Brittany Holiday Cottages

Sunday 01 November – Fire & Ice-ing

A very brief blog this week as we have not completed too many tasks at Kergudon and the autumn has continued to be as unproductive at the end as it was at the start!

I mentioned last week that a repair I had tried to make with a dishwasher – our own – hadn’t proved successful despite it going through a wash cycle completely before I reassembled it.  The new parts we had ordered were delivered late last week so I once again disassembled the machine to replace the pump – YouTube is a brilliant resource for things like this.

The new pump proved really difficult to install but I eventually managed to get it attached only to find that it didn’t resolve the problem.  I tried a number of things, none of which seemed to be effective, so I decided to take the new pump out and put the old pump back in and, for no apparent reason it now seems to work!  Although for how long we have no idea.

Our dishwasher frustrations however pale into insignificance compared to our friendly carpenter who had a proper disaster recently.  We were very pleased with the new back door to Kergudon which was made by John we asked him to make the replacement door we need for Granary following its latch failure.

Having painted the frame a couple of weeks ago, we hoped this week would be dry enough for him to come and fit it.  However, as I was messaging to see when he would be free he, and all of his local pompiers, were busy tackling a fire in one of his workshops.

We send him our best wishes to get back on his feet as soon as possible.

David has been busy too with more Christmas baking and this week was cake icing.  We have 2 large cakes, one for Christmas and another for my birthday, and David makes between 2 and 5 smaller cakes depending on how many of our gîtes are occupied over Christmas.  This week was icing for the smaller cakes – and they look amazing.  We hope our guests will enjoy them as part of their Christmas welcome basket.

Otherwise – no news. I said it has been a slow autumn.  It will continue to be slow at Kergudon over the next couple of weeks and so I won’t blog again until Sunday 22^nd December when we should at least have some very festive gîtes to show you.

À bientôt.

Sunday 24 November – Chop, chop, mow

Last week’s blog started with our frustration that the weather this autumn has been wet, really wet, and ended with the slight hope that there would be a short break in the near-continuous deluge.

Thankfully, it turned out that the start of the week remained dry for 3 whole days!  This meant that, while the photos may not show it(!), I was able to make more progress outside than I’d managed in weeks – and our tree surgeon returned for a day!

The first thing I managed was to make a dent in was the large pile of wood that had been sat outside the Dairy building for a few years.  The wood is the remnants of the apple trees which once stood in the orchard the first of which was blown down in Storm Zeus in March 2017 and the others that we have intentionally felled to create a large flower bed.

We have always been conscious that the pile of wood immediately inside the entrance isn’t ‘the look’ that we want to maintain, although we are in the countryside!  Having bought our serre in July we had created some space to store this wood just as soon as we had an opportunity to cut it!  Last week was the first opportunity.

It may not look like I have managed to make a large dent into the pile but the amount I have managed to stock in the serre should keep us in wood for many weeks – although it will take quite some time to dry out so won’t be being used this winter!  As it is the larger sections of trunk that I have been focussed on, splitting them with my merlin (what the French call a type of large splitting axe), not only has it given me a good workout it has provided me with lots of practice for all the sycamore that has been felled.

Hopefully the remainder of the pile won’t take as long to clear although it is more of a 2-man job as it is mostly cutting with a chainsaw so will be quick but will need David’s assistance.  It will also uncover a few treats that have remained hidden under the wood for a while such as the small old poêle that we removed from Priory just visible in the picture above  – we’ll have to see what state they are in now!

It remained dry until Wednesday night which gave the lawns 3 days to dry out sufficiently to attempt to cut it.  While it hadn’t rained, as it had got soooo long and thick in places it never really dried completely so proved very difficult to cut especially as we needed to collect the cuttings so they didn’t lay on the ground.  Because it clogged often in the machine it took much longer than usual to do and I finished under the floodlights after dark!  But it looks so much better now it is done.

