May is the month for walks in France

We have now been on a number of randonées with various groups and on our own.

The weather is just perfect at this time of the year to walk up and down dales and valleys, wind through beautiful laneways and paths and eventually return to our starting destination.

The 7km walk to Glenic and beyond left from the viaduct.

Absolutely amazing place.

Discovering waterfalls

Passed waterfalls.

Views to the mountains

Church at Glenic

Laneways filled with wildflowers

The other walk was a 12km walk from Gouzon - pretty flat but again absolutely spectacular.

Starting out on our 12km walk at 9am

On our way through the most beautiful forests

Half way point - we were greeted with Coffee, cakes, Orange Juice etc

Bill and I decided to back track over some of the ground that we covered on the 12km walk on 1 May. Words cannot describe the scenery and the views being up so high. And it's all just around the corner from us.

Each walk seems to provide us with jaw dropping moments and also some "get out of my air moments".

We helped out at a picnic/walk at a place called Roches.

It has a giant statue of the Virgin Mary.

Walkers began their journey at Chatelus Malvalieux and ended it at Roches in time to enjoy all the donated food we had set up onto tables. There were about 200 people, so quite alot of food. I have never seen so many quiches on the one table.

Lining up to eat

At our local Boussac markets, there are quite a few stall holders selling flowers. It looks amazing. I have to hold myself back from just buying everything as it looks so great. I think I have used every pot in my garden now so have little room for anything else to plant.

Tonight we are off to our local hall for an Entrecote Soiree - it's great as it's only 2 doors up. Just have to ensure our steak will be well cooked - something the french don't seem to do - they like it on the raw side.

Bonne soiree......

Wendy

Randonées and other french happenings

We went on our local village walk on Monday 1 May. A 7, 12 or 15km walk or a 30km bike ride were the options.

I was the only one that did the 7km walk - the rest of the group including Bill completed the 12 km walk through beautiful forests and laneways.

The scenery was amazing and it's all within our little village and the surrounding area.

It was then followed by the obligatory 3 hour lunch with wine included.
Not sure how many more of these walks I can take if there are more lunches involved. Although we have signed up for another 12km walk tomorrow from Gouzon. I am told by a reliable source that the route is not uphill like this one was. So chances of me having a heart attack maybe less likely.
And of course there is another lunch with wine - all for 8 euros.

Last week we received a call from Austria to say that our goods from Australia had landed in Rotterdam and were being delivered by truck on Wednesday. Great news. We were very excited as we had forgotten a lot of what we had packed as we thought it would stay in storage in Australia for another few years.

So our truck arrived at 8.30am on Wed. The weather had been great up to that point and then decided to turn bad. It was snowing on the day the truck arrived and we unloaded the boxes into the barn in snow.

 Our truck driver was a young man from the Ukraine. He had driven for 2 days with only a couple of hours sleep and then had another delivery to make to the South of France after us. I made him some strong coffee with some biscuits and we tipped him 10 euros - enough to buy a sandwich and coffee on his next route.
He was telling us that there is not a lot of money in the Ukraine - he was a soldier but there was no money in it so he started driving trucks.

So we started unpacking the boxes after moving them from the barn into the kitchen in the snow.

I had to rearrange all our kitchen cupboards, linen cupboard and bedrooms to fit some of it in.
We had 3 boxes of crockery and things that we donated to the local parish that we attend every second Tuesday to help out with setting up tables and washing up. They thought it was Christmas when they opened the boxes of goodies. It felt good that we were giving something that could be used and needed.

We also had fun unpacking as each item we unpacked led to a gasp of "Oh wow, I had forgotten I had packed/ kept that." It was like Christmas for us also.

Bill prayed to the VEGEMITE KING - we are now stocked up for awhile. Thanks to Mick, our youngest son, for throwing in a few jars into the boxes for us. It should keep us going until 2018.

We only had 2 breakages. One was my big white vase ( a 30th birthday present from Bill - so I was extremely disappointed) and a crystal bowl that I loved as well which was in the same box. Fortunately Bill has been able to repair the vase as it broke in big pieces.

It took 3 months and 2 weeks to arrive by ship door to door.

Hope you are enjoying the details and photos in my posts.
If you are wanting any further information or wanting more pics/less pics please feel free to leave feedback or contact me via my email address:
mackatwo@gmail.com.

Until my next post.

Wendy

Update on our french renovations....

Our renovations are taking shape now. We can see the bathroom, laundry and living area and will be most glad once a downstairs toilet is installed.

Bathroom and Laundry area before walls installed.

Same area with walls now erected.

Same area again with plasterboard.

And having a laundry again will be heaven.

I still haven't worked out where or how the french people soak anything without a laundry tub or laundry room for that matter. It is common for the washing machine to be in the kitchen of most french houses.

The roof tiles are almost all laid.

The builders are waiting for a few fines days to finish off the pointing to the side wall.

They have almost finished the plasterboarding.

They have installed one of the velux windows (skylights).

A second will be installed into the bathroom.

They have installed the windows but are waiting on the door to arrive.

We are hoping they will be finished by the first week in June so we are then able to paint and hang curtains and furnish before our youngest son visits in July.

There are 3 public holidays here in France in May but our builders - being English - have continued to work on these days.

Which has been great for us.







This is our new water tank which will be installed at the corner of the extension.

Will post the finished product once completed.

Au revoir pour maintenent.

Wendy

Printemps en france

I have just returned home to France after spending a couple of months back in Australia.

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