Our new home in France

While looking for a house to rent, somewhere to base ourselves while we hunt for the right property, we found the perfect house in the perfect spot -and with the help of the lovely people at Cle Rouge Immobilier in Duras it is ours! This blog is primarily for our friends and family to follow the ups and downs of the adventures. However if we don't know you, I hope you'll enjoy the story too, and that one day you may consider booking into our lovely home as a paying guest - you'll be made very welcome!

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Chicks......

The chicks are growing, day by day. They now sleep in the big coop, although they haven't progressed onto the perches yet. It took a couple of days for them to put themselves to bed in their new accommodation.
Our other chicks have hatched, four baby redsarts in the box, getting louder and more demanding every day. The adults are very brave, totally ignoring all human activity going on around them.
The garage is now complete, which means we can start to clear other areas of the house.
Just needs the doors painted now!
Hugh and Tom are taking over for the weekend, while Nicole and I have a weekend off! 
Me, Tom and Nicole
Tom in the pool and Nicole thinking about it!
Filming the preparations for a visit to the Maire, me clutching my trusty dictionary, just in case!
They also filmed us putting these coins back in the wall, where they were found.
The kitchen cabinets, made up in preparation to be fitted at the weekend when the tiling is finished.
The beautiful tilleul, or linden tree, in full bloom.
And finally, this amazing moon rise last night, which we watched while sitting on the terrace.

Monday 2 May 2011

New arrivals

Lots of news to report in this blog, but I'll start with the promised pictures of our bargains from last weekend's vide grenier....
a treadle sewing machine - complete - to use as a dressing table in one of the guest bedrooms
a sweet little table for another room

the marble top for the table below, for one of the bathrooms

Lovely bargains, can't wait to get started on a wash and brush up to get them ready for public viewing.

But now, the really exciting news......the arrival of our new chicks.....
first... the erection of the fence to keep them in
Celebrating the completion of the fence - we're ready for the chicks!
And here they are - or at least some of them! We have five hens (we hope!) and one cockerel.
Examining her new (temporary) home
We picked up the chicks on Sunday morning, but we were not alone! We were accompanied by a film crew (the lovely Kate and Suzi) from ITV making a TV programme about Brits living in this part of France.
Us, Morgan in the middle, who did such a brilliant job of raising our chicks, Andrea and the two Jonathons from Domaine Gourdon, previous home of chicks and Kate and Suzi with the filming equipment.
A quick break in filming  - what to do next?!!

The coop has been painted and decorated, but is still a bit big and high for the little ones, so they are staying in the concrete hutch next door for the time being.
We have a couple more new arrivals too..in the bird box above the kitchen window (completely ignoring the new box with the infra red camera!) this little redstart is sitting on at least 4 eggs.....
 ... and these two chicks are the first brood of a pair of collared doves nesting in the palm tree in full view of one of the guest rooms. They are currently sitting on a second clutch of two eggs.

Another first today......the swimming pool is finally ready and we had our first dip

I almost forgot, the gite is looking good, the tiles are laid in one of the bedrooms and shower rooms, and looking great.

Hugh says he keeps on working because he thinks Nicole and I spend too much money when he's not here!........
I wish...........really a visit from Jerry, in his beautiful Rolls!
and this is what Hugh does when he's here anyway....
Only joking, his feet have hardly hit the ground while he's been here for the Easter holidays, and he's back to the UK tomorrow to earn some more pennies.