Happy New Year to you all. David and I hope you have all had a pleasant Christmas and welcomed the New Year in as you would wish!
Apologies that I haven’t posted a blog since December 7th, not even to pass on our Christmas wishes. Reading back through all our 2025 blogs, which I do at this time of year to write a summary of our activities, there was a pattern of fewer blogs and longer gaps between them.
When there are large gaps in my blogs, it often means we have been away. That was not the case this time just that we have been so busy with fun-based activities over Christmas I didn’t manage to get anything written. I will try harder for 2026.
I hope that you enjoy reading our posts and seeing what progress we are making to develop, improve and maintain Kergudon but, I may have said previously, the principal reason I write them is so that David and I have a record of what we have done, and when. We will be able to look back in years to come and reminisce about what we did – and what we should / should not have done!!
The fun based activities in the last 4 weeks have been visiting other Christmas markets before the big day, including one we think is among the best in Le Trehou on 13 December, and then to Pleyben on 14th. For a small-ish town, Pleyben make quite a bit of effort with their Christmas lights – although I didn’t get a photo at night when we were back in the town on New Year’s Day.
We have been hosting David’s Dad, Roger, for Christmas as well as some guests who are staying with us for their 3rd Christmas and New Year and have become good friends. Having guests gives us an excuse to visit lots of the towns around here to see the Christmas lights, eat in some of our favourite restaurants, and try new ones.
Over the last 4 weeks, in no particular order, we visited Landerneau twice who have an excellent light display each Christmas, this was their 10th display; we visited Morlaix which is a very attractive old town who have a low key Christmas display; Locronon which is one of France’s Petites Cités de Caractère based around an 18th century square and church and whose Christmas lights are well know throughout the area; and to the Chateau de Trevarez, a 19th century chateau just outside Châteauneuf-du-Faou whose annual light display over Christmas attract large crowds.
Landerneau:
Morlaix:
Locronan:
Trevarez:
We also returned to Locquirec to walk one of our favourite parts of the coast which coincided with their annual Christmas swim – which we were happy to witness but not partake in!
There really is so much to see and do over the festive period.
Looking back further as to what we have achieved over the course of 2025, I am not sure it has been as productive a year as we’d have liked. However, I do seem to say that in all of my annual summaries so we obviously have high expectations of what we want to achieve and what we manage to do!
I used to speak about our ‘To Do’ list a lot in my blogs that directed much of the work that we wanted to complete. The list still exists – and we look at it from time to time however, over the course of last year we didn’t need to refer to the list for our most major project as it was getting the swimming pool finally complete so it can be swum in!
The pool had taken much longer than we’d anticipated as 2024 turned out to be quite a wet year, and certainly in the spring so very little was progressed between January and May 2024.
The spring of 2025 seemed as though it would follow a similar pattern which meant further delay. At the start of the year, the structure of the pool house was complete and the next stage was to lay slabs on the terrace, something that required dry weather and temperatures consistently high enough for the adhesive to set. This was one of the challenges, the other was the lady who we had contracted to do the work had lots of other jobs on and needed to focus elsewhere at times.
The lawn, or in January, the field that the lawn had become, was also somewhere we had to focus because there would have been no point having a pool if guests had to walk over a ploughed field to get to it!
We were waiting for our original landscaper to come and dig a new trench so we could connect the pool to power, the original trench he had dug when no one was there proving unusable. Eventually we asked a different, more local, landscaper to come and do all the earth works which turned out to be the right decision. He, and a connection of his, was able to get the area as level as they could but highlighted just how stoney the ground is and how many large pieces of rock and slate lay just under the surface which, unfortunately, damaged a rotovator than they were using – twice. We agreed then that David and I would have to do the remainder manually and that proved boring and hard work in equal measure!
Thankfully, the weather had turned very much for the better and we started a period of what would be exceptionally dry and hot. This allowed the tiler to complete the terrace, and allowed David and I lots of opportunity to get outside to rake, roll and scrape the area in preparation for seeding a new lawn. The problem then became it being too dry to lay seed (who’d have thought in Finistère!) and the flattened ‘lawn’ became parched dry and cracked!
Eventually, thankfully, we did have some wetter days that allowed us to lay the seed we had bought and we now have the makings of an attractive lawn – especially as all the groundworks seem to have scared off the moles that were causing problems before the work! I’m sure they’ll be back but, also in the summer, I have been given a masterclass by a neighbour on mole ‘deterrence’ as we had others destroying both the orchard and Granary lawns – now resolved – so I am ready for them!
With the terrace tiled, things moved very quickly and we were able to have the telescopic cover installed which, once done, allowed the pool builder to come and finish the pool itself which we then able to fill and it was available for use in the middle of July – finally!
It is now down to me to fit out the interior of the pool house which I have made a start on and will pick up next week.
(We also hope in the next week our pool builder will return and swap the heat pump he has installed for one that we understood we were getting anyway – one that can heat the water throughout the winter as, encouragingly, we have had a number of reservations for the colder months and, right now, the pool is too chilly to be used!)
The only other major project achieved in the year we also completed in the spring which was to refurbish our couples’ gîte, Gite Hayloft.
Hayloft was the gîte we renovated first when we arrived in 2015 and has proven extremely popular but, after 10 years, needed a thorough refurb. Having re-roofed the property in autumn 2025 to prevent any possible leaks, we thought now was the time to do the interior.
At the start of the year, we can generally be flexible with our accommodation for any reservations we receive. While Hayloft was being refurbed we were generally able to accommodate guests in Granary.
With other jobs to juggle the refurb took just over 2 months and Hayloft looks so much better for it. We also experimented with a slightly different configuration for the bed which, having asked a number of guests who have stayed before and after, seems to be preferred so we have retained.
The one thing we had hoped to do, but didn’t achieve and will do so this spring, is changing the hot water tank. The tanks here don’t seem to have a terribly long life before they fail in some form (heating element, spring a leak etc) and it is my greatest fear than one day we go to turn the tank on and it doesn’t work – especially if we’re unable to shuffle guests into different accommodation.
Hayloft’s tank is at least 12 years old and starting to look it, so as a pre-emptive measure, our plan is to replace it in the next couple of months and, hopefully, minimise the risk of failure.
It never sounds a lot when I list what we have managed to achieve, which is why I said earlier I don’t know if it has been as productive a year as we’d have liked but of course, these are the most significant projects and as well as these, we have done lots of other smaller maintenance and development jobs too, too numerous to mention.
Looking ahead, there is a daunting list of things we would like to achieve and, all being well, work starts next week. I’m hoping that this time next year, I can say we had a productive year, then I’ll be happy!!
And, I do promise that I will write about it more regularly so there aren’t as many 4-week gaps between blogs!
Kenavo.