Unfortunately, while cutting I found that the repair I had taken it to a local motoculture shop to complete hadn’t been done, or wasn’t effective, so it had to be taken back so no chance of cutting the lawn again for a number of weeks – although the chances of the weather letting me do so are pretty slim but it won’t stop growing.

Sadly, another repair that wasn’t effective, despite it appearing to be so having tested, was the dishwasher fault that I tried to resolve last week.  We have ordered a new pump and hose to fit so I will have to dismantle it again when they arrive.

I have mentioned in my last couple of blogs that we are really pleased that, this year, despite the rain, we have welcomed more guests to Kergudon during the autumn months.  Last week we had a Belgian couple stay with us in Priory and took advantage of Dave’s cooking for 2 evenings which they loved.  Hopefully the word of Kergudon is spreading far and wide as we have welcomed more Belgian guests in 2019 as we had for the preceding 4 years.

This weekend we have hosted a couple who David first met as one used to attend the gym in Morlaix where David worked.  As they became friends, they were also kind enough to have become our official ‘translators’ for our French website, information packs and any other important material and as payment-in-kind we offered them Hayloft for a weekend which they took advantage this week.  It also meant we could take them to Au Lac and enjoy one of Mercedes’ annual Far Eastern ‘discovery’ menus – Malaysia this week.

It was delicious, and almost as delicious as the Indian discovery we enjoyed last week!

Kenavo.

Sunday 03 November – Rain, rain go away!

I am now officially bored with the autumnal weather this year.  Ever since we moved to Brittany in 2015, the autumns have been periods of beautifully crisp, clear, sometimes sunny days with minimal rainfall.  This year it seems to be making up for the last 4 and has continued to be wet, windy and generally unpleasant for outdoor work of which we have lots of plans and ideas.

That said, as I alluded to in last week’s blog, despite the weather we are welcoming more autumnal guests than we ever have and so, with the gîtes occupied, there isn’t so many large inside jobs that I can get on with either.  Not that there is so much to do internally until we start our Priory project in the New Year.

One external job that we have had started, as opposed to starting ourselves, is the tree work on the large sycamores on our SW boundary.  These trees have grown pretty large and consequently block out a lot of light to our neighbours garden in the morning and our garden in the afternoon.  Being sycamores they seed very readily and every year there are thousands of new small trees in the beds. Our biggest fear is that in a good SW’ly wind they may come down, in the worst scenario, right on top of Stable!

Our tree surgeon has made some good progress in the couple of days he has been with us and there is already a lot more light coming into the orchard.

It has generated a lot of wood that we will be able to burn in a couple of years when it is seasoned but also a lot of smaller branch waste that I will need to clear up.  Thankfully, I have been allowed a new ‘toy’ to do this that I shall show you when we start!  We hope that another couple of days and the woodsman will have cut all he can and just the tidying up will remain.

While our tree surgeon has been able to work outside for a couple of days in the rain his motivation is different from mine and the jobs I want to do are likely to cause more damage to the ground and be muddier so I’ve not stated.  I have however finished clearing above Dave’s gym that we started last week and I have done all I can to the new door for Granary in preparation for it being fitted.

David has continued to do some of his Christmas cooking.  This week has been fig chutney and his amazing piccalilli so there has been some amazing smells in the house again.

Looking ahead to the coming week there doesn’t seem to be much of a break in the changeable weather – I’m going to have to take up a hobby at this rate because I can’t progress too much else until it does and there’s no more rugby to use as an excuse!

À bientôt.

Sunday 27th October – Danshari

Last week I didn’t post a blog as the ‘Breton’ weather meant that we hadn’t made any great leaps forward.  In the apology I posted on Facebook I said that the forecast for the last 7 days was ‘actually pretty good’ and so I had hoped to have a lot to update.

However, the fair forecast has dramatically changed by the time we woke up on Monday morning and the last 7 days turned out to be as wet and Breton as the previous 7.  As such, again, there hasn’t been the major progress on a number of tasks that we would like.

