Stephen & Madeleine Kear's Holiday Gites In France

After Stephen's exhausting years and demanding schedules as a violinist in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra we left it all behind us to run idyllic gites in the Gartempe Valley, La Vienne, France.

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Summer of Fetes, Fireworks & Building

The summer rolls on as we move towards August. The month of July has been so busy spent working on the grange (our larger gite conversion) running the studio gite and attending all of the social functions that exist in July. There have been numerous fetes ending in amazing spectacular firework displays. Village barbecues and parties. I think this is possibly my favourite month of the year here in France.
The present state of our build consists of virtually having finished the partition walling of the upper floor with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Madeleine has developed the art of 'enduit' (lime rendering the walls). Unfortunately she has aquired burns from the lime as she washed the rendering to expose the old stone.