Parents' pride

Fleur came home with the results of her 3rd evaluation this year and we are very happy to say that all has been very very good and in September she will be going to CE1 (Cours Elémentaire 1 - this name is used for the third year of primary education).
For the non-French readers the teacher wrote that Fleur's results are very satisfying. She reached good results with mathematics and a big progress in reading and writing. Bravo. A pleasant pupil and she will go to the next level up.

Let the harvest begin

The sun is shining at Au Bellefleur and it would be wrong not to mention that it has also rained a lot but that does mean it is warm and everywhere is looking green, and things are growing like crazy.

The harvesting has begun and we are in the middle of a bumper crop of cherries, we’ve got 4 trees and after 2 weeks we are still harvesting No1, Strawberries are a bit slow this year, but tomatoes carrots and onions are going great guns, fuelled by high temps and a reasonable amount of natural watering, ok rain….

We also have a lot of guests staying with us at the moment, so things are getting very busy but that’s the way we like it. We still have some availability in each of the summer months, so if you are thinking of coming down to the sunny Charente there is still time to get your booking in. Don’t leave it too long though as we are starting to fill up.

Temperatures in the Charente are typically sitting between 20 and 30 degrees at the moment, tempting me outside but we have to get the last two guest rooms finished by July as they are let in August, so the pressure is on, watch this space for progress up dates.

Press Release

Live Blogging

On Saturday Jan and Simonne with their 3 dogs (1 mum and 2 puppies...6 months old now....., can you 'spot' the difference) came around to have a drink and a bite to eat. Jan and Simonne are from Belgium and Franca knows them from 'blogging' http://blog.seniorennet.be/Bas_en_belle/ for more than 2 years now. It's not the first time we've met each other and hopefully not the last time either. The weather was more than gorgious as was the rosé, the Chablis was fresh light, and the white asparagus (here they actually call them violet), was going down a treat; so we couldn't ask for anything more. It has once again been a very very good night out....literally, in the garden, the dogs were on their best behaviour, and the humans weren't bad either.

Thanks for the pressies Jan & Simonne and a great evening...

Fleur wins Bronze...

Now which country will she represent in the 2016 Olympics, well maybe I am being a bit over ambitious, but it was school sports day yesterday and out of the blue our six and a half year old daughter won a bronze medal following a quintathalon , well she did well enough in 5 different events to come overall third, making mum and dad very proud, especially as it was unexpected. Fleur is always running around and dancing and jumping, so she is certainly fit enough, so all that exercise paid off for her WELL DONE!! from a proud mum & dad.

It was a tough day as the emergency services were required not once but twice to attend to injuries, luckily the injuries were not very serious. So you see there was none of this politically correct, everyone must get something, it's the taking part not the winning that seems to abound in the UK, this was a competition with winners. From the podium you will see that it was girls 2 boys 1! The medals were presented by a representative of the Mayor of Sigogne.

how not to get to you flight on time

Our last trip to Limerick on business typifies what often happens to us, not on every trip but quite a few.

The 3 of us leave the office in time to get the correct train from London Liverpool St to Stansted.

We arrive at Liverpool St, 2 of us have got our train tickets Doug hasn't, and he has not got his reference number to collect his pre booked ticket, so he buys another one, and we get on the train to Stansted, to arrive in time to get the flight... Just.

We walk into the airport and Doug says have you guys checked in yet, yes we say, waving our boarding passes at him, oh bugger he says I haven't. Then Doug asks us if we have luggage to check in, of course we haven't, showing him our carefully measured and weighed cabin baggage. We looked over at the very long queue for the bag drop and laughed, you'll never get your bag dropped off and your self through Stansted security in time to catch the plane.

Doug was busy firing up his laptop to get his booking reference number off it, but he has so many things loading on the desk top it took a full 5 mins before it started up. At which point we left him trying to sort himself out, whilst we raced off to catch the flight. For once we chose the right queue in security and got through in time for a quick wizz round duty free, we are just walking out of duty free when we spot Doug walking towards the gate. Our flabber was well and truly ghasted. How did you manage to do that we asked in amazement, Doug said he put on his lost little boy look when a female check in person asked him if he needed help?. We think he parted with hard cash to get through!

So we are standing in the priority queue waiting to board and Doug suddenly disappears, the flight is called and Doug is still missing, just as we get on the plane he reappears at the back of the priority queue, saying, I just went for a quick drink at the bar... WHAT?

