{"id":11113,"date":"2026-08-09T13:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T13:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/?p=11113"},"modified":"2026-08-09T13:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T13:52:10","slug":"sunday-09-august-animal-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/sunday-09-august-animal-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 09 August \u2013 Animal Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of my blog last week<\/a>, I said that my progress will be determined so some degree about whether our guests were pool lovers or beach-goers.\u00a0 They were mostly the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did manage to get some project work done, and prepared on Monday by going to a DIY store and buying material for the wood store I want to build behind the pool house, Pavilion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of the week I have managed to make a start when I hoped it would cause the least inconvenience for our guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am pleased with what I have managed to do so far, and you can get an impression of how it will look.\u00a0 Cladding the rear wall will have a number of benefits not least providing our neighbours something a little more attractive than a grey breeze block wall to look at.\u00a0 We will have quite a large amount of storage but will also box in and insulate the pipework that feeds the pool water to the heat pump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we moved the pump earlier in the year the pipe run is longer and so liable to radiate heat in the winter when we want to keep as much as we can!  By boxing it in and adding some insulation hopefully we will be able to minimise any heat loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been prevented for a number of weeks now doing any major work to clear out the garage as we have some tenants \u2013 swallows.  It is lovely to see them around, and there do seem to be quite a few that make Saint Cadou their summer destination (and why not, there are some lovely g\u00eetes \u2026) and one couple chose our garage to raise 2 broods of chicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have also seemed to become a destination for some of our neighbour\u2019s livestock.  Their young children used to have rabbits in hutches and they have a large chicken run, now however the seem to have allowed their animals to be free range as we frequently have 2 rabbits and 3 chickens enjoying the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It isn\u2019t a problem for us, and I am a little surprised that none of the animals are deterred either by the dogs or Mouse, but I am more surprised that the haven\u2019t fallen prey to any of the other animals around.\u00a0 They at least provide entertainment to our guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This beautiful summer is also continuing with hot and dry days.\u00a0 It is actually moving into beautiful but slightly alarming territory as Finist\u00e8re has joined many other d\u00e9partements at the crisis level of drought warning<\/a> in the week with major associated restrictions on what we can and can\u2019t use water for.\u00a0 Our biggest concern, short of the taps running dry completely, is not being able to top up the pool when required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, it doesn\u2019t need too frequent replenishment and, for us, it is probably more the mountains of laundry that we do each week that uses considerably more water.  The garden is beginning to look very parched but at least I don\u2019t have to mow the lawn twice a week as we would in a \u2018normal\u2019 summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What constitutes a \u2018normal\u2019 summer is definitely changing, and it has become evident that things are warming up<\/a>.\u00a0 According to the official data, of the 5 hottest years experienced since 1900, 4 have occurred since we moved to France in 2015.\u00a0 I promise we\u2019re not responsible!\u00a0 Despite the likely increase in the number and duration of droughts to come, having the pool seems to have been a good decision, and we think it\u2019s hot here, it will be even hotter and less bearable further south.\u00a0 Come to Brittany!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is likely to be less work next week as we enter another extremely hot week and our new guests look like pool users, we just hope they keep the water in the pool!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salut.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of my blog last week, I said that my progress will be determined so some degree about whether our guests were pool lovers or beach-goers.\u00a0 They were mostly the former. I did manage to get some project work done, and prepared on Monday by going to a DIY store and buying material…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_smartvideo_disabled":false,"wds_primary_category":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ben-and-daves-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11114,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11113\/revisions\/11114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}