In my last blog, I said that we had started to sort out our store room for the first time since I built it and that we would probably need to do the same thing with the space above Dave’s gym.  Indeed the title of today’s blog has been taken from the advertising associated with the rugby world cup currently taking place in Japan.

For those who haven’t been watching, some of the advertising during the coverage includes Japanese words and their English translations.  Danshari is translated as ‘there is art in decluttering’, which I thought was absolutely perfect for this blog.  While it took a day to empty the store room into the games, it took best part of 3 days to put it all back!  It was so much easier just to take things out and find some floor space than it was to look at it critically; decide if we need to keep or throw, if to keep how often we use it and so where to store it; and finally to store in it’s new, easily accessible place.

The previous blog also mentioned that we would need to do the same decluttering to the space above Dave’s gym as well as it will be where we can store items that we will probably need but very irregularly.

That space had also been used to put lots of things that we didn’t want to dispose of previously but had left in an even more disorganised state.  Lots of room was taken up with the boxes all of the items we initially bought when we refurbished the gîtes including televisions, stereos etc.  As that was almost 5 years ago (doesn’t time fly!) they are all out of warranty so we felt now was a good time to dispose of them all.

Other things that we had chosen to hang onto from before our time were many unmatched wine glasses (added to with some of our own); old crockery; throws and blankets; kitchen items and anything that we thought we might, even vaguely, use in the future.  Not having used any of it in the last 5 years we took the opportunity to clear it out.

The storeroom is restocked, and looks like a mini-mart, while the gym space needs another morning’s work.

About the only other major project that I have managed to progress is priming and staining what will be the new door for Granary.

The existing door, and frame, have been on our list to replace pretty much since we got here and we have had to make a couple of repairs to it.  Unfortunately, late this summer, the latch bolt, which had previously been stuck inside the door and so was ineffective, chose to spring into the recess in the frame, where it should have been, but not so it could be retracted with the handle.  The only way we could access the gîte was to cut a small piece out of the door frame and cut off the latch bolt.  Not the look we strive for!

Rather than make another repair to the door, we have made the decision and asked a friendly carpenter to make us a new door and frame which we think will be more attractive than the existing one anyway and allow more light in the gîte.  He delivered these, in kit form, last week and I have started to paint and stain the relevant sides before it can be fitted.

David’s Christmas preparations have continued this week and today he has made 6 Christmas cakes.  Unfortunately, while the fruit was soaking for 24 hours I have been unable to enjoy the lovely smells as, for the last 2 days, I have been suffering from the first cold of the season.  With David having a similar bug last week hopefully we will now have our immune systems strengthened up for what the rest of the winter brings!

Assuming I can shake the bug off completely, next week looks to be a busy one as we have a number of guests arriving for our busiest autumnal week yet.  Unfortunately the weather forecast looks terrible for the next 7 days – let’s hope it is as inaccurate tonight as it was last Sunday!

Salut.

Sunday 13 October – Store-my Weather

I mentioned at the end of last week’s blog that, while we had made some momentum the previous week, the weather forecast for last week was likely to stall that – and so it proved to be the case.  As such, this blog won’t be terribly long …

We did experience some damp autumnal weather interspersed with a couple of bright, warm, sunny days.  David’s parents were still with us at the start of the week and, on Monday, one of the wet days, while they visited the Leclerc exhibition we had seen with my Dad, not wanting to waste an entire day, we started a good ‘wet weather project’ – clearing and sorting our store room.

The store room is the half of the first floor of the garage (Grange) which isn’t the games room.  Since completing it, it has made a huge difference to our lives.  Not least because we have been able to store things previously taking up space in our home but because, when we change the gîtes over it gives us a single space where we can gather everything we need.

However, being a large useful space, it has also become an area where we can accumulate things that perhaps we don’t need to hang onto (I may have mentioned that I don’t throw much away!)  Now seemed like a good time to empty the space out, remind ourselves what’s in it, and then restock it in such a way that we are able to better see what we have.  It is the first time the room has been empty since I built it.

