I think June is one of the nicest months in the Dordogne . The weather is warm but not too hot, all tourist attractions are open, there are visitors here but not too many and nicest of all, the farmers are cutting the hay opposite the house. I could spend hours lying by the pool watching the farmers cut the hay, sift it and then bail it:

So here is what we have been up to:

Swimming Pool

After Dan attached the rails:

the liner was fitted:

and then we started to fill it up, v v exciting:

three days later, the pool is full:

hoorah….just in time for it to rain – typical! And who is that mad haired woman dipping into the freezing cold water:

more to the point, who is the sexy pool attendant…hello!

Despite my moaning about the Batiment de France insisting that we have a sand coloured liner, I think it actually looks quite nice and gives the water a turquoise blue type look

Pool House

Before the water could go in the pool, we had to build (obviously the royal “we”), Dan had to build the pool house to fit the filtration for the pool. 5 days later and at least as many arguments about the design of the thing, Dan had the basic structure of the walls and roof in place:

The old beams (taken from the gite floor) look amazing. We are to clad the breeze block with an external stone wall so it looks like the other stone walls and crepi the inside.

Presently, the roof has a polycarbonate type roofing which doesn't look very pretty but it will have decrepit canal tiles on the top to make it look old and fit in better with its surroundings and we put a sort of woody covering underneath for the same reason:

As you can imagine, the construction department and the design department were coming from different angles on this one but hopefully with the 3 coverings it'll look nice and it won't leak!

The first comment we have had on the pool house was, “I see, very Club Tropicana! Let's hope the drinks are free.”

At which point, I was conjuring up images of Andrew Ridgely sitting on a rubber inflatable sipping cocktails before Pepsi and Shirley tip him over – oh those heady 80's days…sorry I digress!

Goodness me, get a grip…what were talking about..oh yeh back to building a pool house..mmm..not quite so interesting!

We crepied the interior of the equipment room (locale technique) before fitting the filtration, salt machine, pump etc:

He tried to explain the salt thing to me (as opposed to chlorine), something about electrolysis, but I was still thinking about Andrew Ridgely to be honest. I tried to explain that I just wanted to swim in the pool, not sort out the chemical imbalance of it – luckily Dan fairly swiftly realized, when I said that electrolysis was a method of hair removal, that that was a job for him!

The flowerbed that Mum and Aunty Rosemary is also looking more and more impressive, making the whole pool area more and more inviting:

Outside the Gite

Before:

After:

Dan took a pneumatic drill to the water cistern, removing the concrete lid:

Dan was covered:

Having removed a large proportion of the cistern, we used the stone to start to build a wall.

We also inserted a drain, directing the surface water away from the house. It now flows from the road down the commune path:

The New Tool Room

I finally finished removing our belongings from the house into the gite. Meanwhile, Dan constructed himself a workshop in the pigeonnier barn – well, I've never seen him so pleased with himself – to everyone that came over, he said,”have you seen my workshop” – so proud….whatever makes you happy, I suppose. So I thought I better show you the beautiful, the magnificent, the best room in the whole place, I give you “The Workshop”:

Visitors

We had many visitors in these two months.

Dan's parents came again. We all canoed down the Dordogne – and here's a shot of Dan's mum, looking very comfortable

Then Michelle, Neil, Saskia and Molly arrived for the weekend:

Very exciting being at Aunty Sally and Dan's house:

And then,… we heard it first:

Not often do we see or hear a porshe pottering through the sleepy village of Gaumier . Chris and Annee arrived, unfortunately for them, a week too soon – just before the water went into the pool:

They were only here for 2 days but they were the talk of the village for a week afterwards. Hilarious - all the Oldies (over 80's!) in the village talking about cars in their hayday. Everyone seemed to have seen it!

Courgette City

….is crazy! Sooooooo many courgettes, I've been giving them away all over the village. People see me approaching, courgettes in hand and turn hotly on their heels, heading for the hills, muttering in French, “oh no lets hope she hasn't seen me, we've had enough of courgettes!”

Here is a small sample. I have made courgette soup by the gallon – so watch out visitors!

You may recall that my courgette seeds grew into plants with different leaves to those plants given to me by the lady from the chateaux – well I was right! The chateaux lady's plants have gone crazy, growing up and down the garden in a vine like fashion:

Turns out that one plant is pumpkin and the other seems to be some kind of squash/gourd – interesting! More soup anyone!

Cucumber Crisis

has pulled through. Thankfully only 3 of the plants came through as we also had masses of cucumbers but people seem to appreciate those a little more.

Leek Lane

I decided not to waste valuable soil space with the iris so I planted carrotsand lettuces instead. They seem to be making a good start but it has been so hot here (40 degrees upwards – one day hitting 49 degrees) for 15 days non stop and continuing, the ground is so parched that I'm not sure how successful they will be, but the lettuces have taken off:

Tomato World

Thank you all for your kind words for Tomato World, many have enquired as to its health this year and given sterling words of encouragement…

Alas, though Tomato World has not suffered any deaths this year and is providing a decent enough crop, it is looking weak and feeble. No matter how much water I give it, it continues to be thirsty with the extreme heat. We can't grumble, mind, as we have had some very tasty tomatoes. I am going to sit by it tonight, and give it a bit of attention, I think it may be suffering from ATS (attention deficit syndrome,) see, I can't help thinking that it is a jealousy thing – jealous of the time I've spent tending the vegetables!