Brittany Gites near Dinan

2012-02-23T11:57:00.001-08:00

My lovely Mum has been here for a week making floor cushions and bunting for the new tent that will be for "chilling out" for the older children - not sure they will appreciate the flower-power patterns, but I love them!

2012-01-22T08:08:00.001-08:00

Had a bit of a clear up outside and a little bonfire!

2012-01-22T08:06:00.001-08:00

So you thought a faggot was a meaty delicacy - No! In France its a bundle of kindling wood ready to start the fire next year - I pruned all the willows at the front of the barn

Lily Flower

2012-01-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

What a mild winter we're having in Brittany this year, first week of January and I have a lily flower!

My Greenhouse!

2011-12-19T07:24:00.000-08:00

A very expensive greenhouse!! I shall not be calculating how many geraniums I have to overwinter successfully to pay for it!

New Baby Guinea Pigs

2011-10-01T10:14:00.001-07:00

Welcome to our two baby editions to La Lohuas "Bubble" and "Squeak"

New Pool photos

2011-07-12T14:25:00.001-07:00

Professional photographer Dan Pix (what a great name for a photographer!) came on holiday here a couple of weeks ago and took some great pictures of the swimming pool for me. You can visit his website on http://www.danpixphotography.co.uk/

Runner Ducks

2011-07-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Our new editions are three Indian Runner Ducks - Ferdinand, Caramel and Tilly. They are three months old and a little shy at the moment, but very sweet. Quack!

New arrivals

2011-06-09T13:58:00.001-07:00

Our batch of 11 chicks were born on Saturday 4th June.

Waterfall

2011-04-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy with my waterfall - it pumps water directly from the heat pump, so gives you a warm massage!

Pool finished

2011-04-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

Finally - after 6 months hard work, it is ready - first holiday makers arrive tomorrow. I am very happy with the end result!

Gravel

2011-04-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

14 tons of gravel to transform the courtyard from a building site into a finished product!

The BIG moment!

2011-03-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

All is working! The pump started to work on Friday evening - the water was at 11°
Hugh braved the water today at 15° and swam all afternoon when the temperature reached 17°. I'm not sure when I will go in yet ....

Filling up No 2

2011-03-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

The water ran for 17 hours and about half filled the pool last night. The water was then stopped so that the holes could be cut out for the skimmers, return valves and lights - this is so that the liner could stretch with the weight of the water, thus ensuring that the holes were made in the right place. Water is now running again and it should be up to level for the test of the filtration unit and the heating started tomorrow morning.

Filling up!

2011-03-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

The liner is finished and the water is going in (the bubbles under the liner are designed to be flattened by the tension made by the weight of the water).... It may take a while to fill - the pictures with Hugh (he was promised the first swim!) were taken when the water had been running for two hours. A picture of Jeff and me sitting on the steps happy that it has been finished (Jeff, a friend of mine, has been working with me on the pool since the beginning)

Progress !

2011-03-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

No blogging for a while now - I've been so busy. To cut a long story short, I had some problems with my pool supplier and so had to go and find someone else who could finish the job for me. We had to redo the concrete bottom of the pool, as it had been badly affected by the frosts in the winter - this was done with a self leveling solution or ragreage.

Following this I needed to lay a felt underlay before the liner could be laid - a complicated task because of the rounded form of the bottom - there cannot be any overlapping pieces, or any folds - lots of cuts and gussets!

The slots for hooking the liner into at the top of the walls have been protected up until now by a plastic strip - this needed to be removed before the liner was fitted.

Today the liner started to go in - the first step was to solder a small strip along the top of the wall sections in order to slot it into the slots shown above.

After this the liner started to go in.

Fence posts

2011-03-07T14:02:00.000-08:00

We have been putting in the fence posts which are held by galvanised steel brackets which need to concreted into the ground. Because of the slope of the ground we have sunk plastic drain pipes into the ground and filled them up with concrete to give them strength, then sunk in the galvanised supports with a large piece of scaffolding pole welded to the bottom to give them extra hold.

The fence slats have been put in to four high, just to ensure that we have the right spacing between the posts whilst the concrete drys.

