I went back to spend time with family in Mossman, Port Douglas and Brisbane.
It was great to see everyone again and to spend some quality time with my parents was a blessing.
This is our dear friend Lee at the Mossman Bowls Club.
The family bunch minus one sister at the Tin Shed in Port Douglas.
But on the other hand, I am so glad to experience the French Springtime. We haven't been here in this season before so are getting to see all the beautiful wildflowers, the blossoms on trees, all the birds chirping away and the absolutely perfect weather (well most days anyway).
It is such a wonderful time here in France. It seems that the whole population comes out of hibernation.
We visited the Gueret markets and bought some flowers to plants and some herbs. Have been doing a lot of repotting and moving plants around. Planted a whole heap of seeds and put the flower boxes in front on the windows. Our house looks very french now (again).
Whilst I was away farnarckling on the other side of the world, Bill was left in charge to ensure the builders turned up and to supervise the renovation works. We are building a laundry, bathroom, sunroom and entry area onto the back part of our house.
There were a few initial problems - like having to install a completely new fosse septic as the old one was in the exact wrong spot for any digging and it did have to be replaced at some point anyway (the green thing in the second pic is the new septic tank). So add on many thousands of dollars and a few weeks delay to the start of our renovations. The reason we were holding off replacing it was we were hoping that the mains sewage would be going through our little village but alas not in the near future.
So now we have a state of the art fosse septic that can hold 4000 litres de merde (poo). Yay how exciting for us.
The exciting part has actually been to see the renovations now taking shape. The walls are up, the lintels in place and the concrete slab poured. The back part of the house has totally changed. Can't wait to have a downstairs loo (got to fill up the 4000 litre tank sometime).
We are hoping they will be finished by 2nd week in May. We can then start painting and hanging curtains and putting in furniture.
During all this construction, Bill has been busy breaking up rocks and removing all the pig troughs that used to house my herb garden.He has been removing all the small pebbles on the floor to reveal the original stone floor - uneven at the moment but we intend to make it all even and use the space for a bar-be-que area with outdoor table and chairs.
Perfect for a lazy french Saturday luncheon with friends.
We bought bikes the other day and after Bill did some adjusting and pumping up of tyres, we went for our first bike ride in god knows how many years.
We were both a bit wobbly at first but managed to ride to the next village and back unscathed. Our very first french countryside bike ride. The day was perfect.
Today we ventured up to Domeyrot (another close village).It was good getting there as it was downhill most of the way but of course getting home was rather strenuous.
Anyway we shall endevour to ride at least 4 times a week.
That should get us fit enough to enter the Tour de France this year or perhaps not......
Well until my next post - hopefully it won't be too long between posts next time.
Wendy
No comments:
Post a Comment