Falconry at Chateau Milandes
The Planning Application
The mayor popped round – had a look inside the barn (gite 1), agreed that
we were getting on very well but then announced that the architect came over
on the Monday 3rd May to submit the planning application – what???????????????????????
The architect told us that he had made the application 2 months before! So we
have now wasted 2 months – great! This is like an episode of “No
going back”, when the harvest fails or the vines get some disease or they’ve
failed to get bookings because the websites were not finished soon enough –
we are all sentenced to doom and gloom and lack of funds, its touch and go whether
we return to England or stay to see out the winter – hysteria prevails
– will we kill the architect? Will we cut the architect up into little
bits and eat him? There is nothing we can do, Dan thinks we will just change
the order of works! Two weeks later, we heard that the planning department is
a month and half late with applications - oh wonderful. I was not happy, surely
something can be done, I know, lets sack the French Prime Minister, it must
be his fault!
The Trench
After 10 days of 30 degree sun, the night before the day the trench was to be
refilled, it absolutely threw it down! Fantastic, we love mud. Despite the rain,
our friendly digger came:
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Next, the builders rebuilt the wall that fell down when the trench was dug:
The Garden
The Box
We set to work in the garden. Though not very experienced, we recognized that
the box needed pruning and perhaps cut down a bit so that it would be more manageable
in future and will thicken at the bottom. Very enthusiastically, we began to
prune; first with the loppers then with the chainsaw – unfortunately we
didn’t appreciate how intertwined the shrub had become and before we knew
it, a trunk was chainsawed and half the bush fell - 0000pps think we got carried
away – it’ll grow – how many times have you heard that when
you’ve had a bad haircut:
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And the last picture is Dan looking for a french person that is going to vote 'yes' in the referendum...."no" he confirms, "there are definately none around these parts, not even the Mayor!"
The fallen wall on the gites side
Hoorah, the wall has been rebuilt by our amazing French builders:
Before and during:
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Whilst the wall was being built we had the most amazing 5 minute hail storm. The hail was like chick peas - massive! and within minutes there was about 5 cm of water - the road was like a river and all the water was gushing down into the half built wall. We did all we could to divert the water but within seconds we were drenched through - very strange:
Mr Villards was lovin' it:
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Finally the wall was virtually finished:
The fallen walls on the house side
Also rebuilt:
Before:
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Uncovered Rock and more walls
I found more areas of rock which I uncovered:
But first he designed a way to mix concrete at the top and lower it down so that we didn't have to cart everything to the bottom. Very effective:
Entrance to Garden on House side
We cleared this and then jet – hosed it with a pressure washer:
Shopping
Tomato World
We would like to introduce you to Tomato world, comprising 7 tomato plants of
3 different varieties. When we purchased the plants from Cazals market, 6 of
them looked slightly weak, so I fed them and planted them and hoped for a strong
recovery:
Tomato World is proving very popular with the tourists, especially the Japanese:
Tomato World is proving a rather traumatic venture. In the first week of opening, the Doctor was summoned - one of the plants appeared to take a definite turn for the worst – I really don’t understand why – I did nothing wrong; I planted it in "shop bought" nourished soil. I watered and fed it each evening, put it in full sunshine and yet….
The Doctor prescribed the snap technique where by you snap off all the shoots which were wilting/had wilted and sit and wait! It was a very anxious time. By the end of May things were not looking good at all and with no carte vitale or health insurance to fall back upon there was nothing to be done. The E111 was called upon but it was too late, there was a death in tomato world - it was very very sad;
The remaining 6 plants at Tomato World were coming along well by the end of May - lets hope they are as resilient as Chirac!!
Tune in for next months' episode of Tomato World.
Box Heaven
With an abundance of box, Mum, Aunt Rose and I bought a couple of oversized
pots and planted some snippings of box with the intention of moulding them into
box balls – very grand ideas. So far so good but let’s not speak
too soon as I manage to kill most things:
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Ummmmmm at the end of May, Box heaven doesn't seem to be faring so well:
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What can I possibly have done wrong?
Wildlife
Laurance the lizard and his many merry men asked if he could make a guest appearance on the website, so Dan held his hand to show him the ropes and then he thought he'd got the hang of it and insisted we took a photo of his best side:
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The mayor and his tractor came over to help us move some rocks and was very excited about our oversized snails which he insisted we collect to eat as he explained to us how to cook garlic snails - even I won't bore you with a pic of a snail.
Snakes - we haven't had the pleasure yet but it seems our time will come as our friends have found several oversized snakes in their wood stores and barns!
Back to slightly nicer things, we leave you this month with a pic of the poppies.