It is amazing how much ‘stuff’ we have managed to accumulate and is quite therapeutic sorting it out.  Amazingly (for me) some of the items, which we will never need, will be thrown out and others, which we may need but irregularly, will be stored above Dave’s gym.  What this means is that we will need to do the same sorting to that space next week.

Tuesday was the best day of the week by far, but it was also a significant day for Dave’s Mum so we took the day off and went with them to Camaret-sur-Mer at the end of the Crozon peninsular for a lovely lunch.  There are a number of great restaurants at Camaret and we tried a new one, for us, which was part of a small spa hotel but ideally located with a terrace overlooking the marina.  It was actually really hot and we had a lovely meal before coming home where David produced an equally amazing dinner in the evening.

David’s parents left us on Wednesday morning and we’ve not made any great strides since.  On the only other fairly dry day we have started to clear a wood pile in front of the Dairy building.  The wood is principally the remains of the apple trees which were either blown over or we have cut from the orchard.  It is starting to season, having been cut down a couple of years ago, but is open to the elements so gets wet and then dries on a regular basis which is not good for it, or terribly attractive just inside our main entrance.

After an afternoon of cutting and splitting we have made a significant dent in the pile and should have it cleared after another day or so of work – when it dries up!

Today has been a reasonably good day as well but, being a Sunday, we don’t like to make too much noise so didn’t want to start using the chain saw again.  The ground is also completely sodden so I didn’t want to do anything in the garden (at least that’s my excuse) so we have had to take the tough option and watch some amazing games in the Rugby World Cup.

We think it can be windy here but watching the devastation in Japan yesterday really puts things into perspective.  I have only visited Japan once, and found it the most fascinating place with wonderfully hospitable people, and our thoughts go out to those affected by Typhoon Hagibis.  We were amazed that they were able to continue to stage the rugby and Formula 1 race today after such an event, and watched the most fantastic game to rugby between Japan and Scotland which was the best advert for the sport we could imagine and one that Japan thoroughly deserved to win.  Our thoughts go out to the Scots too – to a much lesser degree.

As we have made it to the end of the summer season, we are looking ahead to the Christmas break (already, I know!)  David has put a new video together to highlight our gîtes as the perfect place to spend your festive break as a couple, family or extended group.  Please do share with your friends.

Next week’s efforts again are determined significantly by the weather which isn’t looking great – where have our crisp, dry autumns gone?  I hope we will be able to find sufficient things to keep ourselves occupied.

Kenavo.

Sunday 6 October – Thorny issue

I said, at the end of last week’s blog, that autumns have often proven to be productive times for us in getting things done – and that it was about time we started making progress again.  Thankfully, this week we have made more progress than perhaps any previous one since the start of the summer season even with Dave’s parents with us and the changeable weather!

One entire day was spent taming the wisteria we planted a few years ago in front of Priory.  Evidently it likes the position we have chosen for it as it has grown considerably.  We always wanted a wisteria as they always look good growing over the front of an old building and are beautiful when fully in flower.

Having researched, we saw that there are 2 types of wisteria, Chinese and Japanese, one which twists clockwise and the other anticlockwise.  We knew that pretty much all commercially available plants are grated to ensure they flower.  Ours came from a local garden centre and we know that it flowers, as it did a bit this year, but it appears to have 2 grafted stems, one twisting clockwise and the other anti-clockwise so, it appears, that we may have got ‘lucky’ and have one of each!

This does however make things complex when it comes to training it.  Wisteria care I believed was extremely complex and, unless you get it right, the plant either doesn’t grow very happily and / or doesn’t flower as profusely as it could.  Despite having been given guidance from our keen gardening neighbour, I still don’t really know if I’m doing it right.  When I trained the thin leader shoots during the summer most of them died and so didn’t help form the shape I wanted.  I left the whole thing until now and it had become a mass of tangled and twisted shoots some of which were extremely long and starting to grow between the slate and under the roof tiles.

