't busy or working on it - we are - it's just that everything seems to take longer then expected and we often have delays with sourcing materials that can hold things up. Paul has pretty much completed all the plasterboard, plumbing, electrics etc etc on the second floor. We have a plasterer coming in next week to finish the joints and make it look pretty. This past week we have been working on the ground floors walls which are coming along nicely. Paul has had to raise some lintels and we have decided to knock through the back window to make it into a door so we have some access to the back of the house. Actually Paul really didn't want to do this but I have finally convinced him it will be short term pain for long term gain. It will be one of those things that we will regret not doing down the track if we don't do it I think.

I have been having some fun with my horses. Tolsan was initially brilliant with no problems at all but he has formed a bond with Ambre that is very strong and they really don't like to be apart at all. So much for me getting Ambre so he had some company. I still believe he needs it but it has made life a little difficult in the short term. He has also developed a big problem with the bit and I have had lots of trouble with bridling him - to the point that I was using just the halter and lead rope to ride him. The first time there was no problems at all but the next time he noticed that I had given Ambre her breakfast before we left and he decided he wasn't going anywhere! We pretty much had a rodeo going on in our front yard - the neighbors must have been having a good laugh but it freaked me out a little as I am not a fan of rearing as having a big fat horse fall back on you is not something you want to experience. So long story short I have had his trainer out today but in the meantime I have spent hours with him doing some ground work and getting him better at taking the bit. And today the trainer worked with him and me for a couple of hours and hopefully it looks like he will get over his big issue of leaving his little girl friend. It doesn't help when as soon as she can't see him she starts whinnying and making a huge fuss. Thankfully when the trainer came today he didn't turn into the perfect horse when she rode him although it wasn't quite as dramatic due largely I think to having a bit in. The trainer is a French girl but she can speak some English so we do a lot of Franglaise and always seem to understand each other in the end. I was able to ride him out for quite a while at the end of today's session without too many incidents and it was an awful day for it as it was blowing a gale. If he can go around our valley with that wind he should be able to cope with anything. Anyway in other news I am really looking forward to next week as I am taking the train from Gourdon up to Paris to meet Gabs. A couple of girlie days in Paris will be lovely. She has been flat out getting her life sorted out as she has got a two year working visa for the UK so has had to organise all her possessions - get her apartment ready to rent out etc etc - anyway she had entered a hair dressing competition and was freaking out because it was on the night before she had to vacate the apartment - but the big news is she ended up winning it! She has won a trip to NY and possibly even more importantly her look is going on the front cover of a national hair dressing magazine. Should help with the London job prospects! Well I think that is about it. The days are so long here already - sun is up by 6ish and doesn't go down until about 9.30 - means lots of hours for working which is good but we are both pretty tired at the minute. I do a French conversation class on a Tuesday evening but the last two weeks I have been pretty hopeless mainly because I am too tired to make any sense in English let alone French! Will have to start trying to go to bed a little earlier...good luck with that..

Quoi??Deux chevaux??

Well finally - I can do my blog again. I have been waiting until I had some news about my horse but for the past four or five weeks it has rained pretty much every day!! And not only that but been very cold.. is all a bit much now as there still is not an end to it in sight although it has been a bit warmer and only raining lightly for the past few days. Anyway - this has slowed down the whole process of getting my horse here as I wanted to go on a "ballade" with his trainer prior to getting him here (basically riding him out in the exterior) so I knew what to expect once I had him home. Unfortunately this kept getting put off due to it peeing down constantly. But - finally on Wednesday it was only drizzling in the afternoon so I got to go. And he was fine - very calm - perhaps a little too calm ha but nevertheless he certainly showed that I shouldn't have much to worry about when riding him around here (other then the hunters wandering around the forest with guns - but that's ok - the hunting season is over for now!) So today was the day. But I have a surprise - I haven't got just one - I also got a young mare - she is only 20 months old and has a lovely looking mum and dad - she is a purebred Minorquin - which is a rare Spanish breed. I kind of got her in a 'two for one deal' well - that's what I told Paul anyway - hahaa. No - I was always going to get him a mate as it's not nice for them to be on their own. However Paul keeps mumbling things about donkeys which I feel is very unfair - but to be honest I chose her from the 5 or 6 that I had to choose from because she is very shy and soft in character and hopefully the good looks will come later. It doesn't help that she has had all her mane chopped completely off so it can grow back much fuller in time. Anyway here are some pics of them;;

Seven year old "hongre" Tolsan.. Nice and clean on arrival - already been flat out rolling and trying to dirty himself up again!