Fencing posts

2011-02-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

We need to put in fencing posts down the driveway to hold the panel fencing. The problem is that the ground falls away towards the entrance to the pool, so we have decided to put in large diametre plastic piping to hold the post supports - we managed to borrow a large machine for drilling holes to place the plastic pipes vertically.

Another back breaking task!

2011-02-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

The patio stones are beautiful, but they stain and mark very easily - this weekend I've been applying a sealant to protect them - this is a very expensive, but necessary product - it has cost me 550 euros for 25 litres, so I hope it works!

Pool cover finished

2011-02-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

The pool cover is now finished. When I first started to think about a cover for the pool, I thought that I would buy a telescopic cover that opened up by pushing back ever decreasing sizes of roof and walls so that there was an open-air pool to finish. This was probably the most important decision of the whole swimming pool project, because (believe it or not) the cover costs more than the pool itself.

However, when I started to look at these covers there were two options :

on little wheels - which meant that it wasn't fixed to the ground and could fly away if there was a strong wind, which means that you have to bolt it down to the patio if there is a risk of wind. Well, the weather forecasts in France are about as good as in the UK - so I didn't want to risk that!

on rails - this seemed like a good idea at first, the rails are discreet - however, each section of the cover is a different size and for the length of cover that I needed (13 metres) I would need 8 sections, which meant 8 rails side-by-side across the patio - not pretty ...

The cover that I have opted for has a permanent roof, but the sides open with two windows in each section, this means that you can open one side, or the other, or both - or maybe just two sections if there is a prevailing wind, the closed side can act as a windbreak. Also you can just open a small section at the bottom allowing ventilation.

The ventilation is important - if it is a miserable day, you would keep the cover closed, but the fumes from the chlorified water are quite strong, so it is good to have a through current of air - this is not at all possible with telescopic covers.

The other advantage of the cover that I have, is that the roof is UV treated, so people who want to get a suntan can go and sunbath on the patio, but little ones in the pool are fully protected by the roof - an added advantage for me, because suncreams are a pool maintainers nightmare!

Pool cover construction

2011-02-16T13:43:00.001-08:00

Pool cover arrives

2011-02-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Today was very exciting - up until now we've been very much on our own for the construction - but today they delivered the pool cover and tomorrow someone is coming to put it up - they should be finished on Friday. Next Monday a team arrives to fit the liner and connect up the pump and heating - all should be operational at the end of next week !!!!

Pool house finished

2011-02-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

The roof is on and I've just finished laying the floorboards - all that's left to do is paint it - this is a job that I'm going to give to my parents when they come on holiday in two weeks time! Thanks Mum and Dad x

Pool House construction

2011-02-09T09:33:00.001-08:00

The Pool house construction started today - went up really quickly - just the roof to go on tomorrow. One side of the house will be a changing room (the larger side) and the other side will be the pump/filter/chemical area.

Grouting, grouting, grouting

2011-01-31T06:44:00.000-08:00

The paving slabs are now all laid (hooray!) Now for another time consuming job - I have to grout all the gaps in between. For those of you who have grouted tiles, this is nothing like the same job - the joints are 10mm and the stones are porous, the grout is a lime/sand mixture so you cannot just slap it on and swirl it about until it falls in the holes. It is a painstaking exercise of trouelling the mixture and pushing right down to the bottom of the joints. I have been at it for 4 days and I think that I've got another 6 or 8 days to do .... on my knees, bent over double with an icy wind bearing down on me. However, it is looking great. Because of the below zero temperatures at night, I am having to cover it up with polystyrene sheets to protect it each night - roll on the summer!

The icing on the cake!

2011-01-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

Today I found that the easiest way to grout the edging stones for the pool (5cm thick and rounded edges over the pool) was to use a Lakeland Plastics disposable icing bag ! Went in a treat - as easy as making a cake :-)

Paving Progress

2011-01-22T01:10:00.000-08:00

Paving the terrasse

2011-01-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

For the past four days we have been laying the paving for the terrasse around the pool. This involves laying a sand/cement mix (une chape) of about 5cm - tamping down, levelling and making absolutely flat. After this a mix of pure cement and water (une barbotine) is slopped on to glue the slabs to the chape. This has been one of the hardest jobs I have ever done - the sheer surface area (154 metres square) and the weight of the stone - but we're nearly there - probably 1.5 days to go ...

