Dordogne Retreat - a farmhouse tale

On this trip I had driven down a few days ahead of the family (reduced by one due to no half terms at university) and picked them up from Limoges airport on the saturday morning. Despite having flown in and out of Limoges 20 to 30 times we had never been into the town centre. The outskirts are not enticing and we normally make a quick exit! On this occassion we drove into the centre, parked in another amazingly compact underground car park, and found a lovely town square.

 This small island of 'old town' is such a change from the industrial outskirts.

There are several streets worth exploring and a covered market with the usual impressive selection of fresh vegetables, fish and meat. It wasn't however cheap.

The pleasure of arriving on this trip was slightly reduced when I spotted a hole in the roof of one of the outbuildings. A quick investigation showed that the timber battons had slipped as the nails holding them in place had rusted through. 

Of course once I got up on the scaffold tower to have a closer look we had to strip back quite a large area...

This was however one of those jobs that went to plan and only a couple of hours later new battons had been nailed in place (you just have to love Paslode nail guns!) and the tiles replaced. I was worried that my tiles would not be straight, they are, it's just thr rest of the roof that isn't.

Late one afternoon we strolled around the local lanes enjoying some Autumn sunshine along with the local beef cows.

 They certainly look happy and contented, unlike our local UK cows that always look a little on the scrawny side. Our neigbour keeps 60 head on 60 hectares, about the right level he tells us!

The pond was extremely low but this did give us the opportunity to wade in and clean out a lot of vegetation and muck. It was another very dry summer so we hope this was the cause and not a problem with source.

 The chainsaw was used to clear some of the trees around the pond enabling us to build up a wood suply for the fire in a couple of years once it has dried out.

 The two breeze blocks on end show the width of the proposed 3 bay garage! This is more of a dream than a plan at the moment but you do have to think about what could be done.

With a few rainy days during our October visit we turned some of our focus onto what is currently the master bedroom (eventually to become a lounge/tv room). For some strange reason there was a small window between the bathroom and the bedroom. A couple of pieces of plasterboard and a light coating of plaster and it was gone!

 I am not a great plasterer, especially with French plaster which is almost plaster of paris and cant be 'floated', but the good news is that the rest of the plaster is not great either som my efforts fit in well.

 After completing the elimination of the window we started to paint over the lovely 'pink' on th elower part of the walls and remove the brown dado rails. Unfortunately the dado rails had been attached to the walls before the plaster had been applied! This left not only a hole to be filled but ridges of plaster that we will need to remove in places.

 We unfortunately ran out of paint (we import Dulux from the UK) but covering up/removing the brown has made a big difference.

We have been South to Salat on previous visits, but it is only a few kilonetres further to get to the mediaeval city of Domme, perched high on a rocky outcrop with commanding views over the Dordogne Valley.

At the top of the main street is the Church - not particularly big, but with this typical (and I thought splendid) tryptych above the Altar.

 This picture shows the main Street leading up from the first car park up to the square at the top of the hill.  There are a number of restaurants there, with prices that increse as you get nearer the top of the town and the inpressive viewpoints!

And here is one of the most impressive views of all!

 One other attraction is a natural cave formation that contains some spectacular stalactites and stalagmites - unfortunately photography was nt permitted, but for 8 euros, worth a vist!  The cave exit is below thespot where this photo was taken - a lift brings you up to this observation platform from the cave exit.

 There is quite a lot of history associated with Domme, including a Templar Kniights connection (Dan Brown fans take note) although we didn't get into that historical aspect on this visit!