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.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

stubborn turkeys and cadbury's chocolate

We had sun, clouds, hail, gales, rain, more sun and further showers. When the sun came out it was boiling. When it disappeared it was freezing. At one point the sky was split with blue and black and a rainbow in between. It was all very dramatic and a good distraction from such mundane tasks as doing the tax. Teresa is a problem. Every time one of the chickens lays near her she steals the egg and wont be shifted. The eggs under her are at least a week past their hatching date. We had a nice afternoon in Montmorillon and paused for a coffee outdoors in between showers. This time of year is stunning - everything is so green and fresh and new. HyperU now sells cadbury's chocolate. This is good news.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

switching back from solar to woodburner

Today the cold and rain proved too much. Even yesterday's optimism couldn't power the solar panel sufficiently to heat our water. Monsieur Morin, the local electrician, who I asked help advise on hideous electricity charges, looked at me in a perplexed way when I explained that after the hot weekend I had changed to the solar panel. 'But your house is cold', he said - a statement I thought unneccesary as I spoke to him in muffled tones from the depths of several layers of wool. (Monsieur Morin thinks we are a bit simple and possibly even deficient since he took our dishwasher away for repair and discovered an enormous rat living inside it). It was agreed, anyway, that some electricity might be conserved if I lit the woodburning central heating system again- a task that was mildly depressing as I had reconciled the daily loading up of the beast to the past now that spring had well and truly arrived. The present weather made me regret we did not look into a wind powered system to augment our electrcity. It was certainly sufficiently squally and unpleasant to imagine we could have sourced quite a bit of energy via that route. Added to this misery was the struggle to get the tax for last year somehow ordered. Amazing how many other things I managed to get done in order to avoid this task. I changed bed linen, vacuumed upstairs and down - washed the floor - made various important calls, tried to poke Teresa off her nest (the eggs are well and truly beyond their sell by date) and inspected the plants in the greenhouse. The fact that all my cucumber plants had been guiloteened by an avaricious slug made the day seem ominous. Where did all that lovely weather go?

Monday, April 28, 2008

The Blog is back - read about our progress two years down the track

It's nearly the first of May. Which means in France there is an abundance of lily of the valley about. Everyone enjoys this holiday because it heralds the arrival of spring. We've had the bluebells and the cowslips - now the lilac and wisteria are out. The whole earth is bursting with life. The weekend was hot - unseasonably. We had a beautiful walk through the woods and a cycle ride through local hamlets. 'Avalanche', our three year old spaniel was in her element. After a wet April the plants are growing almost under our eyes.We strimmed and mowed and worked ceaselessly in the garden trying hard to get things under control for a new year of lettings. This is also our first year of preparing a vegetable garden. Now that the build is finished and we are no longer under that pressure our next project is to offer fresh produce to our guests. They already enjoy freshly laid eggs but at present egg production is on the low side due to Teresa the turkey going broody on us.We should have had her at Christmas as was originally planned but once you give an animal a name it is difficult to serve them on a plate. She also has a slightly sad air about her - but maybe that is peculiar to all turkeys. After the hot weekend we turned off the central heating woodburning system and switched to the solar panel. Naturally the clouds gathered and it rained. Have heard the cuckoo and the nightingale and the screech owl. Looking forward to evenings out in the warm night. Thankfuly, they are not that far away.