Baby girl "Ambre" She looks a bit beaten up - she has been in a pretty large herd of youngsters - after pictures in a few months hopefully!

Here they are saying hello through the fence. They have a temporary fence between them for a few days. They look like they are going to be great mates as there has been no agro ears or kicks from either of them. Will see how they go next week. Tolsan needs to be worked everyday as he is a bit overweight and our lush grass that we have at the minute won't help. In French he is called a 'gourmand' which basically means a bit of a piggy haha. Will fit in well with us two ha. He certainly doesn't mind a carrot or two. I will be going for a short ride tomorrow to see how his feet are. They were a bit tender the other day as he has been worked a bit and doesn't have shoes on at the minute. Will more then likely need to get the farrier in soon by the looks of it. Will try to stick to some soft tracks for now and see how he goes. Any way - enough about horses. We have been doing some other stuff - well Paul has anyway! He has been working very hard - often late into the night - doing two of his least favourite jobs - putting in insulation and gyprocking. But he is getting very close to finishing off the whole second floor - only really the ceiling on the ground floor to go. It is looking good - still lots to do but it is definitely getting there.

Looking out of our bedroom towards the door - note the placo lifter we bought to make life a little easier for Paul when he is trying to hold the sheets above his head!

Our ensuite coming together.

The second bedroom. The garden and all our new plants have been knocked about by the amount of rain and the couple of frosts we have had. Although Pauls new espaliered fruit trees all look fine and are covered in new growth. Hopefully the lavender and the new trees we put in will start to grow once we get some warmer weather. The weeds are certainly getting going though!

Paul with his very professional looking trellis for his espaliered fruit trees. Ok - well that's about all of our news. We had our friend Kathleen's fourtieth birthday party this week - she had it at the Auberge in Degagnac - was a lovely afternoon - a bit like the united nations there which is always good fun! Afterwards I went to a French conversation evening which was nice but a little stressful - not a huge fan of public speaking when I can speak in English let alone French - luckily there is only a half a dozen people there so not too excruciating - all this in the hope that all the lessons etc will eventually click and I will be able to converse without giving myself a brain strain!! A bientot!!

Le Cheval!!

I have some exciting news this week. I have finally found a horse! He is black and pure bred Spanish - I have bought him from a local breeder which is helpful as I have a guarantee that if we end up not getting along I can take him back for a refund or exchange. Having bought a few dodgy horses in my time that you end up being stuck with this is a great advantage. He isn't here yet as they are still doing the full vet checks and working with him to make sure he is ready for me. He has been trained using natural horsemanship which I have some knowledge of and think is fantastic - I rode him yesterday in just a halter and he was lovely so it all seems quite positive at the minute. Hopefully next blog I will have some photos of him. We need to get the fence finished off and electrified as well as sorting out the water too. Also madly searching for saddlery etc. Unfortunately our weather has gone back to being decidedly wintery again - I had actually put the column heater away but we got it out again a couple of days ago. We have rain as well which is nice as it was getting very dry after a couple of weeks of almost summery weather. The trees are starting to green up too so the forest is starting to fill in a bit. Here is a pic of our plum tree with all its blossoms. The cherry tree was also loaded with flowers but we had some heavy rain which looks to have knocked alot off - hopefully we will get some fruit still.

As far as jobs go we have been going pretty well. Paul has finished raising the doorway in the 'snug' from midget size to well - Paul size! This was a tricky job as he was very concerned as to the amount of weight being held up by the lintels he was moving - lots of messing about with acro props.

Now that job has been done we just need some warmer weather so we can high pressure clean some walls in the snug that need doing before we can get the final underfloor heating in and the top slurry done. Then the downstairs walls can also be done although that is also another warmer weather job as working with concrete in this weather is not too pleasant. We did try to find a gap in the weather today to go and get some more plasterboard but it was a bit of a fail as rain kept on threatening and we didn't want to risk getting it wet. We put it on the roof of the van normally which is helpful at the moment as we can then load it direct through the second floor windows. Paul built a frame to rest them on in the window so he lifts and pushes whilst I steady them and line them up.

The second floor is coming along nicely too. Paul has got most of the electrical and plumbing work done ready to do the walling. Starting to look like a real house now!

Paul has also been practising his stone masonry skills and I must say he did an awesome job. He replaced some of the large stones that are surrounding the windows on the second floor where the shutters had broken out of which happens if they are left to swing in the wind. He broke out the old stones and made new ones to go in their place by carving them from stone. Once they get some weather on them you won't be able to tell the difference.

We also had a bit of a play around with the door on our citern - Paul made a new door for it and I painted it with the colour we have chosen to use on our shutters when they have been fixed up down the track.

Well next time maybe there will be some pictures of the newest family member 'Tolsan' who Paul has decided to call Tonsil - he amuses himself quite easily I do think!

Tres chaud!

Spring has sprung here - well actually you could be forgiven for thinking summer has arrived even - we had rain last week when I was away which was convenient - this means everything is bursting out of the ground and you can just about see the grass growing before your eyes. It has been about 22 degrees plus every day for quite a while and looks like it's staying around for a few more days to come - yay for us..

Well I think it has been nearly three weeks since I have last blogged. I know I have been getting very slack on it but we have my mum and dad here still and don't have any internet in the barn where we are back ensconced in, so that's my excuse and I am sticking with it. I promise to not be so late next time. The first week they arrived we had them out putting up the horse fence. And stripping our new front door. They spent a good day on one smaller one with the scrapers before we found that the heat gun worked a treat so they had the other larger one done pretty quickly.

Dad has done two of the horse paddocks but the last one has been put on hold as one of the boundaries is a little bit under dispute. We need to get our farmer neighbor to come over and have a chat as where the boundry is - where it looks to be on the map is about 4 metres out to where he has been mowing to. The mairie (town mayor) suggested we get the surveyor in but we aren't that worried about it yet.

After a week or so I went with them on a bus tour of Switzerland via a day in Paris. This meant a very quick tour of the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Champs Elysees and of course the Eiffel Tower. I still love Paris - it is easily my favourite city - can't wait to be there with Gabby in May! Switzerland was lovely - luckily for this time of the year it wasn't completely covered in snow - lots of beautiful lakes and mountain scenery. It is super expensive though. Most of the places I felt like our little group looked majorly scruffy compared to the locals who all looked like they had just stepped off the pages of Vogue. Surprisingly the other people on the bus weren't all out on day passes from their nursing homes like I had expected. Odd but not old haha. Not my preferred way to see a country but I have to admit having commentary on the bus trip meant we found out a lot more about the place then if we had just driven through. Here are some lovely pics I took of the place - including one of Mum and Dad enjoying the sights on the Glacier Express train through the mountains ha.

Whilst we were gone Paul missed us terribly. Well he would have if he was actually ever at home. I think everyone thinks he is incapable of making a meal for himself as of the 8 days we were away I think he was home for a total of 2 evenings! He had a great time. He also went to his first French language school class - which is also his last for a while as he quickly discovered he was a little more behind in the text book then he could cope with. So he is having some remedial private classes from now on and I am going to go tomorrow for my first class. Will be good to do something constructive about our awful French. Paul is still off to the museum each week and loving it. He is meeting more people every week and I am sure it will be helping with his language skills. He even went to the AGM for it on Sunday - the meeting was half an hour long and the meal went for four hours ha - got to love France! He amazingly got quite a bit of work done as well - this is the second floor with lots of wall framing done.

Since we have been back we have been getting stuck into making a garden area - I did a stone wall around and Mum has made a lovely path to make it easy to get to it to water etc.

Dad has been digging in the trench for the horse paddock water. All I need now is a horse! I am working on that although I don't want to rush in and get something I am not happy with. Here is Dad getting our old wheelbarrow back into shape.

We took them for a walk to L'Abbaye on Saturday - last time Paul and I went we got lost - however I think the right way home was still about the same amount of walking - three hours later we made it back. I think we all slept pretty well that night!
Tomorrow is Mum and Dads last day - I am off to my French lesson in Gourdon - a menu du jour somewhere I think will be on the cards for lunch. Thursday we are taking them down to their flight in Toulouse - I am sure they are looking forward to getting home and having a rest!
Paul and I, with the weather warming up can get stuck into doing some of the jobs that you couldn't do in the cold like the walls in the living room and kitchen. It freaked us out a little last week when we realised we have some other friends coming to stay in about 10 weeks. We had hoped to have the lion share of the reno done in the house by then - looks a little bit unlikely at this stage. Oh well we know of plenty of local friendly B&B owners :)