So began another team trip to Limerick with my esteemed colleagues, and a great bunch they are too most of the time....

Cognac region suffers a devastating blow

In the Charente a Little before 6 p.m.on the 11th of May , the area was literally struck by hail storms with hail stones the size of 'large pigeon eggs', testifies Christophe Veral, a local wine grower.

In the area around Rouillac, clusters of almost 50 centimetres of ice were formed. The local function rooms and many houses were flooded. But more importantly damage was noted everywhere around, in the vineyards. The hail ruined any hope of harvest for 2009 and probably 2010. The bad weather also touched the areas of Rouillac, Merignac, Fleurac and Jarnac. The soil of the wine growing areas of Barbezieux has also seriously damaged.

This was a report in the local paper following storms last night all around Sigogne however it appears vines around Au Bellefleur appear to have been spared major damage, however for the local wine growers and the associated Cognac/Pineau industry it is a serious blow.

A bit of a strange (but profitable) weekend...

Starting on Thursday when we, or should I say Franca, had a football team staying, so that meant that Fleur and Franca had to camp in our living room as we rented out all our rooms for the first time. I made it home on Friday afternoon and headed home after picking up 2 doors from the DIY store which almost fitted into the boot, so I drove home with the doors sticking out of the boot. Not really what you would associate with driving a Jaguar, but it handled it well.

On Friday and Saturday we had a lovely lady from Hawaii staying for 2 nights, whilst she was going house hunting with our favourite estate agent... Saturday night we had 2 Parisiens stopping over on their way to their holiday in St Jean de Luz, very nice, but they started their holiday with us and finally left around 12:30 so no time for me to do any work on Sunday. I managed to install the two doors I brought but no further work was possible.

Fleur does not like it when I leave on a Sunday so she will be pleased that I have booked a Monday flight back next weekend, Franca likes it too when I stay longer and so do I, its my boss in the UK who is not so keen :-)

Mission accomplished

Its ready just in time, we have a working downstairs toilet, pity it is in the middle of a building site, but I guess beggars can't be choosers as they say...

The bathroom so far

Well here is two days work, if I get the photos right No1 shows day one, it does not show too much as most of the day was spent plumbing but you can see the new ceiling rails, I still have to put the isulation in before I fit the plasterboard to the rails (the rails are the metal bits going in the opposite direction to the wooden joists).





The second shot should show the large sections of plaster board ceiling up, in France green means waterproof, I still have the little bits to do and you should also be able to see the frame of the toilet dividing wall taking shape..





and finally our builder has made a new entrance to the bathroom, it still needs finishing off, but you can just see he has started pointing the wall on the right hand side, you get a good impression of the before & after in this shot.





If all goes well I'll be able to post a picture of a new toilet ready for use, such an exicting life I lead...

I think I need to cut the grass

After the high of last weekends birthday celebrations this weekend is a bit of a low since I cannot get back home to France, due to having to work in Limerick for most of Friday.

However this does give me a chance to do a few chores at London HQ, Joy & Simon I hope your reading. I must admit to negelecting the garden a bit, well be honest....alot, I've not been out there this year, so I thought it was time to cut the grass. So Saturday dawned and it was raining but it cleared up by 10.00 so grass cutting was on...

It would certainly would have been a lot more bover with a hover, taking words from a very old advert, so I purchased a heavy duty petrol powered strimmer, which we will need in France as well as it carrying out a little job for me here in the UK.




So I am ashamed to say this is the before shot....




and hopefully below it is the after shot with Toro the strimmer who made short work of the elephant grass in the back garden.


There you go Joy and Simon, next time your over you'll be able to sit in the garden with a glass of something, but don't leave it too long, don't think I'm due another weekend in London for a while.

Hopefully it will now be a lot less bover with a hover...

Time for a glass of something....

Franca's Birthday

Last weekend was Franca’s birthday so the occasion had to be marked in French style which means going out for a meal. Franca chose the restaurant and so early on Saturday evening we headed off to l’Essille in Bassac. www.hotel-restaurant-essille.com/. Strangely I was talking to Sue one of my fellow commuters on the way over to La Rochelle and she was singing the praises of this very restaurant, at the time I didn’t know that it was the same restaurant Franca had chosen.

Franca, her mother, Fleur and I set off for Bassac arriving at the restaurant bang on 7:30, making us first the guests of the evening. The restaurant was light and airy so they were off to a good start in my book as I do not like stuffy dingy restaurants, and l’Essille had plenty of charm too.

