Pete's orange melodeon

Yep, its orange! in three keys, A, D & G and he's well pleased with it! Mind you, it will be a day or two before he can play it well enough to venture out in public. Once he's OK playing it, we can play all the English tunes we used to play at the Dressers Arms on sunday nights. Pete will also be able to accompany/do intros for, many of the songs we currently sing, as loads are in A.  So now I have to get the fiddle going again, after a pause of some years when my thumb joint was a problem - that seems to have calmed down again now.

Fete de la Morue - Binic

We went up to Binic on Thursday afternoon for the first day of the 'Fete de la Morue'. The port de plaisance was crammed full of boats and the weather was glorious.

We were taking part in the repas chanté put on for all crews of the visiting boats. A pleasant afternoon and a good meal for the price of a couple of songs - fair exchange!

We are going to become members of the association 'Le Grand Léjon' - click the title of this post for the site link. This is an association that owns and runs a Lougre (lugger) built at Loguivy de la Mer, from the plans of an old boat, and launched in 1992. as members of the association we get to have use of the boat when it attends various events, such as the Binic fete, and lots of others throughout the summer. They also do voyages around the Brittany coast, to the Scilly isles and to Cornwall occasionally. For a very reasonable fee, we can go on these trips... We know loads of the people who are in the association already - the group 'Fortune de Mer' and Hervé & Hélène who are singing at our concert in June are members - have a listen to Hervé & Hélène on the Grand Léjon site.

Ducklings!

Seven ducklings have finally hatched out yesterday. Mrs Broody is very content with her new family, but she is going to get quite a surprise when they start swimming in any available water! The ducklings are surprisingly active, and already superb fly-catchers (and eaters - nice). Luckily the weather is due to be quite good for a few days, so they can take advantage of the sunshine to get outside & bask. Mrs B must be heartily sick of the little broody coop when she has spent the last 4 weeks!

Un Jardin Remarquable - Le grand Launay

On Friday (a bank holiday here in France) we visited a local garden - Le Grand Launay, only 20 minutes up the road, and one we had not heard of before. It was included in a series of gardens open for charity this weekend, which is how we got to hear about it. it is classified as un jardin remarquable and with good reason.
The first bit is the beautiful archway into a large lawned courtyard. The lawn is immaculate, without a weed to its name, and carefully mown in stripes. The owner, while taking our 2 euros, explained that is was une pelouse anglaise and that he had bought an English cylinder mower to get the correct effect.This is one huge courtyard! All round the edges are mainly foliage plants, plus some beds edged in low wavy box hedges and one massive tree as you can see in the picture above. Pretty breathtaking start. I could live in that courtyard...However, after a slow circuit of the courtyard we left it and came upon the back lawn. The beds surrounding the lawn are edged in undulating box hedging, with cloud-pruned trees behind. At one end (left in the photo below) there is a low mass of beech 'hedge' the same level as the terrace above & behind it. The house from this angle is pretty amazing too! Carrying on round this back lawn brings you out to the most amazing little orchard I have ever seen - there are box 'serpents' trained up each of the trees! The effect is weird in the extreme, and I think is designed as a witty reference to the book of Genesis.Further on is a sunken area with a 'source', the floor of which is paved with blocks to allow the water to trickle through in rills. There are lots of lovely candelabra primulas here.
The rills finally join together and empty out into a beautiful pond, surrounded by foliage plants and trees. This pond is the source of water for the next feature - a cascade within a gravel garden.This bit of the garden still looks very new and a bit contrived, but will probably mature and fit in a bit better eventually. The slope is surrounded by trees with mown paths through them, which are lovely to stroll round, looking at the sunshine through the new leaves.Finally we came out behind the first building, where there is a small potager and herb garden.
This is surrounded by espaliered apple trees, within box hedges with wild strawberries below them. Within these is a woven willow fedge which outlines the potager and jardin des simples, or herb garden, with a small pond in the centre - all just immaculate.We came away with our jaws hanging open and a determination to get planting lots more hedging in our own plot. I love the idea of undulating hedges, carefully trimmed but following their own varying contours. Of course we have neither the setting, the means nor the full time gardener to copy this place, but we have come away with loads of ideas, and a garden that is close enough to visit regularly throughout the year.
Click on the title of this post to go to the site: http://www.parcsetjardins.fr/bretagne/cotes_d_armor/le_grand_launay-858.html