Edging stones

2011-01-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

Today I finished installing the margelles, or edging stones for the pool. It has taken me four days of hard slog - I had to do it on my own because I am known as Bonnie Tiler here and so everyone thought they'd leave it to the expert - ha! It was hard because each stone weighs about 10kg and they have to be millimetre accurate because the slabs for the rest of the terrasse are the same colour and width (but not the same depth) so these edging stones will be the starting point of the rest of the 154m2 - the joints and the height all need to line up. I have used 150 kg of tile cement to put them down because they need to be solid - people will pull themselves out of the pool by the edges.

I ache everywhere, back, arms, shoulders, elbows and knees ....

P.S. The water will be cleaner than this when the pool is put in service!!!

2011-01-04T09:33:00.001-08:00

704 paving slabs arrived this morning - another little job for me to do ....

Concreting the terrasse

2010-12-30T07:45:00.001-08:00

It has been quiet here for a while, but that does not mean that we haven't been working. It has taken several days with lots of headscratching and shovelling to get the terrasse ready for concreting.

The problem was that we needed a slope o...n each side of 1cm for each metre to enable the water to run off freely - easily said, but with each of the four sides sloping in different directions and not easy to take levels over such a large area, it took a bit of time.

We have used a system of rails, the top of which represent the finished level of concrete, and we needed to bring in the right level of stones to reach the required depth of 10cm over the area of 154 metres squared.

The concrete arrived in two lorries and it was off loaded and levelled into place by me standing on the top of a long plank and three butch french men pulling the plank to level off the concrete (sorry no photo - lots of balancing required!)

After this the rails were lifted and we filled in their holes and finished with a petrol vibrating concrete ruler to get a smooth finish.

The only thing left for me to do was a four-course meal for 8 people, phew!

Ground work finished

2010-12-14T07:28:00.001-08:00

The ground work for the patio area is now finished - we are now ready for 15 tonnes of cement and 600 paving slabs, phew!

Retaining wall

2010-12-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

Because the ground where the pool has been built was sloping, the pool was not fully sunk in to ground level. This left us with a problem of how to secure the patio area so that it would not subside. The solution was found by installing 5 former concrete and metal electricity poles (don't ask where they came from - does everyone still have power?!) This should ensure that there is no landslide in future years!

Pipes and drains

2010-11-29T12:29:00.000-08:00

There are various pipes around the outside of the swimming pool to take the water to the sand filtration unit, which is compulsory for a "public" pool, which is what this is considered to be. The pump then takes the water through the heat pump and brings it back to the pool - it will circulate the entire volume of water (70m3) in one hour. There is also an additional tube, which will feed the waterfall feature. These have to be covered in fine sand to protect them, before we can infill with gravel.

The same day, we excavated a couple of trenches. One to take a drain from around the pool in case the ground gets waterlogged and disturbs the pool structure. The other trench was to feel electricity to the pump house. These were quickly back filled (before I had a chance to get the camera out) and you would almost never know there were there!

All of this work was washed down with a beer for the boys, whilst I did the school run!

2010-11-29T12:26:00.001-08:00

A problem that has been looming for a while has been how to fill in the hole which will be the future sun terrace - soil will settle and create subsidence problems, concrete is too expensive and hardcore is difficult to find.

Yves "found" a ...fallen down stone building in one of his fields - it was at the edge of the field covered in brambles, we thought that we could make a start with that - 8 trailer loads later (about 15 tons each) we had an impressive heap which Stefane started to level with his digger.

Smooth bottom!

2010-11-29T12:24:00.001-08:00

I've been so busy working that I've not had time to update the progress here. About a week ago we skimmed the bottom of the pool to give it a smooth finish to take the liner:

Rain stops play ....

