Outside the Gite

Dan's workshop came into its own this month – I didn't see him for 3 days whilst he chiseled, banged and sawed away, until I managed to get a sneak preview:

What is it? I hear you ask…..a porche…and here it is being constructed, which went up like mechano in a day:

Then to cut the tiles:

And put them on the roof:

We then lined the interior of the porch and here's the finished product:

Entre La maison et La Grange (between the house and the barn)

The mess!

And this pile got bigger. So we drafted in the Lafons with their digger to clear all the debris:

They also dug some trenches outside – which was fantastic because that would have taken Dan at least a week to do by hand!:

La Maison

Dan then continued the trench, through the rock into the house:

We also continued with the new Pigeonnier attached to the house:

Dan also ripped out and sawed up the floor in the sitting room:

Un autre batiment (another building on the other side of the house)

On Simon's last day. He started to pull down one of the rather dilapidated buildings, so that we could throw the debris on the tip too:

Le Jardin on the house side

We cut down a mass of trees and bushes – it took 4 days of cutting, heaving and stacking wood but at last it is clear:

And there's a wood pile to be proud of:

hopefully now we will be able to get a TV signal for French satellite TV and we can put the septic tank for the house down there

La Piscine and garden area

Just as we were about to tile round the pool at the beginning of November, we had 5 days of frost and minus temperatures – the locals were up in arms! We never have frost (apparently) until after the 25 th November!

We couldn't tile so we decided to close the pool for the winter (to stop the water in the pipes freezing) :

of course, then the sun came out for the rest of November and temperatures were knocking on 20 degrees!!

Visitors

The long limbed fit family (I'm only jealous!), Mel and Chris, popped over for the weekend:

After they had run 12 km up hill to Florimont before breakfast, they hiked up to the top of Rocamadour:

And there they are at the top:

I am v. glad that they had been running earlier so they didn't mind waiting for me – not so easy hiking up there at 6 months pregnant:

But Dan was there looking after me too: