It’s been a while… we’ve been away on our annual family visit/short break & I didn’t have time to post anything before we left.

It was an eventful trip including strikes, missed sailings, hospital visits, insurance claims, early dawn rises and being stuck out at sea for 34 hours in 130 kms/hr Mistral winds. No need to say more but it was all made relatively painless thanks to some very special & helpful people. We always try our very best to make sure we help all of our guests in any way we can from simply booking restaurants/tickets to tracking down lost video cameras ( yes, really we did do that once!) but our own recent experience has only strengthened our resolve – nothing will be too much trouble!!

Stuck out at sea for 34 hours in gale force winds - not nice!!

But we survived and now signs of Spring are everywhere. It was a welcome 20°C on Thursday, perfect for collecting this season’s new batch of hens and guinea fowl. As usual we went to Terrasson market to get them from Monsieur Lacoste, a fountain of all knowledge when it comes to poultry. The guinea fowl are at still at the scraggy, ugly ducking stage but will soon be sporting their intricate coat of adult feathers and the hens are already laying.

4 young guinea fowl unceremoniously packed in a box bound for Les Crouquets!

Spring also brings with it some unknown substance / plant / insect which Miss Molly is allergic to . This time of the year usually involves several vet’s visits and a stiff collar which serves to stop her scratching her head as well as cramping her usual energetic style. She spends a lot of her time indoors just now wistfully staring out of the window at what might be…

Miss Molly thinking about all the things she'd like to be up to....

In our family Spring is always heralded by Alistair’s birthday. This year though Spring arrived a day early on 20th March. According to people in the know there won’t be another 21st March Spring until 2102 so unless we break the World Records for longevity there will be no more en famille official Spring birthdays in our household.

All the trees and shrubs are now in full bud. The peach, apricot, cherry and quince trees are all showing great promise…hopefully there will be no late frosts which sadly have robbed us of a lot of the fruit the past two years.

Spring also means the countdown to the first guests of the season so lots of Spring cleaning is about to begin!

Distractions, nothing but distractions for the past two weeks… this hasn’t been good for the advancement of my decluttering programme. Firstly Amar finally got round to tackling tiling the kitchen ( & hall ) floor. We now have a lovely new kitchen which we only started refurbishing in Oct 2010, so finished in just under 2 and a half years – not too bad really. Of course I couldn’t possibly be off decluttering somewhere when I was needed at home to dispense oodles of moral support & encouragement and endless cups of tea…it was a worthwhile sacrifice though for the end result!

BEFORE

AFTER

Then more distractions with another sudden, unexpected bout of snow & ice. -5°C and two children needing ferried to school as bien sûr no school buses were running. Normally I wouldn’t have ventured out but Emma was going away on a 4 day theatre trip and Alistair was visiting a trout farm in Bergerac, two things which just couldn’t be missed. Finally getting home after a 60 km white knuckle round trip negotiating bends as smooth & as slippery as a polished ice rink, I decided there really wasn’t any point in getting stuck into a big tidy up project with only 7 hours left before I’d have to stop & venture out again. More time lost.

60 kms of icy bends

Then just when I thought I’d better make a serious effort & just get started I happened to see a nice shade of green in a magazine & thought I’d try it out on our website – what started out as just playing around with some nice warm, country colours to replace the rather clinical white ended up as a whole new facelift with new layouts,fonts,buttons,photo albums & other behind the scenes stuff which,if I’m honest, I don’t know enough about. 150 pages between the French & English versions but once you start these things you just have to see them through so another 5 days lost. No great hardship though as we now have a fresh, clean website!

New country colours for the website

Seriously behind schedule now I promised myself I’d catch up over the weekend but didn’t realise the Fête d’Oies (Goose festival) was on in Sarlat. Of course local events should always be supported -another day lost. It was a good day about all things geese and more … cooked, bottled, canned,foie gras, cassoulet & even live geese wandering the streets being herded by a very enthusiastic sheepdog. There was also live music,long 15 course dinners, the inevitable crêpes & plenty of apéros!!

award winning goose at this year's festival

A very pleasant afternoon indeed, marred only by a very rude French woman haranguing us in one of our favourite haunts, The French Coffee Shop but affectionately called The Leopard Skin Café by me & Emma , for obvious reasons.

The Leopard Skin Café - I did have a much better photo complete with the agressor in question but Emma didn't like herself in it and at nearly 16 is very fussy about what she lets people see...so here's one from the archives....maybe just as well, could get into trouble publishing photos of angry French Mesdames!!

We had dared to sit down on some empty seats which Madame had mentally earmarked for herself. No subtle pointers like a casually draped jersey over the chair or anything, it was just in her mind and as far as she was concerned she was in the café first & that should have been enough. I tried to politely point out that we weren’t psychic which only served to fuel her wrath…I  was probably supposed to vehemently defend my right to sit there and presumably go on strike to add weight to the matter & then just go & sit down & refuse to move until she went and sat down on one of the other empty seats but I just couldn’t go through with it …obviously still too British.

Then finally a few sunny days spurred Amar on to chop up some big trees which had fallen down over the Winter…a back breaking task but of course it wasn’t me wielding the chainsaw…I was just there for the moral support. Enough – I’ll be back next week with some photos of a very tidy barn!!