{"id":799,"date":"2016-03-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kergudon.com\/https-www-kergudon-com-sunday-6-march-wet-wet-wet\/"},"modified":"2024-03-06T17:01:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T17:01:48","slug":"sunday-6-march-wet-wet-wet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/sunday-6-march-wet-wet-wet\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 6 March – Wet, Wet, Wet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday 6 March – Wet, Wet, Wet<\/h1>\n\n\n

Firstly, I have had some complaints from my loyal reader that I didn\u2019t publish a blog last week.\u00a0 Please accept my apologies.\u00a0 There are a couple of reasons for this.\u00a0 Principally, we came home a little late from birthday drinks with some new friends in Commana, but also, because the weather over the last fortnight has been very \u2018Breton\u2019 (aka wet)\u00a0 it prevented us doing as many interesting tasks outside as we wanted and administration doesn\u2019t make for an interesting blog or photos!!\u00a0 At least it allows me to cover a couple of weeks today.<\/p>\n

At present we have lots of projects on the go, some of which I have mentioned in my previous blogs, as we try and develop the gardens, clean up some of the work that we have undertaken, address some of the issues we have found and prepare 2 g\u00eetes for the arrival of our first weekly guests of the season next Saturday.<\/p>\n

In my last blog<\/a> I said we were widening the rear access to the property to install some gates and that much of the digging was a challenge due to the amount of rock and root in the soil.\u00a0 More than once I thought how much easier it would be if we had a digger.\u00a0 And then on Monday, one turned up!<\/p>\n

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Last year our neighbour behind us, Olivier, had spoken to the Marie to see if they would install a pipe along part of the lane to assist with drainage as water pooled in a position that led to flooding in his barn.\u00a0 While the Marie had agreed, which meant digging through our rear drive, they weren\u2019t able to commit to a date.\u00a0 They turned up 2 weeks ago and did in a few hours what took me days!\u00a0 We did benefit however, as I hadn\u2019t completed the new drive to allow access from right and left (previously it was just from the left) and, for the price of a couple of cups of coffee for the guys the drive was widened on both sides.\u00a0 Gate not yet fitted \u2013 that remains an ongoing project.<\/p>\n

I also mentioned in a previous week<\/a> that the recent high winds had exposed a number of problems with the roofs.\u00a0 Our own house has lost a number of slates but, thankfully, we don\u2019t have any leaks.\u00a0 However, the cement flashing on both ends of the Priory\u2019s roof had broken in places and, without any additional protection underneath, we had water coming into the building in a number of places.<\/p>\n

Last week we had a local roofer, Monsieur H\u00e9lard, come to start the work and we have been really impressed.\u00a0 The weather has been anything but ideal for working on roofs as it has been windy and, had I mentioned, wet, but he has made a really great job of the repairs so far.\u00a0 Assuming it is dry tomorrow he should be able to finish leaving only a repaint job in a couple of Priory\u2019s bedrooms to complete.<\/p>\n

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Repainting was needed in Hayloft as well after a busy season last year.\u00a0 Having refurbished the accommodation to what we believe is a very high standard, we are conscious that we need to maintain them at that level which will need lots of attention and effort, especially as we have 4 couples who stayed with us in our first season booked to come back this year which we\u2019re delighted about.<\/p>\n

The biggest single project of the last 2 weeks has been improving the front access to Hayloft and better defining the small terrace in front.\u00a0 The space is a real sun trap in the morning making it an ideal spot to enjoy breakfast but was very open to the main driveway and the old wall had collapsed in places and petered out more than ended in the soil that was a tangle of ivy and bramble rather than an attractive flower bed.<\/p>\n

\"DSC03354\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Using some of the slate that I had unearthed in my digging around the plot, as well as a lot that Olivier had been kind enough to give us, I have extended the wall to follow the curve of the drive and created a large flower bed in front of the g\u00eete.\u00a0 Initially that was the only intention but, as these jobs often do, it grew in scope.\u00a0 Having finished the wall and been really pleased with the result we thought it would be good to build a small wall to form a boundary between the terrace and the lawn.<\/p>\n

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In all of the digging I have done around the garden we have found no interesting artefacts.\u00a0 While we hadn\u2019t envisaged buried treasure (although that would have been nice) for a building dating from 1640 we had thought we may find something of interest, even digging our pond in SW London I found an intact earthenware vessel and broken Victorian marmalade jar!\u00a0 Sadly, the most interesting things I have found here to date are a couple of rusty horseshoes and 2 sickle blades.<\/p>\n

Having dug the trench to start this wall I uncovered 2 large concrete slabs which started under the gravel and continued under the lawn.\u00a0 While it would have been interesting to investigate how large these were, and whether they covered anything, they were too large to expose completely so we just used them as a foundation to the new wall and buried them again.\u00a0 To be further explored in the future possibly if we ever make BIG changes!<\/p>\n

\"DSC03373\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t quite finished this project either \u2013 but have a firm deadline of next Saturday when our guests arrive \u2013 so haven\u2019t got the final \u2018after\u2019 picture but hope these give an impression.<\/p>\n

This coming week will absolutely depend on the weather, as it so often does.\u00a0 The forecast is for it to be much warmer but not too many totally dry days are expected \u2013 although meteofrance is almost as inaccurate as the Met Office used to be so anything could happen!!<\/p>\n

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

Sunday 6 March – Wet, Wet, Wet Firstly, I have had some complaints from my loyal reader that I didn\u2019t publish a blog last week.\u00a0 Please accept my apologies.\u00a0 There are a couple of reasons for this.\u00a0 Principally, we came home a little late from birthday drinks with some new friends in Commana, but also,…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","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\/799","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8290,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/8290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}