Nous sommes arrivés...

A picture paints a thousand words…

It was a nightmare time at the Shuttle terminal on Thursday evening, hard on the heels of another nightmare at the Dartford crossing. So by 1am we were ready for our bed, even if the best we could manage was  the Premiere Classe at Boulogne.

When we arrived at Le Pre Vert the first thing we did was to light the woodburner and fire up the oil-fired central heating boiler. Shortly after we put on the electric blanket! There hasn’t been any heating in the house since October, so as you can imagine it took an age to get anything approaching even luke-warm. In fact we spent the evening with the sofa moved so close to the woodburner that we could rest our feet on the hearth.

Today has been spent preparing for the arrival of our friends Robert and Erna from Holland. A text a few minutes ago said that they were stuck in a jam somewhere near Paris.

I’d come up with a cunning plan for the preparations. I would go to Loches to stock up on food, make a lasagne and a cake and Tim would do the cleaning. I feel refreshed and Tim is exhausted. Of course I would have swapped roles except Tim can’t make a lasagne…  :o)

The good news is that the repairs Tim did to the terrace at the end of last summer seem to have worked - cross your fingers! No sign of any damp patches in the under-terrace apartment, and, after the wet winter in the Touraine it has got to be a good sign...

HAPPY EASTER

In our own back yard ...

Well, not quite!

After we’d unpacked we needed to ‘blow the cobwebs away’ so decided to go for a walk. Although the sun was shining there was a fairly stiff icy wind so the cobwebs were well and truly blown away!

Right at the beginning of the walk (within 200 metres of Le Pré Vert) we came across some troglodyte dwellings we didn’t even know were there! In our defence we think some trees and hedging have been cut back and cleared meaning that the previously hidden buildings were revealed. Conscious that the workings belong to someone we were careful about where we trespassed but did manage to take a few photographs.

This leads underneath the path you can see in the first photograph.

When we get an opportunity we’ll ask our neighbour, Madame Simone, for more information about the dwellings. Madame serves at the Boulangerie (in her late 70’s) and is endlessly patient with our developing French. She is always able to find a word that we can understand.

If we want to know something we generally start there...

Dedication...

Yesterday the farmer who works the fields behind Le Pré Vert (I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know his name) spent the day muck spreading. We had friends coming for dinner so were a bit worried that the whole house would stink of the muck!

In the early evening he started to plough, working until well after midnight! Sorry no pics.

He was back again at first light to continue ploughing the perimeter of the field.

I’ll let you know what he does next, but my guess is that he will be sowing …  

Bargain hunt?

Ever been to NOZ?

NOZ is basically a tat shop selling end of lines. The closest one to Le Pre Vert is near to the SuperU in Loches, although I have seen one in Tours. I think they must buy up the surplus stock left behind after the sales. Some of this has come from the UK as I've seen Debenhams labels on some items.

A lot of what they sell is tat, but I always pop in because in amongst the tat you can usually find a 'must have' at a bargain price. 

Last time it was this 'pop-up' traffic cone which cost around 3 €

However my best ever buy was a pair of croc-a-likes.
At 2€ a pair, these diamond encrusted beauties were a real bargain. They are soooo comfortable that I bought them in three colours!

I suppose that as we have this wonderful new space-saver cone, it’s an ideal time to dump the one that Tim illegally acquired during his days at Loughborough University.

On our next visit to Le Pre Vert I'll pop into NOZ and take some pics of the 'never be seen dead with' variety... 

The Forth Bridge - jobs at Le Pre Vert ...

If you are holding your breath waiting for the post about our trip to La Promenade, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer.

Tim rubbing down!

Today we started to prepare and paint the Forth Bridge aka our 10 sets of French windows and shutters – that’s 20 windows (‘cos we’re only painting the outside) and 40 shutters! That’s not to mention the barge boards, downpipes, garage doors, other windows and walls!!

With any luck we’ll run out of paint …

*For those of you who might be wondering about the reference to the Forth Bridge, legend has it that the painters never finish painting it. When they get to the end they go back to the beginning and start all over again! If you want to know more you can read all about it here - it makes fascinating reading...

**Susan pointed out that I should have linked to the FORTH RAIL BRIDGE and methinks she could be right!

Dead or Alive?

When we arrive at Le Pre Vert one of the first things we do is take a turn around the garden. Today we were keen to see the work which had been done at the bief of the Aigronne which runs along the bottom of the garden. In January we were told that work was to be carried out to cut down some of the larger trees and clear the banks. None of our trees were affected by the cull, although some plots adjoining ours have had some very large trees cut down and stacks of cut wood are in evidence.

On one of the plots a lorry was being loaded with the larger trunks. I’m sure that as we walk the area we shall see more evidence of this work.

The ‘big freeze’ seems to have taken its toll on our garden. We’ve lost a number shrubs and trees. Perhaps you can confirm our diagnosis? 

  

Tea on the sunny terrace…

Some things never change; Tim at work on his computer, but, if you look carefully, you can see that as a concession to being on holiday he is wearing his shorts...

We both slept better last night ( after a night at the Premiere Classe in Boulogne, who wouldn’t?)  and are looking forward to a delicious lunch with our friends John and Maureen at Le Breuil. I wonder whether  we’ll get a sneak preview of the preparations for the BIG party …

Lavender and prayers .....

Since we last visited Le Pre Vert at the beginning of June the lavender had grown such a lot. Unfortunately, we missed the beautiful show of the lavender flowers, but the smell is still terrific.

Last week I cut some of our lavender, and this little fellow found a peaceful place to pray .....

I wonder what his/her prayers were  about?

Around Le Pre Vert .........

Each day, if we're not exploring the wider region, we have a walk around Le Petit-Pressigny. Even though the village is small, there always seems to be something that we haven’t seen before, or other things we have, but not really taken very much notice of.

On our longer visit in the summer I plan to make a better photographic record of the simple things, like:

the animals ......

the old troglodyte dwellings ............

our neighbours …………

and things that make us smile………

So ………