Having spent a long time trying to unwind the shoots carefully and choose the strongest and best placed to extend the frame eventually I became a bit more brutal.  It has at least now got to a size that I can start to train above the doors.   I only hope that next spring it is fairly forgiving, produces lot flower and continues to grow happily.

During the damper days of the week I continued to clear out the garage (heard that before have you?) but have managed to empty the end bay furthest from the house.

This has made us think again about what to put on the ground.  Initially we had planned on a system of sand, plastic (to prevent moisture rising through the floor) and gravel but now we favour a concrete floor.  We will do this ourselves but probably not for a couple weeks until we have a dry few days.

When it was, mostly, dry Dave and I also started to clear a(nother) forgotten corner of the garden, this one behind the Stable (which is now watertight again as our roofer did appear last Monday!)

The area immediately behind Stable is a little out of sight, out of mind, so we hadn’t done anything to it other than dump branches we cut down a few years ago before we had the ability to cut them up easily or transport them to the déchetterie.   As a result the brambles had taken over and were the only things growing there.

While it had always been on our list to clear this area, it has now become the focus as we have asked a tree surgeon to come and remove all of the trees on that boundary.  Before he can do this he asked us to clear the brambles from underneath.  It is always sad losing trees but these are predominantly self-set sycamores (i.e. BIG weeds) which haven’t grown to form a nice shape and, being on top of a talus (stone wall) may not be as well anchored as they could be so vulnerable to a big storm in the future.  Taking them out this year removes any risk and ensures we get more light into the garden.  We will replace them with other, more interesting tress – elsewhere!

Rather than just cut the top of the brambles off, we have begun to dig out as much of the root as possible which, as you can see, has unearthed lots more slate which I can use to build another wall.  Removing the roots will help prevent them growing back too quickly and we will also mulch with chippings of the tree branches when they are felled.  This may not happen for a few weeks, months potentially but it will be a big change and we will certainly show you in my blogs.

Just clearing the bramble off the front wall has made Kergudon visible from that part of Hent Gorreker so, in the spring, we will plant some new hedging and cut back the old buxus and privet which is there which should create a lovely hidden spot behind Stable for a terrace that we will build.  Something else to add to the list!

Finally, I mentioned in the last blog that the commune had plans to resurface Hent Gorreker and they did so this week.  It looks pretty good – let’s see how long that lasts – and has allowed me to tidy the front access to Stable and use a small amount of the gravel pile on our drive for the first time in a while!

Good momentum gained this week, my fear is that it may be lost again next as the weather looks decidedly iffy!

Salut.

Sunday 29 September – Rakish behaviour

Apologies again for not posting a blog last Sunday.  Not within my control this time but a result of being cut off from the internet (again) for a few days.

Looking back, it has been a period of slow progress on a number of things with a number of smaller jobs tackled and, this week at least, no major outside work as autumn seems to have arrived early.

The week before last we certainly enjoyed the better of the weather which allowed me to continue various small tasks in the garden.  The most major of these was to scarify one of the lawns.  The French don’t seem to understand what they see the English attachment to a well maintained lawn, and they often comment on the frequency we cut the grass.  This frequent cutting has certainly improved the grass at Kergudon hugely since we arrived but we think it could be better!

In previous years we have applied weed and feed to the lawns, generally in the spring, but we have never removed the old thatch and moss which grows through most of it.  To do this manually would be impossible so, earlier this year, we treated ourselves to a petrol driven scarifier.  The one thing we had been told, and read, about scarifying lawns is that they make them look terrible for a few weeks so we were keen to do it when we didn’t have many guests but when the weather was warm, and wet, enough to allow the grass to recover.

We have only managed to do one area of lawn, and not the largest one at that.  Following my Google research I started cutting the lawn and clearing away the clippings and then scarified at the machine’s shallowest setting.  They weren’t wrong it would make a mess!  Despite the scarifier having a collection box, it is so ridiculously small I decided to leave it off and clear the debris away manually – perhaps not the best idea!  The scarifying took about 40 minutes, the clearing away a couple of hours and filled our trailer with moss.