2010-11-13T06:43:00.001-08:00

The pool has been "drying" for the last couple of weeks and the rest of the work has been held up by the rain (and a little holiday of our own, where thankfully we were spared the rain!).
In the mean time I have been sanding down and oiling the garden furniture - 8 tables and 30 chairs - ouch my arms hurt!

Concreting the base for the swimming pool

2010-10-28T10:47:00.001-07:00

The next step was to concrete the floor, the mix had to be very dry in order for us to form the rounded bottom of the deep end - this made it very hard to move it around and to smooth it down. In addition we had too much (for the walls we didn't have enough!) cement - so we ended up shovelling lots out and putting it around the base of the walls outside. Unfortunately you can't send concrete back and get a refund! Hey, ho!

2010-10-27T04:09:00.000-07:00

First lorry of concrete was delivered - with this we filled up the wall structure - 5m3 of concrete. Tomorrow we will do the base of the swimming pool.

Ready for concrete

2010-10-27T01:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we finished putting in the metal reinforcements for the concrete and connecting the pipes which will suck the liner into place.

Structure finished

2010-10-23T09:33:00.001-07:00

This morning we started to put together the walls - a short storm came over and blew everything down!

This afternoon we finished putting all the panels together and reinforcing them with metal rods - all is square, level and in place - just the steps to do and we're ready to concrete it all in ....

Swimming pool arrives

2010-10-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

The lorry arrived with all the pieces of the swimming pool, very exciting and very big - the lorry couldn't turn around in the courtyard, it was so big!

Building a concrete surround

2010-10-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

The pool walls need a level, solid base to stand on, here are Jeff, Yves and Hugh putting this in place

We have a hole !

2010-10-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

After waiting for three stressful days, the digger man finally arrived - and we now have a hole. The deep end of the pool slopes downward from the shallow end (furthest away).

Now awaiting delivery of the pool kit on Thursday...

2010-10-13T09:36:00.001-07:00

Today, Yves cousin Pierrick (agricultural contractor) came to chop down the rest of the Walnut tree which was growing around the electricity cable carrying 400V to the house. Unfortunately my camera battery was flat so I had to take the photo with my mobile ... He was in a large cherry picker which he whizzed about ...with his left hand whilst brandishing a chain saw with his right hand - no harness, no safety helmet, no goggles and (only in France) a cigarette hanging out of his mouth ...!

2010-10-08T13:47:00.001-07:00

T he second shed has now come down - this was more difficult because I wanted to keep the wood - solid oak - for use in other projects, so it could not be bulldozed. Thanks to Yves, Hervé and Jeff for their help - we started at 10am and finished at 4.30 pm - payment was by means of coq au vin at lunchtime and a few beers at the end!

2010-10-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

The first shed has now been demolished - this was the easy one as we decided that apart from the corrugated roofing sheets, there was nothing to be saved - the wood was rotting, so we decided to burn it ...

2010-09-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

The planning laws in France are quite strict. I wanted to put the pool in the middle of my "play field", but this must be reserved for agricultural use only.

I have now had planning permission agreed to knock down two sheds and place the pool and patio where they are.

Swimming Pool project

2010-09-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

In order to make the gites a bit more saleable (two bad years after the financial crisis). I am going to put in a heated, covered 10m x 5m swimming pool. The pool will be heated by a heat pump (a bit like a fridge in reverse) and will be covered by a perpex cover which opens up either partially or fully on both sides.

Here is a photo of a similar pool

Snowy brittany

2010-01-18T08:45:00.001-08:00

It's been snowing here! Quite a rare occasion for Brittany - the children have been having great fun - school has been cancelled for two days and I have lost count of the number of snowmen, ladies children and of course, snowdogs, igloos etc that have been built!

Pomme finished

2008-05-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hooray! It's finished!

I started to renovate Pomme in the middle of January, four months ago. I have replaced the staircase, doors, and windows. A wall has been knocked down, a ventilation system put in, cut granite stones for the front step, decorated all the walls, replaced damaged doors in the kitchen and laid a laminate floor upstairs.

Several coats varnish, wood stain, paint later, I have replaced all nets and curtains, bought new furniture, and, even though I say it myself, I am really proud of it.

