Pictures at Last

I just took the trouble to find out how to upload images so thought that I'd share this image of the main farmhouse with you after talking about it for so long. As you can see I've just installed a sat. dish to try and get some English radio programmes. The roof is sound, having been redone a few years ago, the upstairs is awaiting conversion from a 'grenier' to a living area. I've now left the work on the house as it is very habitable for the two of us and am concentrating my efforts on work on the outbuildings, mainly the 'Longere' where the concrete floor needs a lot of work. That will be the focus for Easter and summer this year I think. I will post a picture of the 'Longere' soon, the building (shown at the head of this Blog) is quite interesting as it has been used as a dairy in recent times but despite neighbours views, I think that originally it was living accommodation. However the floor slopes from both sides to a central gutter and from one end to the other so that it could be easily hosed down after milking. This needs to be modified to return it to living accommodation for the gite business.

This view of the farmhouse is from under the apple trees at the bottom of the kitchen garden, not much of a garden now, but will be used for vegetables, soft fruit and flowers for the house when we finally settle. The whole garden is about 40ft (12m) wide and perhaps 140 ft (42m) to the end, behind me. The grass is a bit dead as I had just managed to cut it down from about 18inches tall. I hadn't been able to get over between March and July as I had an operation on my knee in June when I would normally have visited. However the hedge looks nice after it's haircut, it was really 70's Punk when we arrived. It put up a good fight but I managed to overcome it.

Unfortunately, when I neglect the property like this for a few months, the place needs a lot of work to get it back to some kind of order which limits my time for building. Perhaps I ought to pay a gardener to tidy up from time to time? This would enable me to use my precious time more profitably - worth thinking about.