At last some sunshine

So we decided to start the back porch. Here are the inital measurements being made:

The turf is off the top:

The first row of footings is poured:


As well as the porch we are using up a huge pile of brashings to build a 'dead hedge' to serve to divide the chicken-scratched from the hopefully chicken-free bit of garden. This will also be a haven for wildlife as well as looking much better than a post and wire fence.


More stuff has come out in the garden. This laburnum flower is on what has become a small tree that was originally a seed from Mike Leighton's front garden! The clematis was a cutting I aquired from a neighbour of nana Mick's in Faversham. You can see they are both struggling to survive in Brittany...

wind and rain and rain....

Hey Ho, the wind and the rain, for the rain it raineth every day.....
Old Bill must have lived in Brittany!
OK, thats enough, now, lets have the sun back again please.

We had to go out yesterday evening with a length of rope to tie together the two forks of a our pretty apple tree that grows just behind the house. There used to be three forked branches till one got ripped off in a spring gale two years ago. I was determined that it wasn't going to happen again, hence the rope. A quick walk round the garden this morning showed remarkably little damage, considering the strength of the wind - only one climbing rose looking rather sad. I had disregarded the late Christopher Lloyd's advice to train climbing plants in the direction of the prevailing winds, rather than against them. I need this rose to climb east-to-west until it reaches the top of the old hangar wall.... Too may gales like last night and it won't survive to reach the wall. It is called Velchenblau (not entirely sure of the spelling) and (weather permitting) will soon be smothered in the most amazing bluey-purple flowers that fade to greyey-bue. Photos will appear when this happens. Zepherine Drouhin, the climbing rose that is heading up over the shop door is already flowering its socks off (picture to follow) and the scent is amazing.

No photos, I'm afraid, of the fireworks on tuesday. It was a wash-out.

Bad weather means more work achieved in the Bull Barn, which we are slowly converting to a gîte. I undercoated the two (thus far installed) interior doors today, and earlier in the week we finished the tongue and groove to another two sections of the ceiling, plus a window reveal. Pete has started spraying insecticide on the next couple of sections of roof timbers so that we can start insulating and then tongue-and-grooving these. Funny how I am always doing something vital on the computer when spraying needs doing....

Egg production is a bit disappointing at the moment. The hens apparently hate this weather as much as we do. This is a nusance, as we have now developed a small trade in eggs - enough to pay for their grain as well as the sheep's food - and means we have to make sure there are enough for the regular dozen or so we sell each week. Can't always pig-out on fried eggs for lunch!

There is a busy orienteering weekend coming up. Training tomorrow afternoon and then an inter-regional event on Sunday. This looks likely to be taking place in a torrential downpour, so I'm glad I'm competing and not standing around at the start or finish. Next week is the Fête de morue (salt cod festival) up at Binic. Their fishermen used to travel across to the Grand Banks (with a resulting huge loss of life), to fish cod until all the cod ran out. Now they just have a festival, to celebrate the good old days. We shall be goig up to some Chant de marin sessions, which should be good. I wish I could attach a sound bite, but I dont know how.

When it stops raining I will take some photos, if I can find the garden for grass......

singing in brittany

We are getting more excited at the thought of the upcoming concert we are giving with some Breton and French friends in June. Edwige & Pierre-Jean are going to let us have MP3 tracks of some of their songs that have choruses so we wont look complete dorks trying to mouth words we dont know (or even understand, in my case). The Breton songs I am not even going to think about attempting.

There was another singing session in the bar at St Carreuc last saturday. There are some really smashing singers around, and we are starting to get to know some of the people and their songs. There is a sort of "here's a song about XYZ", or whatever and then they ask, "is there an english song about that?" If we sing a song about love/courtship in any or all of its guises they most certainly have a song about THAT! This is France after all. It can be very frustrating to see everyone smiling/laughing/guffawing at a song that goes completely over my head, but I can usually work out what it is sort-of-about, I just tend to miss the punchlines.

May is the month of bank holidays over here. There are 4. I wonder if that nice (??) Mr Sarkozy will do something about them? NOTHING gets done in May. People are either getting over one day off or getting ready for the next. Invariably 'on fait le pont' (make the bridge) between bank holiday and any ajacent weekend. That plus "la Presidentielle" (election) means that booksales have been decidedly quiet recently. The French can apparently concentrate on only one thing at a time.... Never mind - we have had time to get a couple of thousand more books on line, mow the grass, tongue-and-groove another section of roof upstairs in the barn and cycle into Rostrenen and back (nearly put my lights out, that one, cycling uphill into the wind coming home!) The GOOD thing is that there are "feu d'artifice" (fireworks) tomorrow night in Rostrenen (its another bank holiday), so rain-permitting we will go and see them after our breton dance class. If I remember, I will take the camera and post some pictures.

Does anyone know about setting up podcasts? Some of the song sessions we go to would be great to podcast.

Watch this space!