The finishing always takes more time than you anticipate and I had to move the furniture back in on the 3rd May due to the next door gite where I was storing being rented out. So I have taken three weeks to complete the finishing touches.

Staircase

2008-02-28T01:33:00.000-08:00

The main reason for renovating Pomme gite was because of the staircase. The original staircase had been put in 'on a budget' and was a straight, open treaded pine staircase. You can see it behind the rocking chair on the left of the first picture. Because people often don't like open treaded staircases, the previous owner had nailed a piece of plyboard on the back. The problem with this is that the treads were not wide and now your feet could not poke through to the other side, making it feel even more like a ladder!

Very early on, we took off the piece of plyboard, but there was still a problem that where the stairs arrived on the top floor it was on the side the building under the sloping roof. The ceilings are very low and it meant having to bend over at an angle to step onto the upstairs floor. This was acceptable going up, but going down took a bit of getting used to.

Generally people like the gite, finding it cosy and full of character. However during the five years here, I have had two older clients who were not happy at all with the stairs, happily they were in quiet periods and I was able to re-house them in other gites.

The new stairs had to be made to measure, and my main aim was to have them arrive in the middle of the room upstairs, so that the sloping ceilings were not and issue. Stairs take up a lot of room downstairs, so the solution was to move them to one end of the gite and to turn through 90° twice to arrive at the top.

The stairs took about a week to install, the carpenters also built me a stairgate at the top, which I am really pleased with. They are made in a hardwood called Movingui, which is yellow/orange in colour. I experimented on scraps of wood with various stains and varnishes, and eventually decided that it was best with just a clear varnish (the upstairs photo shows the first coat of varnish on the left hand side).

Pomme Renovation

2008-02-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

The smallest gite here is called Pomme.

A cute little 2-bedroomed house with sloping ceilings and a downstairs bathroom.

The stairs are very straight and upright and open treads. People are often worried about going up and down them. This coupled with the top of the stairs arriving under the sloping ceiling (you have to duck considerably) led me to take the decision to carry out a major renovation of Pomme this winter.

Starting in January, a local carpenter came to fit new doors and windows, here's the before and after:

Winter work

2008-02-15T05:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I have been absent for a while. Contrary to most people's impression, winter is my busiest period here with the gites. I spent the time bringing up to scratch the gites for the next season.

This teamed with the fact that I have had problems with my computer and also uploading photos, has led to an empty blog for a while.

Before Christmas, I replaced two of the bathrooms in Cerise. Originally, the bathrooms had showers recuperated from two other bathrooms downstairs in Poire, but the shower trays had to be installed raised from the floor in order for the waste pipes to pass. This together with corner opening doors, made it awkward to get in and out.

The main bathroom shower was taken out completely and I put in a bath with a shower over. Baths are more popular for families with small children.

The ensuite shower doors were replaced with a complete side opening door.

All the pipes in both bathrooms were boxed in, to make it easier for cleaning.

This finished I decorated the hall and replaced the polystyrene ceiling with tongue and groove wood cladding.

Chouette

2007-11-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

I have two chimneys in my house, both lined with a stainless steel chimney liner. From time to time a bird comes down the tube and flies into the wood burner at the bottom, this is not a problem (so long as the fire's not lit!), I just open the windows in the room and open the wood burner and off goes the slightly puzzled bird.

The other day I woke up to hear noises to indicate that this had happened. I went downstairs, but could see no bird, so I pulled down the flue that covers most of the tube. After an hour or so I could hear the noises increasing, and out popped a Tawny Owl (Une chouette, which incidentally also means smart or great).

The owl was very sleepy (this being day time for humans and so night time for owls, I presume) and did not want to fly away.

After leaving it there for most of the day, I decided that I needed to move it, so donned some thick gloves and put it in the wood shed. I thought that it would fly away during the night, but the following day it was still there, bearly moving. Oh dear, it was surely suffering from shock, my daughter wanted me to find a dead mouse to feed it, but not have too many dead mice in stock, I left it for another night. Happily it flew during the night and now I can hear it twit-t wooing in the oak tree in front of the house each night. I like happy endings!

