{"id":8673,"date":"2024-06-30T08:50:29","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T08:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/?p=8673"},"modified":"2024-06-30T08:50:31","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T08:50:31","slug":"sunday-23-june-thank-you-for-the-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/sunday-23-june-thank-you-for-the-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 23 June \u2013 Thank you for the Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of my last blog<\/a>, 2 weeks ago, I said that the weather was going to revert to its more usual 2024 pattern of showers and below average temperatures.\u00a0 So it turned out and the week before also reverted to an earlier pattern of not being the most productive of the year, but we have managed to do some cultural things!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a number of years we have tried to set ourselves the challenge of doing something ‘cultural’ (which can be widely defined!) at least once a month. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, it was easier to achieve this when we were living in London although it is not difficult to be done here – we just don’t always achieve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, we had lots of g\u00eete preparation as we had guests arriving throughout the week and, very pleasingly, our 3 g\u00eetes were all occupied by returning guests, all of them having stayed with us for the first time last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those guests were family of some friends we have in the neighbouring village of St. Rivoal.\u00a0 Our friends are part of the team who arrange an annual piano \/ music festival in St. Rivoal, Claviers dans les Monts<\/a> and their family have come out for the last 2 years to attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, we also went to the closing concert which was jaaazz (nice!) and a jam session in the salle des f\u00eates which had been converted into a mini Ronnie Scott\u2019s.\u00a0 It was very well attended and good fun.\u00a0 We slipped away just before midnight as the jam session was getting going and we\u2019re glad we did as we learned that the session carried on to 4 am!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our friends were very pleased with how the festival had gone and how many people attended and we will certainly attend again if it is held next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the concert last Sunday we did one of our weekly walks and returned to the north coast, this time in the commune of Plouguerneau starting on the Pen Enez peninsular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is another interesting part of Finist\u00e8re with pretty chapels such as Chappelle Saint Michel, and a dramatic stretch of coastline with some amazing white sand beaches such as la Gr\u00e8ve Blanche and impressive lighthouses such as Phare de l’\u00cele Vierge<\/a> (apparently the tallest in Europe).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chapelle Saint Michel Trolouch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Phare de lIle Vierge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Plage La Gr\u00e8ve Blanche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n
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Over the last couple of weeks there has been some progress with the pool \u2013 not 2 weeks of progress but progress none the less(!) but, before they came I continued using some of the huge soil pile we have generated.\u00a0 While I will wait until the digger is back with us to spread soil across the back lawn, I did spend most of a day barrowing some to the front of the orchard and our verges on Hent Gorreker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last year or so, we have had a number of cars park on the verges and, with the wet weather, had created large ruts that, while grassed over, made mowing the verge awkward.\u00a0 With all this soil I was able to fill these and create a small bank beneath the hedge I cut and cleared a couple of weeks ago so I can mow and control weed growth.\u00a0 I hope both will re-grass quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is still lots of soil remaining and, while we originally understood that most of it will be used to backfill the foundations.\u00a0 However, this week, we learned that the builder who is constructing the concrete pad and pool house, doesn\u2019t want to use that soil so our landscaper has had to being in trailer loads of different soil(!) and hardcore.\u00a0 At least it is moving forward, we now need to decide exactly what to do with the remaining soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For project work, Granary has been getting most of our attention.\u00a0 A quick and simple task was bracing the olive trees we have moved to the plinths I constructed in front of the lawn in February 2023<\/a>.\u00a0 They had taken a battering in Storm Ciar\u00e1n last year and had adopted an obvious lean.\u00a0 Being tall and spindly standards, I didn\u2019t think a single stake would do the job, so I have engineered an alternative solution.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see if it works in the next storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another task we completed was to address the issue of Granary\u2019s sticky front door.  In 2020 we had a new front door made but, for the last couple of years, the door had expanded in the wetter months making it difficult to open as it scraped and stuck on the tile floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our plan was to remove the door and shave a little off the bottom, as well as lifting some of the tiles immediately inside the door and replacing them with a door mat which would have the added advantage of giving guests somewhere to wipe their feet as they enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We had wanted to do this job for a couple of years but, being honest, I was apprehensive about it and fearful that it would be a major challenge, especially lifting the tiles as we have no replacements and I worried that others would get damaged.  I shouldn\u2019t have worried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are very pleased with the finished job and don\u2019t think it requires the additional trim we purchased \u2013 we will see if that is required in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We were spoiled for choice with cultural activities.\u00a0 June 21st<\/sup> is the annual F\u00eate de la Musique when many pubs, towns and villages put on concerts and shows.\u00a0 We have, unintentionally, created a tradition of going to the village of Irvillac<\/a> for their concert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irvillac always organise a good event and this year was as good as ever \u2013 the bands probably better.\u00a0 Previously it had been held in a large car park with hot dog \/ frites available for snacking as well as the obligatory cr\u00eapes.\u00a0 This year it had moved to a playing field with straw bale and pallet seating and the food offering was a cochon grill\u00e9 (vegetarians avert your eyes) although, sadly, we didn\u2019t eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We were joined by friends, with their 2-month old baby in appropriate ear defenders, so for the first time we stayed until the fireworks which, for a free concert in a relatively small town, were quite impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sadly, Saturday was also Saint Cadou\u2019s tantad (bonfire) at our own Salle des F\u00eates, having stayed later in Irvillac sadly we weren\u2019t able to get to this event as well which is always fun.\u00a0 A couple of our guests did however and enjoyed themselves.\u00a0 These pictures are of last year’s tantad we did attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We didn\u2019t do a Sunday stroll today as Garratt has (again) managed to hurt himself and has walked with a limp for the last couple of days.\u00a0 However, today was the annual triathlon<\/a> in and around Lac du Drennec so we visited our friends Merc and Ludo at Au Lac and enjoyed lunch watching others exert themselves as they ran around the lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lots of plans for the coming week \u2013 hopefully lots will be achieved too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

At the end of my last blog, 2 weeks ago, I said that the weather was going to revert to its more usual 2024 pattern of showers and below average temperatures.\u00a0 So it turned out and the week before also reverted to an earlier pattern of not being the most productive of the year, but…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8673","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\/8673","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=8673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8674,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673\/revisions\/8674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}