More flowers

We put in a number of climbing plants to grow over the cave wall. This year the clematis is bountiful with beautiful blooms. Other climbers have yet to flower so this lovely purple clematis is a show on its own.

Cycling

Three superb days of cycling by our 'team' of testers for Mountains and Maps cycle routes. Last day was 1750m of ascent in total (over 3 cols) and 1550m of descent. Completely different terrain to the previous day's cycle routes; less Mediterranean due to a more temperate climate being higher up in the mountains. Rolling green hills with arable and livestock farms, reminiscent of parts of the UK. Unfortunately, the weather turned and the final descent was in heavy rain and a big drop in temperature, so a relief to get back to the mini-bus. Big thanks to Emma, Will, Emily and Damien for positive feedback and being great company.

The garden is shaping up

A public holiday in France yesterday (Ascension) so most workers will 'pont' i.e. take Friday off as well to have a long weekend. Which means no work in the garden, but we do have all of the gravel safely delivered. It is taking shape now and starting to look very good. For the first time in over a year we can see the trunk of the magnolia tree - having previously been surrounded by a pile of large stones.

First guests in the gite!

We have four keen cyclists staying in the gite. Not only are they testing out the gite but also testing the cycling routes for Mountains and Maps. Yesterday they went from Bedarieux, up the Orb Valley over a col to Lodève, around Lac du Salagou, over a couple more cols then into rolling countryside of vineyards back to our village. Just over 100kms of superb cycling on fantastic roads. It's great for us to fine-tune the logistics of transporting the bikes, best places to stop for lunch and possibilities of shortening or extending the routes etc.

Stone wall building

After watching our garden workman, Olivier, building some stone walls for garden edging, we decided we could get started on some other walls too. We can now add stone wall building to our list of new DIY skills. Sensibly, we started with the smallest edging to do, around the rose bed and the result is not too bad at all. Not quite as sleek looking as Olivier's, but once the gravel is down will look just as good I'm sure.

Jane cementing in the stones (wearing her Waipu hat). We now know it takes a lot of thought - and moving of stones - to work out which stones go where in order to get a) a fairly straight edge and b) a flat top. Not great for backs!


The end result.

More gravel arrives ...

Office flowers

The first cut flowers from the garden this year are brightening up the office. Not only beautiful blooms but a wonderful fragrance as well.

Here comes the gravel

Ten tonnes of gravel is being delivered today for the garden. The 'boys' are supervising the village traffic while the grader tips bucket loads of gravel over the fence. All of it was left at the Cave Cooperative down the road, so we need to have it moved to our garden quite quickly before anyone else thinks it would also be quite nice in their garden too! Once the membrane is down there will be many, many wheelbarrows full of gravel to be moved. All best viewed from the office window!

Roses

The first of this years roses are in blossom. Despite a degree of being knocked about by building work and a very severe pruning, they look better than ever. Last year they flowered right through to November and provided a constant supply of beautiful colour and scent for the house.

 

Le Jardin

At last work had started on the garden. There is a lot of earth to be moved and huge stones either used or removed before the membrane and gravel can go down. We had a big concrete slab, which became overturned when the digger was in and became fairly firmly imbedded in earth. The 'boys', after much heroic effort, managed to upright it again so it can be used as a seat under the grapevine. Olivier has built lovely garden walls with some of the stones. Really looking forward to having the garden without a concrete mixer in it!