Our French Dream: Ships, Shutters and Stacks of Wood!

The van was fully loaded once again and my last few plants were squeezed into the darkness before the doors slammed shut, that would be the last chink of light they would see until we reached French shores.

We were to try a new route on this trip sailing from Portsmouth to Caen on the overnight ferry. It was a long drive south with a couple of very long traffic jams. You notice as you go South the slow increase of traffic, once you have past Lancaster you enter the labyrinth of motorways laden with cars and lorries going about their daily business.

There is a new section of toll road on the M6, well new to us as we haven't been down that far on the M6 for many years. It was surprisingly empty with wide lanes and hardly any traffic and quite a posh service station halfway down. On approaching the toll booths we were soon to realise why the road was empty... £11 to drive along it!

We reached Portsmouth in good time and headed for a random Indian restaurant which I have to say was a great find, fairly quite but the food was delicious and set us up for our sailing across to Caen. Not a bad cabin, quite spacious really and a nice en suite. Within minutes of setting sail and Phil's head hitting the pillow he was snoring away unlike me who lay there and felt every wave rise and fall quite startlingly at times!

We docked right on time at Caen and we were in the first lane of traffic off the boat and within 15 minutes of docking we were on the open French motorways with Kathy the Satnag leading the way.

First stop was to Ed's wife's house to deliver half the van load we found the house without any trouble and enjoyed a nice cup of tea in the garden before getting back in the van and heading east to La Souterraine.

We arrived as the sun was setting, lit the fire and cosied in for the evening, it had been a long couple of days but it was nice to be "Home" again.

This trip was to tidy up the garden for the Autumn, stock up the wood shed and hang the shutters that Phil had made back home in Scotland.

But firstly they needed undercoating and a top coat. Phil also had to take all hinges off the old shutters to re place on these new shutters.

We had also had a long ongoing saga of trying to get some wood delivered for the winter, it had been planned for delivery when our friends were staying but at the last minute despite me stating that we wanted to pay by card I was informed they didn't accept payment by card! The delivery was then put back a week and would be delivered whilst guests Val and David were staying so that I could ensure they had sufficient wood for the fire. This date came round and the lorry broke down and in frustration I arranged the delivery for the following week when Phil and I would be there to take it in.

All I can say is thank goodness we did it this way....

Monsieur d'leaux and his French vocabulary struck again...

Phil decided that we needed 3 steers of wood delivered which he reckoned would be 3m2, that should be enough to see us through the winter!

The day of the wood delivery dawned and sure enough Monsieur arrived with his lorry just after 5pm, taking in the lorry and its load we assumed 1/3rd of this would be ours and yes please tip it on the grass next to the barn and we will get it put away.

The lorry draws round and the truck tips up and the wood starts to tumble to on to the grass... more wood, more wood and yet more wood!!!

Yes Phil... a steer is 3m2 each and so we had 9m2 of wood dumped on the grass just as the rain started to come on! The next 2.5 hours were spent lugging the wood from the grass into the barn but in a sadistic type of way there was something very rewarding about stacking your barn full of logs to see you through the winter even if in our case that was about 3 weeks!! Oh well there will be plenty of wood for the next couple of years then. Every limb ached and I couldn't wait to get into my lovely bath for a nice long soak and a well deserved bottle of wine!

And this is only some of the wood!

Anyway not all work and no play on Saturday we managed to get out and meet up with our friends Kathy and Martin from "Le Canard Du Parapluie Rouge", a gorgeous bed and breakfast that we found a couple of years ago, and who have now become good friends.

Lunch was at the Auberge Des Pecheurs that you would of read about in our last two updates. We enjoyed a delicious lunch and a glass of wine or two and caught up todate on all the news and it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.

Sunday dawned

wet and foggy I could almost imagine I was in Scotland if it hadn't been that the air was warm. Time to get the Lavenders and Laurels planted that we had transported with us all the way from Lauder. The Lavenders will hopefully form a low hedge around the patio area and the Laurels a shield at the side of the house to create a nice sun trap.

It will be interesting next summer to look back at these pictures and hopefully the borders will be a bloom of lavenders! I also now know why my daughter wants new wellies for Christmas as I borrowed them to bring to France only to discover they have holes in the soles!

I also hope that these Laurels will of started to form a nice hedge and won't be a withered pile of leaves when I get back in January.

I also spent time on this trip clearing out the flower bed by the barn that was a jungle of plants and weeds.

I am hoping that when we go back in January, the 30 hyacinth bulbs that I planted, will be in full bloom.

I also cleared out a few old plant pots and put in some colorful chrysanthemums these were always Phil's mums favorite plants in the Autumn and they certainly add a splash of colour to the darkening winter days.

This trip also saw us hang some new curtains. One set were our old dining room curtains from here as not only as Phil managed to accomplish all the jobs out here he has also managed to redecorate at home.. think he needs a year off next year! Rosemary also made me a lovely set for the Green bedroom.

Our old dining room curtains add a touch of warmth to this downstairs bedroom.

Rosemary did a wonderful job on these curtains and they add the finishing touch!

The house is really taking shape now and its good that it has been used this summer from May through to October we only had 3 weeks not booked which I think is really good for the first year.

Then it was finally time to hang the first set of shutters I have been so excited waiting to see the finished set on the window. Phil only had time to complete one set on this trip but the others will go up before the first guests arrive next year.