As predicted, last week has principally been continuing to decorate and prepare Priory and Granary for the arrival of a party of 8 ladies who have chosen Kergudon as the venue to get together and celebrate a 50th birthday.
I didn’t get as much decorating done as I’d have liked, and I didn’t post any pictures in the week as I said I would, however, Priory was complete in time for our guests arrival and looks amazing – as you’ll see shortly.
Disappointingly, at present, we don’t have guests in either Granary or Hayloft for Christmas itself so there is no requirement to decorate these. However, as I should have time and Hayloft has New Year guests, I will do something in there to make it festive.
As I mentioned in my last blog, I wanted to do something in the pool house despite the fact that the interior is not complete and so can’t be as festive this year as it will be in the future.
This what I have done, and we think it looks great.
The first time we saw illuminated wreaths like these was several years ago in the window of a bakery in the very pretty Italian town of Chiavenna on one of our ski travels. That one was very large, probably about a meter in diameter and I had been looking for something similar since. (Amazingly looking at the bakery on Street View today, they are still visible!)
Until this year I really struggled to find anything like them, but now they seem to have appeared commercially all over the place so we bought some. I initially thought we’d need similarly large ones to the bakery but these are smaller and we think are absolutely perfect for where we have them.
I also brought the deer out of their storage for the year, or at least 3 of the 4 we have.
Frustratingly, one of the deer we had been storing in the pool house was missing its adapter plug so can’t be used. I was convinced that I had stored all 4 in the same manner with their adapters attached to their lights so as not to risk losing them. When I came to put them out, 3 were there, one wasn’t.
I have asked the company where we bought them if they supply adapter plugs separately – I am yet to hear whether they do – but I suspect I will need to do the same to this as I did to the other last year, and buy some new string lights and attach them to the frame during the year. Although, looking at the large deer in the orchard I think I need to revisit this and add more lights again!
Another annoying thing we discovered earlier in the week is that the heat pump our pool builder has installed to heat the pool is not adequate for winter. Having discussed with him at the planning stages that we needed a pool to be available to swim in year round, we understood that he would use a heat pump that functioned in all temperatures.
We have now found the pump we have doesn’t operate if the outside air temperature drops below 8 degrees – which it has been known to do in the winter in Finistère! As a consequence, if the air temperature drops, the pool isn’t heated and so the water temperature drops.
As we have planned to move the pump anyway early in the new year we have agreed with the pool builder to change the pump to one that operates even when the air temperature drops below freezing so at least the pool can continue to be heated. Frustrating, but at least we have found it now.
And so to Priory. As I mentioned last week, we have put 2 trees in the gîte, one on the mezzanine and the usual large (4½ metre) tree in the lounge. When lying in the four poster bed you can see both and we think it looks especially Christmassy.
While I had mostly decorated the mezzanine tree this time last week, I hadn’t started on the large tree. I managed to get that decorated by the end of last Tuesday and I’m really pleased with how it looks – one of the best I think we’ve had since we had this enormous tree!!
I also managed to get a picture of the lights with the last super moon of the year – sadly they never look as good in photos as they do in real life.
Today, despite the appalling weather, we managed to get out to a couple of Christmas markets. Many of the markets that were planned had moved to indoor venues as it has been a very wet and windy day. It’s great that every commune seems to have their own salle des fêtes and / or sports hall! We went a little further afield this time to Locquirec (one of favourite seaside towns in the summer) and stopped in Lanmeur en route.
Next weekend is one of our favourite markets close by, in Le Tréhou which generally has some good stalls – and lots of them. I will need to be very restrained!
À bientôt.