Child's Play

2007-10-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well I did it! It cost a lot of money, but its fantastic, mows and collects wet grass and you can empty the collecter without even getting off your seat!

It is so simple to use that my son, Hugh, mowed the lawn today

Hey, that's great, no more lawn mowing. As a single mum, I'm all in favour of child labour - hey look he can empty it, too!

Tools of the job

2007-10-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

One of my most important tools of my job is my lawn mower. I have over 1.5 hectares of land mostly laid to lawn and it takes me around 4.5 hours per week to keep the grass cut neatly. The tool for the job is a sit-on lawnmower with a cutting width of 120cm and three rotary blades. The cut grass can either be mulched by attaching a flap over the exit hole, which forces it back into the blades to be chopped up further and left on the lawn, or collected through a side mounted tube which throws the clippings up over the back of the mower into three collecting bins mounted at the back.

When I bought the mower they told me that it wasn't quite big enough for the size of the ground, but at 3,500 euros, I considered that it was within my budget, whereas the alternative started at 10,000 euros. Mistake!

I have been riddled with problems with this mower, drive belts breaking regularly, pulleys needing replacing, springs breaking. I think that (a) its not a brilliant machine (badged generic mower with Briggs and Stratton Engine) and the work that it does it just cannot cope with.

This weekend, after a short holiday away from the gites, I tried to mow - the battery was flat, so I jump started it from my car. I mowed for about 5 minutes and the blades cut out (after a bit of investigation, this was also due to no power in the battery. I charged the battery overnight, but no joy. I bought a new battery and charged it, then started to mow again. After 10 minutes, the secondary (but also important) drive belt for the mower bed snapped.

I managed to find another belt at my local lawn mower shop and I fitted it today -it took around 2 hours.

The main problem with my lawns is that they are sown on what was farm land, very well cultivated and heavily fertilised with nitrates during the 1970s, before the Agricultural control boards began to regulate the use of fertilizers. Nitrates promote green growth in plants, ie lots of grass!

Whilst I was in the lawn mower shop, they informed me that a customer who has 5 hectares of land around a lake had bought a Wolf A100K, a semi professional mower with ability to cut and collect wet grass. This customer has found that this model is not big enough for his land, so he wants to buy the next model up, he is selling his second hand 25hour usage mower for 8,000 euros. A lot of money, but one of the most important tools of my job.

I havent decided whether to buy or not yet, I can go and try the mower out first, then decide. I'll post the result.

Moles

2007-09-17T03:07:00.000-07:00

Moles are the a huge problem here at La Lohuas, especially this year. Normally they are active during the autumn winter and spring, but in the summer when the soil drys out and hardens, they become less active. This year has been fairly wet, so they have continued throughout the season. The little blighters have a capacity to create enormous mole hills, which leave big grassless patches in the lawn even if you scoop up the molehill. The hills also pose a problem to my lawn mower - they can be up to 50 cm in height and diameter, so quite damaging to the blades on the mower. This year I have spent half an hour collecting up the soil on just one lawn filling a big wheelbarrow to overflowing with mud. I am sure they are cute and furry (I haven't yet seen one here) but they add to my workload, so I'm afraid there is a war between us. Unfortunately, they are winning hands down!

Because of the size of the gardens here (2 hectaires or 4 acres) I cannot use any of the deterrant techniques, (solar noise generators, plastic bottles on sticks, mothballs down the holes, etc) as this just means that they move on to another area of the garden and I have more damage than before. So I am stuck with the option of eradication (kill them all!)

I have tried the following techniques:
Smoke cartridges - hah! they push up a mole hill with the spent cartridge sitting on the top
Water down the holes - nothing
Diesel down the holes (I know its not very environmentally friendly, but I was desperate) they move to another area.

A Détauper - this is a small explosive attached to a trigger that is plunged into the hole and when Mr Mole comes along he pushes up the trigger and if he's arrived from the right direction the explosive goes off under his tummy (awww, but it's quick and painless) This is very expensive and works very well, however my insurance does not cover me for explosive devices in the garden, when there are small children running around, so this has been put away for the winter.

