Our first month in St Silvain

It has been the most amazing month.

Before

After

We have completed the linen cupboard and all the 

linen is back in its place.

A job that we hadn’t planned but needed doing, to solve
 mould and wood worm problems.

Fig Tree

When we arrived the fig tree was looking a bit sorry due to a lack of water. 

As a result of plenty of soaking and some trimming it's now looking quite healthy.

We picked our first fig during the week.

It was delicious and both of us now have a liking for figs.

The garden is now looking great but still needs lots of water as it’s been quite hot.

myHubby didn't believe that it got so hot in Limousin.

Right on cue we had a couple of 40 degree days during our first week here.

We were invited to a privately owned chateau last week for afternoon tea by a wonderful local lady (Marie-Martine) who is instrumental in bringing various nationalities together.

It had it's own keep and moat!

We only saw inside two wonderful rooms - the drawing room and what was the old kitchen.

It's in the small village of Ladapeyre not far from our little village.

We attended a Polygot picnic
yesterday at Chatelus Malvaleix (about a 15 minute drive from St Silvain). Absolutely wonderful day. The weather was perfect and we met so many people from different nationalities. The lake was beautiful and so many shaded trees made it such a pleasant lunch and afternoon. We practised our French and organised to meet with a small group 3 times a month for more practice. We will be also enrolling in local French lessons in Boussac.

We have been looking at cars to upgrade from our very old 1996 Peugeot. Lots of interesting conversations with car sales people, gesturing and test drives. Hopefully sometime this week we will have ourselves a more reliable second hand car (one where the heater is not constantly on and a fuel gauge that works). We need to set this as a priority so we can confidently travel around France and Europe.

We had some sad news when we first arrived in St Silvain and consequently attended a funeral last Wednesday. We followed the hurst from Gouzon to Montlucon with close friends of the deceased which was then followed by a lovely service. It was a difficult day but the wake was good bringing both French and English together at such a sad, sad time. RIP Ivor.

A dinner invitation saw us in Domeyrot on Thursday evening. Our Israeli/English friends cooked us a lovely meal. Dorothea gave us one of her lovely paintings of a small village scene - thanks Dorothea.

During the month we have been to the dechetterie (tip) a few times with garden and general waste from the house and yard. We hope to reduce the amount of trips to the tip and recycle a lot of our waste – there was just so much lying around in the barn and yard that we couldn’t move. Hope to set up a compost and to use our imagination with other pieces of furniture, arches, very old ladders,  for out in the garden. 

Panning Tray?

We found what looks like a gold panning tray.

After cleaning it, may end up as a wall ornament in the garden with hanging pots attached.

So many possibilities for the things that we have found.

It’s fun coming up with ideas of what and how we can utilise these items.

Forest behind our village

We have started our morning walks – the most beautiful part of the day.

Coming up this week, we have organised a stall at a local brocante in the next village. Starts at 6am tomorrow morning so should be a great way to meet the locals and travellers and hopefully sell some of our wares. Watch this space for pics of the days’ events.

Until my next blog……

Wendy