Sunday, September 22, 2013

Summer Souvenirs

Sorry it's been so long - there's been a lot going on! We've had a lovely summer and enjoyed sharing Kebourg with family and friends. Here's just a taster of the good times we had.



 Helping hands

We have had a lot of help from our younger friends this summer. David and Hannah from Germany and Adam from the UK all spent time here working on the project and they were a great help and good company. We were surprised to have these unsolicited offers of help and very touched that young people would be happy to come and spend a few weeks with us old folks. Hope it wasn't too traumatic for you all!

We also had help from our own children and children of friends who were on holiday - special thanks to Olivia and Henry who gave up lying by a lovely pool to do jobs for us. With so many hands to the pump things kept moving along despite us taking time out to enjoy our guests.




Building
Things have moved on so much it's hard to start to tell you what has been happening. Perhaps I'll just tell you where we are up to now.

Things we have finished
Guest bedrooms
Guest bathroom
Office
Salon
Swimming pool - needs a surround on the cards for next spring
All the internal ceilings - what seemed like miles and miles of woodstaining

When I say finished  I mean all the painting and furnishing - we still haven't any pictures, curtains or those little touches that make things cosy - that will keep me busy on winter afternoons.

Things nearly finished
Kitchen - just waiting for a couple more units to be done and a cupboard to be painted
Main bathroom - waiting for tiler coming next week
Heating system - just being fine tuned 

Still to do
Halls - need painting but two sides are stone so won't take long
Furnishings
Shutters - they are up and we have only the top coat to do
Terrace tiling - a job for next Spring



The builders will be back at the beginning of October to point the outside (they needed the shutters finished first) and then the parking can be done and we'll have an almost normal home!

Animals

Kevin always feels that dogs come to you. One of the builders heard that we would like another dog to keep Sam company and told us that his friend's labrador retriever had had puppies that they were giving away. It was, of course, love at first sight . We named her Schula and picked her up at 8 weeks old when our friend Leah was here from Germany - she used to love our fox terrier Sally so much and we knew she would love to welcome the newcomer. She was a hit with everyone and is coming along very well - already responding to the sit and come commands and making grumpy Sam a lot less grumpy.

We also took some ducks from our friend Sandie and they settled in very well - they won't be with us for long as they are for the table so another job for next week.


We have been busy in the grounds too and had a great season in the potager - lots of bottled and frozen goodies for the winter. In fact I am exhausted just writing all this down so off to sit in the sun with the kindle I got for my birthday at the beginning of the month.

Tomatoes for the winter

Old friends and one of our lovely daughters
Derby and Joan - a bit less of us than last summer!
Beautiful sunsets - something we didn't get at the last house


Well I think I have caught you up on everything - I'll try not to leave it so long next time.

A la prochaine xxx








 

3 comments:

Tina said...

I can't remember how I found your blog, but I'm loving reading about what you are doing! You might remember we had a conversation about bonfires some time ago, well my neighbours (2 fields away) had a letter from the Mairie telling them to stop, but I'm still having sneaky bonfires at dusk and risking it!

Enid said...

Everyone still burning here. Glad you are enjoying the blog - hopefully I'll have more time foor it soon

Alison Pope said...

Lovely :)