At the end of last week’s blog, I said that the forecast was looking reasonably good which should allow lots of progress to be made and that David’s Dad was joining us so we could also do some social activities.
I certainly managed to make some progress when the weather allowed. Sadly, the same could not be said of our builders on the pool house. More of that later …
My focus continued to be the autumn trim of the hedges. A couple of weeks ago, I cut some of the hedge behind Grange which has been ignored for a number of years principally so it will be clear for the roofers who we are expecting to arrive next week to replace Hayloft’s roof. Then, I cut most of the hedge from the field on our neighbour’s side, last week I continued along its length but on our side.
This has cleared the space behind my ready-use wood stores and let a lot more light in but here is more to do. This hedge is now quite tall and I didn’t get the ladder out so I haven’t yet cut the top down yet but will need to do so before the end of the year.
Other hedges I have managed to tackle, if not complete, is the griselinia hedge next to Granary’s parking space and continuing with the hedge alongside Hent Gorreker. This was the area where we lost 2 oak and 3 willows during storm Ciáran last November. This year, both have re-sprouted and the willow especially, which grows very quickly, was larger than the privet next to it.
Ideally, I would prefer the willow stumps to die and just allow the holly, yew and privet there to create a lovely hedge. Killing willow is difficult but not impossible, I think I need to be more thorough at removing new growth shoots next year.
Since we arrived, we have spent a lot of time taming and planting / creating new hedging which is starting to get established and looks good. The downside of this is the many hours of trimming required to keep them in shape.
With a beautiful hedge appearing on top of the talus alongside Hent Gorreker, I am also trying to make the talus itself look attractive. It is a vey old stone wall and, when stripped of the bramble, cooch and sprouting trees it looks lovely.
I do think however, I may have created another issue in that, the talus obviously doesn’t have a foundation and the commune has dug a drainage ditch along its length which, in the wetter winter months, has lots of water running through it. While the weeds are unattractive, their roots do assist with keeping the soil in place and prevents the water eroding it and undermining the talus. We have devised a solution that we will be able to put in place when we acquire some materials.
With the pool builders being with us last week during the wetter weather, we obviously anticipated they would appear again on Monday and get the building complete – there are only a few days’ worth of work left. However, despite the lovely weather, we didn’t see anything of them until Friday so there hasn’t been much change from last week’s images – other than we have had a delivery of wood that the charpentier will use for the roof.
With David’s Dad joining us we took the opportunity to visit somewhere that we have said a number of times we needed to go – the Vallée des Saints in Carnoët, about 45 minutes from us.
The Vallée (actually a site on top of a hill with amazing views of miles of surrounding countryside) is a major project that was set up in 2009 with the ambition to, eventually, have a sculptural representation of 1000 Breton saints. They currently have almost 200 sculptures, each done in the style of the individual sculptor making for interesting contrasts, some being very traditional, others more ‘quirky’!
There is a Saint Kado which we believe to be an alternative spelling of Saint Cadou – although his statue doesn’t look like other depictions of him we have seen so there is a chance it is a totally different Breton saint. There are a lot of them. It’s not assisted by the myriad of different spellings for each one – even within the Vallée’s guide book!
We have had a number of guests stay with us who had visited the site over the years, and all came back saying that it is somewhere worth visiting. It is definitely interesting and ambitious. You can see the next sculptures being created in their work space along with a large fountain to mark their 15th anniversary this year, and the restoration of an old ‘manoir’ which sits at the entrance to the site which will house additional exhibitions and educational material (and hopefully better toilets!)
Now the season has quietened down, we resumed our Sunday strolls today. With David’s Dad having had one knee replaced last year and the other due to be done in the next couple of months, we returned to the Nantes – Brest canal in Chateauneuf de Faou as it’s quiet, beautiful – and flat.
It is well wooded on one side of the canal and in the autumn has amazing colours as the trees change. Unfortunately, we were a couple of weeks too early to see much autumn colour, but the weather did allow us sight of a lovely rainbow (although it’s harder to capture in a photo!)
What you can see above the canal is the Château Trévarez, an impressive, rose-coloured, chateau that we have visited a couple of times in the Christas season when it has an amazing light display. We learned recently that Trévarez made it into the final 14 entrants to a French television programme ‘Le Monument préféré des Français’ where it came 3rd! Another amazing reason to come to Kergudon, and more so at Christmas to see France’s 3rd favourite monument when it is illuminated for the festive season.
Next week we seem to have every season forecast so we will see what we are able to achieve. Progress on the pool house will depend whether we see the builders at all and we are expecting the roofers to start on Hayloft – but then, we have bee expecting that for the last 18 months so who knows ….!!!
Kenavo.