Worm poisoning - probably the most effective without damaging the guests. I bought a box which contained a liquid (propylène glycol) and a powder (Chloralose). Here are the instructions on the packet (translation from French).

Preparing the bait: Find 250g of earthworms, pick them up just before you treat the moles, they must be fresh (the children and I dug for three hours and found 80 worms weighing a grand total of 22 grammes (ok fine, just divide the mixtures by 10))
Let them disgorge (empty) themselves for one hour in a clean container (ok, but some of them have already been here for 3 hours cause it took us that long to find all his friends!)
Dry them on kitchen towel - fine 80 worms spread on kitchen towel across the kitchen table (how hygenic)
Dowse them in propylene glycol - not explained on the packet, this kills them all - very quickly and very dramatically, luckily the kids, having lost interest, were watching TV at this point.
Cover them in the powder.

Find the tunnels: The principle tunnels start from a ditch, a hedge or a wall and go towards the centre of the lawn. Other tunnels will be secondary feeding tunnels, these have smaller mole hills. Only treat the principle tunnels ( my mole hills are all in the middle of the lawn and all large, maybe they're all principle ones)

Putting down the poison - Make holes in the tunnels between the mole hills without letting the soil fall into the tunnel (how do I know where the tunnels are - I have made several exploratory digs, but it seems that moles do not travel in straight lines between their molehills! - hey ho, I 'll just go straight under the molehill - if someone knows how to dig without the soil falling back into the hole, please let me know)
Put in 2 - 3 worms - they're all stuck together with the liquid and the powder, I mustn't touch them with my hands because moles dont like human odeur, so here I am with my little eyebrow plucking tweezers trying to separate the worms and drop them into the holes (whilst not displacing the soil)
Now clear away all the molehills, so you can see if you've succeeded (the easiest step, I've been doing this all year)

As they say in French " On n'a pas un metier facile" (not an easy job)

Changeover days

2007-08-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday is the busiest day for the gites, I ask holiday makers to vacate their gite before 10am and the new clients are able to arrive from 4pm onwards. I have five houses (total floor surface of 320m2) with a total of 11 bathrooms to clean. Beds to change for 27 people, welcome packs to provide, washing to do, guests to say goodbye to and new guests to welcome and show around. I do have a lady to help me, but it's all carried out on a very tight timescale.

I think today was the hardest day in 5 years. Last week I had a family of fifteen people occupying 3 of the gites - they were very nice and had a lovely holiday. They ate together in one of the gites, and consequently crockery, cutlery, glasses and all cooking implements became displaced and muddled. They helped me sort it out - its fairly easy as most of the gites have distinct crockery,etc and also I provide an inventory, so that we could check off what goes where. The children helped me move all the items to the appropriate gites, whilst their parents packed the car.

This week I have another family of 15 occupying 3 gites (but not the same three as last week!) so next week I have to do the same again.

It was also difficult this week as people started to arrive for their holidays at 11am (not 4pm), and although they were happy to just drop off their luggage and disappear for lunch, it all takes time out of a very busy schedule.

Tonight I am waiting for the last family to arrive then a large glass of wine and early to bed!

Beach rider

2007-08-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

One of the girls staying at the gites last week had a dream to go horse riding in the surf on the beach. I arranged for her to have a 2 hour ride at a stables near St Brieuc at the Centre Equestre de Plerin. They are allowed to ride on the beaches after 7pm, and it was only possible on Friday, as earlier in the week the tides were too high in the evenings.

She spent one hour in the woods and one hour galloping across the sands on a deserted beach, accompanied by a dashing army horseman who wanted to practice his English with her! She said that it made it the best holiday she had ever had! (I'm thinking about treat myself to a ride there, too!)

Little Egret

2007-08-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today one of the gite clients went to St Jacut sur Mer, the lady is a keen bird watcher and had spotted a bird that at first she thought was a Heron, but there were a group of them fishing in the sea. She asked me if I could lend her a bird book and I brought out my Readers Digest Book of Birds and she identified the bird as a Little Egret, rare in these parts, but apparently moving North due to climate change.

