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!

Saturday 4 January 2014

Happy New Year

Happy New Year good health and great happiness to everyone.

We are enjoying some very mild weather here at the moment, a bit damp but nowhere near the torrents and wind you are suffering in the UK at the moment - long may it last, although I know that the local vignerons would like a good, sustained cold spell to send the vines to sleep.

Since the last update we have had a few days out and a trip to England to visit family before Christmas.

Back at the end of October we visited the town of Pujols, about an hour's drive from here. It was a beautiful day, and warm enough to eat outside.
Street scene, Pujols
Restaurant 'Villa Smerelda'
A long and leisurely lunch

I think we've been here before!

Church, Pujols
Window and wall painting in the Church of Sainte Foy, Pujols
 On November 1st, Toussaint (All Saints Day) there is an enormous fair in La Reole
La Reole, away from the fair

Fantastic moustache!
A specialist vehicle for hunting, I don't know if the gun is provided with it! 
The pompiers driving through the market to make a point?!

Eating again! At restaurant 'Aux Fontaines' La Reole




Just to make Hugh feel better about our shutters!
 A visit to a wet and windy Bordeaux. A little Christmas shopping at the Quai des Marques

Then to an exhibition at Cap Sciences about the brain


Building a virtual bridge
Then eating - again!
Pizza Pino, Place Gambetta, Bordeaux
Followed by 'Irish Celtic' at the Patinoire, Bordeaux - Riverdance it wasn't!

 The following day, the weather was beautiful for the St Martin's day fair in Duras. November 11th is a Jour de Fete in France. Duras has a huge antiques/flea market, and because it fell on a Monday this year it included our usual weekly market.






The beginning of December is one of the last decent Vide Grenier's of the year, at Monsegur




Bargains in hand! 
Hugh spotted the Google car driving past the house earlier in the year and in December we finally made it onto streetview!


Vue de Duras on Google maps streetview. We should be even easier to find now.
Then our favourite trip of the year to England.
My first cuddle with Lucas. 

Susie and Orla
A day out at Hobbledown Farm



Watching the meerkats being fed

Hiding from Grandad! 
 and a walk in Bushy Park
Lucas
"Push me higher" or "Stop!"?
Susie, Orla and Nana Fifi
 Followed by a trip the the Christmas market in Manchester with Alex, (Sorry Rob, Tom, Ellen and Matt, Dave, Nicole and Adam, and Sarah - why have we no photos of you all?!)
Think of your own caption for this one!
Thank you to everyone else we stayed with, ate with and visited while we were in England, especially Ellen and Matt for putting us up just a couple of days after moving into their lovely new home.

We arrived back in France in time to do a wine tasting at the Maison des Vins

Sweet white wines from all over France
 While I'm not promising to update the blog more often, we have made a resolution to walk more. This restored windmill is at Villeneuve de Duras, on our first walk of the new year...

 ...and these donkeys we saw on a walk around Duras.
Because I don't have any wildlife photos this time, a photo of a 'Blonde d'Aquitaine cow who lives on the farm below Vue de Duras!


Happy New Year!
from Vue de Duras


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