Having raked it up I thought I would scarify it again in another direction but at the same depth.  Thinking that, doing it at the same depth, it would generate only a fraction of the waste than the first pass.  Nope – almost exactly the same amount although this time I chose to use the lawn mower as a vacuum to remove the moss but, as there was so much, it meant having to empty the mower bag after every 15 metres or so and filled a second trailer.  I didn’t then try and scarify it at a deeper setting this time thinking there wouldn’t be anything left.

Having completed it, it doesn’t look completely bare so hopefully what remains will recover quickly.  The weather should help having been a mix of rain and sunshine to encourage it to grow – although we have also had a lot of wind which has covered the grass with the falling sycamore leaves which probably won’t help.

I hope we will see the full results next spring when I intend to scarify it again (and the other lawn areas) as well as add some more top soil in some of the hollows, and re-seed where the lawn has got most patchy.

It wasn’t only us who was doing some ‘industrial’ gardening.  Last Thursday the commune, who are planning to re-surface Hent Gorreker in the next couple of weeks, sent a team to cut the edges more brutally than they had ever done.  We understand this is because the re-surfacing machine they will be using is quite large and wouldn’t get through with any overhanging branches.  You can see from these pictures that the cut was quite brutal on our neighbour’s hedge to the right.  We have been cutting our hedge, on the left, since we got here to give it a better shape and fill it out.

The cutting has assisted in some areas especially where it has cut the trees to increase the distance to the power cables so reducing the risk of the branches breaking our power supply.  They have also much reduced the height of the hedge next to Granary, which isn’t looked after by its owner, and so increased the amount of light into Granary’s garden.  However, they didn’t assist anyone when their cutting efforts included cutting the telephone cable for our half of the village – hence us being offline last Sunday.

Being in a ‘zone blanche’, one where there is very limited mobile connectivity, we weren’t able to call our phone provider (SFR) and let them know.  We decided to go to Sizun as we knew we could both call SFR and complain to the Marie at the same time.  SFR seemed to be fairly efficient this time and told us they would send an engineer on Saturday afternoon (of course no one turned up) and, while the Marie told us they had contacted the phone company, they didn’t seem too motivated to assist any of us get back online.

I was back to visiting a neighbour twice a day to download mails over the weekend and, thankfully, we were reconnected on Monday.

In that week we also had the first piece of work done in preparation for the revamp of Priory next year.  At present, Priory’s electricity supply is the same as our own house, Hayloft and Stable.  We want to provide it with an independent supply so, in a piece of joined-up work that was probably more coincidence that planned, Enedis (the power company) did the digging required to install a new box behind Granary last week before the road gets resurfaced.  They will be back to make the relevant connections next week.

It has gone behind Granary as this is the closest point within our boundary. We will then have to dig the trench and install the cable to Priory as part of the work we will be doing next year.

This week the weather has been very autumnal at times and meant that I have had to focus internally.  One day was spent almost entirely online updating the agency websites we use to advertise the cottages.  Some are very straightforward to amend, others a complete nightmare, and of course, there isn’t some clever piece of software that allows me to make one set of changes that then gets fed to all of these commercial sites.  Having spent a day doing this we received a booking through an agency we have used for a couple of years, without much success, for a weekend in November.  Maybe a coincidence or perhaps I will need to spend more time in these sites – joy!

I had another constructive day cleaning out our fish tank.  When we lived in London, I had a fish tank built for a specific position in our kitchen.  As it was made to measure, and quite large, it wasn’t very cheap.  I did make an effort to sell it before we came to France but, as we didn’t want to give it away we weren’t successful so it came with us and has stood in our lounge ever since – but not cleaned.

