Dordogne Retreat - a farmhouse tale

A recently puchased camera has great low light capability, this trip allowed us to try it out on several occasions and the results are very pleasing. These shots were taken from the ferry as it came into Portsmouth Harbour.

With Alan's help in a couple of hours we cut and split all these logs (the new log splitter being a great success). We wouldn't fare very well with this little lot compared to most of the locals where the size of your woodpile seems to be a status symbol. However this should get us through a couple of weeks in the winter. 

These are stored in the 'tractor' shed. One of the highlights of this trip was clearing all the junk out from this and going and finding our new 'dump'. Alan helped with this and accompanied me and it did take a couple of hours in the car, and we only stopped for one beer on the way back -honest!

The overall game plan for the terrace and around the pool is to get the areas ready for concreting. This means installing all the drainage, electrics etc and raising to the correct level. The are then needs to be left to settle (you could use a whacker plate) for a year or so before concreting, and then tiling. The terrace has been down for a over a year so could be concreted but we haven't got the quotes for the work (or the funds for it this year!) and want the terrace and pool area done at the same time. So given that we want to be able to walk from the house to the pool without shoes we decided to concrete the area between the two sets of steps ourselves. Electrics were laid in first for power and lighting down by the pool, the area was prepared and the mixing started. Unfortunately my assistant had a small emergency and stopped after about a quarter of the work so I had to finish it on my own!

Job done, and it certainly makes the walk to the pool much easier on bare feet!

The final footings for the other two sets of steps at the back of the house were laid, with help from Alan. The trickier bit is getting the height right, we will know when we build the steps!

Bedroom steps to be:

Dining room steps to be:

Just thought this was a nice photo:

With the high temperatures during the summer we get regular impressive storms. Tried to capture the lightning on my camera but by the time I figured out the correct exposure the storm was passing by. Next time I will do better!

We paid two visits to the market and BBQ at Segur this year and it continues to be a great evening out. For some reason it always threatens to rain when we go but luckily we kept dry on both occasions this year.

 Alex tried the trout this year - 4 euros including a white wine sauce!

 The major work item this summer was to get the area around the pool ready for concreting (next year?) and then tiling (year after?). This involved leveling one area that was too high, laying drains, and infilling with 20 tons of grey stones.

The leveling took over half a day as the problem was not soil but shale. After half an hour of trying by habd we used the digger and I suspect if the digger hadn't been there it would have taken days by hand.

Next job was the drains - installing 4 drains and links to the drainage from the terrace and garden.

 Shifting 20 tons of stone was accomplished with the digger:

 Drainage all covered:

 Job done and shown after the pergola was built:

There is a small area the other side of the pool cover where we ran out of stones but hey it looks good from this angle!