Building work moves on apace

We are getting on steadily with the building work in the barn and over the shop. We have now put in all the roof windows (9 in all, see pictures below) and finished tiling the capuchine, which used to be the door from the first floor.

Inside we have finished the staircase, laid the pine floor over the barn area and started to mark out the rooms/shower rooms. We still have to treat all the wood beams before we put up the insulation and lambris (tongue & groove). I am just about to go out to buy a new pulverisateur to use for spraying the beams as the old one is clapped out.

The staircase was a bit of a challenge, as we originally planned a spiral-type, home-built affair. However, we realised that it would take far too long to make, so we bought one 'off-the-shelf' and had to cut in in half to get it to fit. The vertical beam is designed to look as if we built the stairs round it - in fact we put it in after the stairs. It will reach from the downstairs floor up into the lambris of the upstairs ceiling.

The next two photos show the upstairs as of today - the first over the shop and the second over the barn. What a difference the roof lights make!


The gap that used to be a door is now a window from outside (see 1st photo) but will look like a door from the inside. This is an old door we took out of the house, and it will form a faux door with the necessary translucide window overlooking next-door's property.

The cat that has read but is now sleeping

Isn't this lovely? One of our regular customers gave it to us yesterday. He had seen it in a shop and immediately thought of us - the cat that sleeps having read the book.

We have had some lovely comments from customers recently, including:
'Le chat qui lit, le félin le plus rapide de l'Ouest' (the fastest cat in the west) after we had posted a book out in double-quick time.

Courtyard garden is taking shape

Here are three photos of our courtyard garden. The poppies and sweet peas are filling it out beautifully.
The photo below shows the amazing purple 'paeonyflora' poppies that I got in the cottage garden society seed distribution this year. The climber is a clematis.
The last photo shows the whole bed alongside the workshop. It will be lovely when the arches are covered - hopefully by next year some of the climbers I have planted will be up that high.

chickens kittens & sheep

One of the hens has gone broody. You can (just) see her inside the broody coop, above. We are calling her Mrs Peck, as that is what you get if you put a hand anywhere near. With luck we will have chicks at the start of August.

The sheep have started a routine of galloping down for their evening bite of food....

Eating the food as quick as possible, with maximum argy-bargy and searching in each bowl for the most food.. Then retreating back up to the main field, a bit more slowly than they came down.

Ma has decided to let us see her latest litter. There are 4 kittens, one black, one grey and two tabbys. One tabby is pale and smoky colour and one has very clear markings. They all seem to have blue eyes. They are 7 weeks old and Ma is starting to get a bit fed up with them. We think we have homes for 2, but if anyone wants one - let me know.

Here are the boldest two, the grey and black kittens, with the smallest of them all (the tabby) below.

some pictues of the garden..

We have been developing the garden since we bought the house in 2000. Most planting has happened in the last three years, although we got a lot of trees put in early on.
The front garden was one of the first bits to be done - Pete had to double-dig Breton style, using a pneumatic road drill to break up the concrete/bitumen covering and then to break up the underlayer of compacted stone. Yvon, our farmer neigbour moved the very large stones into place for us, using his Manitou and we then completed the surrounds in smaller stone. Then we barrowed 10 cubic metres of soil into the parterres.

The paths are of crushed slate 'quarry bottoms' to replace the gravel we used originally. The slate picks up the colours and materials of the house, as well as toning beautifully with the predominantly blue of the flowers planted here.

This photo shows the small area behind the house. This was a mire, full of inidentified rubbish and muck, and had grown a lush crop of nettles by the time we got round to doing something with it. This area faces north west and catches the evening sun - a great place to relax and finish a bottle of wine in the evening.....

The courtyard is still being built. This is the site of an old piggery/chicken shack, which had a broken concrete base. The crushed slate hides this beautifully, and the metal arches, made with reinforcing rod will soon be covered with roses, wisteria, clematis, passion flower and jasmine. We are planning a pair of ponds made from old baths, surrounded by stone walls & fed by a trickle of water that we have piped in from the local 'source' or spring.

This corner is where the ditch from the source is culverted across the rest of the property. however, the ditch is now running dry most years, and the damp loving plants I have put in may not appreciate getting dry roots over the summer.

This photo shows the filter bed, which was originally grassed-over. The grass suffers in summer, so I have killed it off and am covering it in gravel. I will be planting things that revel in the heat & dry, such as thrift, euphorbia, verbena & grasses. The area to the left of the filter bed has receently been rotovated & seeded.

There is lots to do yet, but the garden is starting to fill out.

Time for more animals. Sheep next.

We started with three sheep, last May. Of these we still have Dolly and Baa Baa. Ali (son of Baa Baa) made a delicious Christmas dinner....
We then aquired two more ewes, Joey and her lamb, Rosie.
Joey had a lovely black ram lamb in March, but unfortunately she and the lamb were killed by a local dog. The pictures below are of the three remaining ewes and their lambs.

This picture is of Rosie with Pipin, who was born under an apple tree. You will see how much he has grown in a later picture.

This is Baa Baa, our wild-woman Ouessant ewe, with little Dot.

Finally, Dolly with Cyril and Pipin in the background.

We are getting two more lambs, one black ewe-lamb who will be called tina, and a black ram-lamb as yet un named. At the rate the grass is growing we will need them all to keep the field down this summer.

Next post - the chickens. Can you bear to wait?

I have been meaning to get around to doing a blog for a while...

Ok, here we go.


I live, with my husband, Peter, in the centre of Brittany. Pempoulrot is just about in the back of beyond. We moved here almost exactly three years ago. We are still renovating the house and developing the garden. We are also renovating the stone barn next to the house to give us accomodation for residential courses (staring later in 2007 we hope).

We run a bookshop - le Chat qui lit, although most of our sales are now of French books on the internet.

We have numerous animals. Four cats who come live in the house (there are others who don't come in). Pixel is the oldest, and came with us from England. He enjoys the sunshine in the summer and the woodburning stove in the winter.

Milly is the other cat we brought over from the UK. She just revels in the space and wildlife (mainly for hunting).

She likes to pose for the camera.

Hugh (Fearnly-Whittingstall) and Monty (Don - the garden cats) were just kittens when we moved here. Their mother (called Ma) is black and we have never been able to get near enough to her to touch her.

Hugh quickly realised that life as a house cat was infinately preferable to that of garden cat. Monty has only just got the hang of the catflap and stays outside most of the time. This picture is of Hugh.

The latest addition to the cat menagerie is Rupert. Another one of Ma's kittens, she presented him to us (more along the lines of 'please, take this off my paws, I've had enough') when he was about 10 weeks old.

He is another blue-eyed beauty. He likes playing with the grass in the front garden.

Watch this space for the sheep and lambs next!