Regrettably it doesn’t, and won’t, match the décor in Kergudon so, I have reluctantly agreed to try and sell it again.  To advertise it I have had to clean it out and it looks great again.  Hopefully we will be able to sell it but at least we have something more attractive to look at in the meantime.  If you know anyone who would like a 500 litre fish tank do let us know …

David’s parents arrived with us this morning after a bumpy crossing and we have been to one of the village’s annual social events – the cochon grillé.  The event is to mark the feast of Saint Cadou which is 21^st September.  In true Saint Cadou style, rather than a religious ceremony and parade as other villages have, we hold a hog-roast so we can eat and drink and socialise.  Much better.

Next week’s efforts will very much depend on the weather again and the rugby world cup(!) – although we do hope our local roofer is coming tomorrow as Stable has sprung a leak and all of the lovely work I did in the spring is at risk of getting damaged.  Looking at the forecast it doesn’t look great but, in previous year’s, autumn has always been very productive and I do get the feeling that it was about time we started making major changes again!

Salut.

Sunday 15 September – Curiouser and curiouser

My apologies for not posting a blog last week – you will see why shortly.

I ended my last blog 2 weeks ago saying that while my Dad and his wife had arrived with us it shouldn’t prevent me progressing work specifically, clearing out the garage that I had eventually gotten around to starting.

As things turned out, it wasn’t having visitors that meant I had a slow week but my back.  Many years ago I had major back pains for a while which, obviously, I didn’t do anything about.  While they went away, it does mean that every few years without cause or warning, my back revolts.  In the worst cases this immobilises me for a few days, in the best cases it means I am just a bit more restricted in my movement.  Thankfully, this time it was the latter and, having been given a warning twinge, I decided to take things very easily for a few days and allow my back to recover.

This meant that the progress I had made clearing the garage stalled – again!  It didn’t stop us accompanying my Dad and his wife to Landerneau for a day to visit this year’s summer exhibition at the Leclerc Foundation.

In previous year’s blogs I have mentioned that the French supermarket chain, E. Leclerc, began in the town of Landerneau a short distance from us.  As the Leclerc family gained their fortune, they established a cultural foundation and built a fabulous exhibition space on the site of their original supermarket.

In previous years, with the name Leclerc behind it, the foundation has been able to hold exhibitions of major artists including, most recently, Chagall, Picasso and Henry Moore.  This year they have chosen to do something a little different and their summer exhibition is called ‘Cabinets de Curiosités’.

As the name suggests it is an eclectic mix of objects from various private and public collections to create, on a grand scale, the very traditional idea of a Cabinet of Curiosities.

The style of exhibition divided our small party, and so I assume most visitors, as to whether it held the interest as a single artist show.  There was certainly a mix of the odd, the fascinating and the unusual as well some more macabre mixing the scientific, medical, natural, and mechanical worlds as an old cabinet would have done.

It was certainly worth a visit.

When my Dad left us we were joined by David’s aunt and uncle for the social event of the year.  As regular visitors to Kergudon they have become friends with some of our friends, including the owner of Au Lac restaurant, Mercedes.  Mercedes reached a milestone birthday in June but, as the restaurant is obviously busiest in the summer months, she had delayed her big party until last weekend.

Having her teenage years in the 80s, Mercedes has chosen to have an 80s themed party and we were all suitably costumed.  Sadly, there are no images of David and I but Mercedes looked amazing as Madonna (one of 3 all managing to capture another aspect of Madonna’s styles in that decade)!

It was a fabulous party, and weekend indeed, as very generously, Mercedes opened Au Lac to her guests on the Sunday for a crepe party at lunchtime and burgers in the evening.

I think it is fair to say that a good time was had by all and HUGE thanks from us to Mercedes for such a great a time and her generosity.

Sadly for David’s family, and our other guests, last week was not the usual Indian summer we have got used to in September so progress outside wasn’t great.

With a better back however I did manage to progress lots of small tasks and continue with the garage clearing to the point that I have nearly emptied one of the 4.  The bay I have started with became the dumping ground for lots of wood – now mostly in the serre – but also lots of slate tile offcuts and pieces that I unearthed when digging the foundations and clearing the back boundary.