The meal was great and the atmosphere was good too, and by 8:30 it was pretty full, although the quality was reasonably high, the restaurant had a good relaxed atmosphere of people out to enjoy them selves. Sometimes high quality food means the atmosphere is a bit to still as if you are supposed to respect the food rather than enjoy the whole restaurant experience, and that was not the case with l’Essille. The food was well cooked and presented, everyone enjoyed what they ordered and the wine list was one of the better ones I have seen in our local area. The menu had a wide choice, but focussing on localish food, so lots of fish & seafood from the coast and meat from the Limousin.

We finished off the celebration with an excellent birthday dessert for Franca, so a good time was had by all and with Franca’s birthday well and truly celebrated we can recommend L’Essille the to one and all.

We are family

Some family pictures with Franca, Fleur and my mother-in-law. Fleur's picture has been taken in restaurant l'Essille in Bassac where we've been on Saturday for Franca's birthday celebration dinner.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the office…..no really

I was dashing through Liverpool Street station heading for the tube when I spotted a gap in the crowd to a free ticket gate, so I went for it.

It was only as I went base over apex flying through the air watching my mobile phone performing aerobatics above me that I realised why the gap was there.

A gentleman was pulling, perfectly concealed behind him, the largest wheelie suitcase I have ever seen (or not seen in my case - pardon the pun).

As I lay flat on my back on the station floor watching my phone trying to make good its escape through the ticket barrier I had a moment to remember something I heard on Danny Baker's 5 Live program the night before. He was asking had you ever been fouled in real life, well here I am laying on the floor of Liverpool St station waiting for the ref to show the puller of the titanic suitcase a straight red card...he took both my legs out ref...

It made a few commuters smile for a moment.... I hate wheelie suitcases almost as much as I hate umberallas.

They marched us up to gate 45 and marched us back down to 43 again

Another busy weekend at Au Bellefleur, the change of Ryanair?s timetable means I have less time in France at the weekends for a short while. We also had guests staying with us and they wanted to eat with us each night so that kept the kitchen busy too. I also had to try and get at least one toilet ready for use downstairs before Easter as we are basically full over the Easter Break.

Friday was a farcical departure from Stansted, not only was it foggy, and Barack Obama was departing from Stansted shortly before us, but Ryanair could not work out which gate we were going to be flying from, so we were marched from gate 45 to 43 and then back again to 45, and then back to 43 again in the space of 15 minutes. We were also well over an hour late on departure, mutter mutter mutter. Then again it has not been a bad flying winter, the Stansted ? Limoges bus service was pretty reliable, I guess around 80% of our flights were on time, not many were early though. The summer is going to be a challenge as Ryanair keep changing flight times, so I have no flights settled past the early May bank holiday.

Our guests over the weekend were returning for their second visit, its always great to greet returning guests because it means we must be doing something right. One story which will go down in the annals of Au Bellefleur history was when our guests went down to Jarnac market, a cheese seller from the Basque country was selling his sheep cheese and giving away free samples. Our guests thought this cheese tasted so good they would buy some, unfortunately forgetting to look at the price first. They enthusiastically encouraged the cheese man to make the slice they were buying bigger and bigger. They handed over a €50.00 and €2.00 back, €48.00 for a piece of cheese!! Of course they never heard the end of it, cheese jokes all night? they took it in good spirits, or at least I hope they did, maybe if they never come back we will learn that they did not take the ribbing that well.

I was busy with new toilets for the two bathrooms I am building at the moment. I had the job of concreting in the waste pipes, always a scary moment as this is the point of no return or least not without and awful lot of pain. Fleur always wants to help, and so she must be one of the only six year old girls that knows how to mix concrete, and she did a good job working with a full size shovel. The pipes are concreted in and the plumbing for the toilet is half complete.

We are full for Easter which will slow production down, but the good news is that Bogdan our builder is back so things should speed up for a while after Easter.

I do not like flying back on a Sunday evening as this makes the weekend feel quite short especially as my flights to France in the summer are on a Friday afternoon, however, since I will be in France for 5 days at Easter this trip back is not so bad. But I will be searching the timetables for a Monday morning flight after Easter.

I am flying from La Rochelle, and a slower bunch of passport control and customs people I have never met. They were taking an eternity to process each passenger through passport control and then the security checks, if that is standard the I will be doing everything I can to avoid La Rochelle. Fellow travellers have said that flights have been delayed because they are so slow.