Sunday 11 March – Avoiding the Showers

Last week’s blog stated that, weather permitting, I would continue to work in the garden and progressing Grange.  Well, while the weather was considerably warmer than the previous week, it was much much wetter.  However, I did manage to alternate between the 2 tasks and progress both – although I would have been able to make much more progress had it been drier!

Having started to clear the flower bed at the north end of the orchard on my own the previous week, this week, with David on hand to pull on a rope, we managed to clear the remainder of the bed.

Orchard North bed cleared

At the same time, we have cut down the penultimate apple tree which remained in, what we will continue to call, the orchard.  This tree was the least productive of all the trees which were in the orchard when we arrived, and was evidently not in great health.  Having cut it down we saw that much of the centre of the trunk had rotted away at the base which explained why it was in poor health and, in time, may have caused it to fall naturally.

Orchard's Penultimate Apple About to be Felled

Tree Felled

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since cutting all the trees down the weather has remained pretty wet so I am yet to clear the wood off the lawn and we have not yet enlarged the bed or planted.  Actually, having cut the trees down we like the huge change in the amount of light getting to Hayloft and our own bed so when we do plant the remaining cherries, we will probably put them elsewhere anyway!

Orchard felling complete

 

Also with Dave able to assist with the felling, we cut down 2 more trees on one of our boundaries to allow more sunlight into our neighbour’s garden.  We would like to fell another 8 when the weather allows, all of which are pretty thin and feeble being self-set many years before and only prevent the stronger trees growing properly.

We are at least starting to make a large stockpile of firewood which will be great in a couple of years when it is seasoned.

As the weather has remained showery – very showery – for the majority of the week, I changed focus back to completing the plastic lambris ceiling in the car bays of Grange.  I managed to finish all 4 bays after 3 days work which has allow me to start cladding inside the bays themselves.  Sadly, I didn’t get very far as the wood had become saturated even under the tarpaulin I had put it.  This makes it difficult to cut and liable to shrink when it is attached and dries out so I prefer to wait and clad when the wood is already dry.

Grange Bay Ceilings Complete

Also, as hoped in last week’s blog, we did manage to move our wardrobes from our own bedroom to the space we had created last week on the landing so we are now even making progress in our own home – it’s only taken to our 4th  year!

With the wet weather, David has been able to progress some maintenance in Priory’s bathroom and repaint the floor among other things.

This year David has volunteered to become involved in the village’s Comité des fêtes which arranges many of the social events in the village.  On Friday, we joined them for, what we thought was to be a meeting in the pub – best location!  However, it turned out to be more a social event and we spent some time discussing the following day’s ‘Le Crunch’ rugby match between France and England.  However, after yesterday’s lacklustre performance by the English I am not sure I want to meet some of my neighbours for a while …!!

Again, the weather will determine to a great extent what I get done next week, but there are lots of things on the list …

Salut.