We got there!

Another long gap, with so much to blog, that I will have to use photos and captions to prevent boredom in the reader!
In the (almost a) month since my last blog lots of things have changed.
The chicks have grown, and grown again and are now pretty much free range, ranging wider and wider, into the vines, the plum trees, our neighbour's garden and the gite! They return pretty quickly though, if they think there might be treats involved!

Mike with treats.

Waiting to be let out!

Table birds?

Oven ready?!

The gite was finally finished and furnished.

Jim the digger, digging another pond, leveling out the car park and filling in holes.

Mike putting finishing touches to furniture for the gite.

Just waiting for the grass to grow.

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2 

 

Lounge and dining room

Kitchen diner

Spot the camera man!

 We are thrilled with the way it has turned out. We wanted to celebrate the end of this part of our adventure, and thank everyone who helped along the way. So we planned a big party and invited everyone who helped along with the mayor to make it an 'official opening'. Unfortunately, we were too busy to take any photos, but we're hoping that other people did, and I will publish them when I get them.
After weeks of very hot and dry weather, it started to rain just 10 minutes before the party began, and rained for a couple of hours - real, steady, wet rain, much to the relief, I'm sure of all our local farmers and wine growers, so we couldn't really complain! We just got on with it, enjoyed the afternoon, and when the rain finally stopped, it turned into a beautiful evening, with petanque, led by Jean-Claude (playing his rules apparently!) and an impromptu (albeit "one we prepared earlier") chilli on the terrace until well into the night.

The petanque pitch, scene of a battle!

So....thank you to everyone who has helped us on our way (not just those in the photo!) and to everyone who came and joined in our celebrations.

Ash, filming the party

The last six weeks or so of our story have been filmed for ITV, to be screened, possibly in September. We're not sure what it is going to be called yet, or exactly when it will be on, but watch this space!

Nicole also had a birthday, celebrated with a visit from boyfriend, Mike and her brother Dave and his girlfriend  Neesha.

After the parties were over, we took a couple of days off and spent one of them in Bordeaux and the sand dune at Pyla near Arcachon, the tallest sand dune in Europe.

From the top of the dune towards the sea

From the top towards the forest.

On the Miroir d'eau des quais in Bordeaux

Taking photos of the photographers!

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.

Another step forward...

It's been a while - I don't quite know what happens to time out here! More changes to report - I'm looking forward to a time when the only changes are the seasons. So, where to start.....
The gite - still not ready, but looking great, the builders are doing a great job, and the shower rooms have had the walls tiled and are ready for the floor tiles..

The bedrooms are plastered, painted and the floors will be tiled in a few days time...

The outside furniture has all been treated and looks fantastic - just begging for meals to be eaten outside (already happens on a daily basis!)

The pool has been cleaned, is warming up nicely and is almost ready for a dip (just a bit more adjusting on the chlorine.)

The chickens have a home, ready for the weekend. The permanent one will be ready soon - just a little adjustment of the legs to take account of the slope (we built it like that on purpose, I swear!) the roof added, a bit more work on the walls and voila! as we like to say!

I'm hoping the fence will keep them in until they're ready to be really free-range - they're a bit on the small side at the moment...

but growing quickly, like everything else around here!

Tiny buds on the vines. They look great, but apparently they are suffering from a shortage of rain following the driest April in years. We did have an amazing thunder storm the other night, but not enough rain to satisfy the farmers and vignerons. 

The vide greniers have started again (flea market/car boot sales) with one virtually every weekend all summer in one or other of the local villages. These plants were from the one in Duras a couple of weeks ago. 

 Last weekend there was one at St Sernin, where we found some great bargains, which I am off to photograph now, and will add to the blog later, as we are about to go out to dinner - a treat for all the hard work we have done this week - so far!