The neighbours gardening services..

I love our neighbours, I've been gardening the last two days, removing all kinds of weeds and strimming our ditches, although I had to stop that when the strimmer became embarassingly loud. I'd had a brief conversation with madame (they are all brief!) and had explained that our lawnmower is still broken and bless her she offered to do my front garden and not only that she'd roped David into strimming down the road as well. She came, she mowed, instructed me where to put weedkiller and where to rake..

She's going to finish it tomorrow.

I have no idea how old she is but she's un-stoppable. The lovely David offered me one of their cars if I needed it as well.

I just wish I could fully express my gratitude in their own language...

And then there were those that supervised.

Pretty

It appears to be getting colder.

This week, as we do most weeks (with varying degrees of success) we have a list on the wall of things to do. This week, my half of the list comprises most of my least favourite things... forms, phone calls and accounts oh joy. It also includes this weeks study section for me, French wiring!

People, do you still want to come and stay in the gîte when it's finished?

P is mowing between the vines for the last time this year and generally putting the vineyard to bed for the winter.

It's  noticeably colder here now, I've ramonaged the kitchen chimney and think I might have to light the fire for our french lesson this afternoon.

Y.U seems to think it's colder too, bulking up for winter has already started. Not to mention more of this kind of activity......

Compost spreading...

A week of accomplishments...

We have this week, with J and T's help (once again thank you so much!)
1: put in 3 veluxs,
2: weeded the veg garden and relocated the cabbages,
3: fished out large bits of wood from the lake,
4: fixed the mowing attachment for the tractor
5: ripped out more of the kitchen of the gite
6: cleaned nearly all the radiators
7: P has nearly finished his shelter for the equipment
8: treated the peach trees.
9: visited numerous DIY stores!

Also drunk a fair bit, run and swum lots and generally had a good time.

Here's some proof....

Blind Tasting

Tonight we had a blind tasting, dressing 5 bottles of wine in my socks (and a leg-warmer!) and tried to guess correctly which they were!

P got 3 out of 5 and the rest of us managed 1 each. J can come again having decided that our own home-brew was the expensive St-Emillion.

All a lot of fun but a little dispiriting, but definitely one for future guests... possibly with a more sophisticated disguise for the bottles..

The vendage is finished... whoop whoop.

Which means we can concentrate on the gitê at last. I've started, with K's help this week, to strip the old cast iron radiators and its taking quite a while but I am enjoying it.

We just need to pick a colour to re-do them in...

Any suggestions?

It's pretty here in the morning...