I have often acknowledged that I am a bit of a hoarder of things that may eventually have a purpose. Having kept these bits of slate for so long, I didn’t want to just take them to the déchetterie so thought that we could use them as a weed suppressant under the hedge that borders the pétanque pitch.

The base of the hedge gets very weedy and doesn’t look great so I wanted to add them here.  However, before doing this I needed to break them up a little more as some were in too large pieces to look good.  This meant I spent the best part of a day fundamentally breaking rocks as if sentenced to hard labour.  Thankfully we don’t cost our time for these jobs and the result looks great.

While we don’t have enough bits to complete the whole hedge, it has helped clear the garage bay floor and we may then buy some more next year to finish the job.

I have managed to achieve a number of other more minor tasks (clearing away this year’s sweet pea plants and replacing them with conifers; washing most of the sun bed cushions in preparation for next year; hedge and grass cutting) and should have that bay cleared with a couple of additional days labour next week.

The week ended with another ‘cultural’ event, that annual Commana Foire à l’ancienne (Horse Fair) which was bathed in sunshine.  Again, while still not in the market for chickens or ducks (one day …) it is an interesting fair to visit for a few hours to look around the livestock and brocante stalls.  We were very restrained and only bought some saucisson.

The sunshine appears to be with us for a week or so which should mean I can make good progress on a number of things – the difficulty will be choosing which should be this week’s priority!

Kenavo.

Sunday 01 September – Already Autumn

I can’t believe that it is already September and so we have begun meteorological autumn today.  Thankfully during our time in France, September seems to bring warm and dry weather, at least during the days, and the longer it takes for the evenings and nights to cool off the better.

Having made it to September, I have succeeded in putting the garage clearance off for as long as I could – although this wasn’t a deliberate or conscious decision.  This week however I have, finally, been clearing out the bays and moving wood into the, recently recovered, serre or my, recently completed, chimenea wood store.

Last week I promised some images of the new wood store, and you may recall from an earlier blog that we are trying to create a Moroccan / Arabic style to our terrace as we had attempted to do when we lived in London.  In our minds, and as a sort of homage to Majorelle gardens in Marrakech, this means bold colours especially blues and yellows which has led to our store looking quite striking now that it is complete!

We wanted a wood shed on the terrace as a ready-use store for our chimenea, which, I may have mentioned before, I really love!!  With all the wood we have around the place at present some is old and rotten so wouldn’t be any real use in the wood burning stoves to heat the houses, and some we wouldn’t want to risk keeping inside because of the wood and possible insects.

With the large blue pots we bought a couple of weeks ago now planted with some lovely bright plants to lighten things, our terrace is starting (4½ years after moving in) to look a little like how we want it!  We have lots of other ideas and thoughts for additional things but they can wait for now – plenty of other things to do first.

The major thing is the garage.  You may recall that we had erected our serre a few weeks back but the cover was nearly blown off in a storm.  Thankfully we were able to recover it and re-secured it with additional bungees and straps and now we are able to start filling it.  You can see in the picture how well the grass has started to grow on the new smaller slope alongside Stréat al Louarn – so much that I gave it a first mow this week.

The principal idea is to log the wood currently piled in the old veg patch and store it in the serre to dry and season.  However, it also gives us additional space to store the large amount of wood currently in the garage bays.  Much of this are off cuts from the garage and man shed builds which, rather than move into the serre whole, I am splitting into kindling prior to storing. We have many months’ worth and it is taking longer than I’d hoped but I think worth doing this way.

In the short term, as ever, there will be an element of shuffling things between spaces but, when I take a number of things to the déchèterie next week that will further help clear the bays although it may take a few weeks yet.

We have recently said goodbye to some lovely guests who have been kind enough to leave us glowing reviews on Trip Advisor that I thought I’d share with you as we’re quite pleased with them.

My Dad and his wife arrived with us yesterday for a few days stay although it shouldn’t prevent me progressing the work … You’ll see next week!

À bientôt.