Harvest

2007-08-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

In our commune (village) there are 1000 habitants, so not so big, however there are 34 farms in the commune - so a large proportion of farmers. My partner, Yves, is a dairy farmer with around 50 hectares (100 acres) and 45 milking cows. Most of his fields are either pasture for the cows and heifers, or sown as maize for silaging forage for the cows to eat. The remaining fields (this year 8 hectares) are sown with wheat, mainly for the straw for the bedding in the winter, but also to sell the wheat. This week has seen the harvest start for Yves, it has been going on all around us for about three weeks, but as most of the farmers are small business, they cannot afford to buy large machinery like combine harvesters, so have to use contractors. The problem here is that everyone wants the contractor to come and harvest on the first sunny day that the wheat is ripe, so Yves has had to wait his turn.

In the mornings, the dew is heavy in Brittany, so generally it is not possible to start combining until after 3pm when the dew has been dried off, then all is clear (weather permitting) until the dew falls again, normally at about 4.30am. Yves' first slot came at about 10pm on Sunday evening (very sociable!!). So we all went along to watch the Fiat combine start his large field of 6.5 hectares. The Fiat is very small and very old (it literally clatters along!), it has a cutting width of 3 meters as opposed to the modern machines of 5 or 6 meters, although the larger machines get the job done quicker, they have to process the wheat a lot quicker, so this means threshing it much more violently - this tends to break the straw and give a poorer quality bedding.

They worked through the night and had to finish at 4am in the morning because of rain. There is still one and a half hours combining left to do.

On Monday evening he had a smaller field to harvest, but there was lots of bindweed entwined in the wheat, so this required the bigger machine, which could cope with the weed.

Hugh went along with his toy combine to help as well - you can see the similarity.

Gardens

2007-08-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

The gardens have really taken over this year, we had a dry and sunny April, but then it rained a great deal during May, June and July. I have 1.7 hectaires of land here (approximately 4 acres) and also lots of it is lawned (4.5 hours of mowing each time) I have planted a large flower garden. The gardens were created in 2004 and on a limited budget I planted a few plants that I bought and lots that I took as cuttings from other people gardens, at first they were really sparse.

This year the gardens have been hard work, everything has really grown and needs serious pruning, which I should have carried out in the winter or spring, but will have to wait until the autumn now. I have spent much more time this year, trying to keep things tidy and trying to get the lawns mown. Of course, there is also the constant battle against the moles, I'll talk about that later!

Here is a picture of the gardens now, I suppose that the most impressive for me is the hedge in the foreground, I took 80 cuttings of a Lonicera nitida about 10cm long, dipped them in potting compost and in three years a fantastic hedge - it does need lots of trimming, but is very easy to manage if you keep on top of it (it does need a trim on top at the moment!).

Leicster Spokes Cycle Club

2007-07-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

Last week, Leicester Spokes Cycle Club stayed in 3 of the gites, Cerise, Fraise and Pomme. 15 cyclists made up the group, and they visited the area using the local cycle paths, disused railway lines and canal paths and also the trains to go further afield. Some of the rides that they did were to Hédé, Mont St Michel, Dinard, Rennes and Combourg.

They were a very friendly group and I really enjoyed hosting them here and helping them with their route planning. You can visit their website at http://www.leicesterspokes.org.uk/

Welcome

2007-06-29T04:16:00.001-07:00

Welcome to my blog. A short history of why I am here : I was working in the computer industry in England with two small children Elizabeth and Hugh (2 and 4 at the time) and never quite seeing enough of them. I had a nanny, so they were well looked after, but never really profitted from my life as a Mum.

Just before Elizabeth started school, my husband, Ian and I decided to "jump ship" and move to France. We bought La Lohuas in December 2002 and worked furiously in the first half of the year to create three gites. This worked well but didn't bring enough money in to live, so at the end of 2004 we started to renovate the barn at the side of the property to make two more gites. These were finished in spring 2006.

The major change during this time was that Ian and I split up in October 2005 and he moved out. I am now running the business on my own and am in the process of buying Ian's share of the house and business.

To see the full layout and photos of the gites, you can visit http://www.brittanygites.com/